Egypt's people power - the year-long struggle

by Lin Abdul Rahman
Photo courtesy of MSNBC
The Sputnik, Winter 2012, Issue 11

Millions of Egyptians gathered at Tahrir Square to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the January 25 uprising and to demand the resignation of Hussein Al-Tantawi from his post as Chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

On January 25, 2011, the air in Medan Tahrir was ebullient and heavy with hope. Millions of Egyptians congregated there – and in many other public spaces across Egypt – with one deceptively simple goal: to demand Hosni Mubarak’s resignation through country-wide peaceful resistance. And they succeeded.

After days of enduring rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, live rounds and attacks by Mubarak’s machete-wielding thugs on horseback and camels, the Egyptian people finally loosened Mubarak’s 30-year death grip on the country. As a victorious roar swept across the square, people all over Egypt and all over the world joined in the triumphant celebration as though the heavy weight of dictatorship had been lifted off the world’s collective shoulders.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) was put in charge as an interim government – it had gained popular support by refusing to obey Mubarak’s orders to brutally clamp down on protesters – and was set to hand over power following Egypt’s democratic election later that year.

There was a minor disagreement between the Muslim brotherhood and political parties that were less than organized to face an election in such short notice. Despite that, an election was carried out and Egyptians hit the polls. The country’s future was as yet unclear but it was full of promises and optimism nonetheless.

Now, one year later, Tahrir Square is again occupied by protesters. This time, they are demanding the resignation of Husssein Tantawi, the head of the military council. Staffed with many of Mubarak’s former thugs, SCAF has in effectively revived Mubarak’s strong-arm tactics of forcing civil compliance.

Egyptian protesters are once again fending off rubber bullets, tear gas canisters and thugs in uniform. Protesters are still being beaten and harassed, bloggers are still being aggressively silenced with intimidation and arbitrary detention. One journalist remarked that the media is now operating under much harsher conditions than when Mubarak was in power. Most recently, Al Jazeera’s bureau in Cairo was shut down by SCAF after being accused of operating and reporting on live events without a license.

Egyptians now have legitimate fears that the military council will interfere with the country’s new constitution, thereby boosting its power and effectively turning Egypt back into an autocratic regime under the guise of democracy.

Egypt’s current predicament is a far-cry from the optimistic forecasts made by the political intelligentsia a year ago. Tahrir Square – now the 21^st century’s proverbial symbol of people power – is once again the site of resistance and continued struggle. Whatever happened to the potential and promises that came with Egypt’s return to democracy? If this sterling example of good’s triumph over evil is unable to fulfill its democratic ideals, is there hope for other democratic aspirants like Syria and Libya?

As bleak as the situation is in Egypt, the answer to that question is a resounding “yes.” The country is labouring to shape for itself a genuinely democratic state in which its members can live a fully dignified life – something that was unattainable during Mubarak’s rule. This development alone is a sign of hope and of progress.

Although there may be seemingly insurmountable roadblocks in Egypt’s road towards becoming a democratic state, they are no excuse to throw in the towel and surrender. After all, struggles and resistance are the hallmark of revolutions. From the 1989 Velvet Revolution which tore down the Berlin Wall to the currently on-going Occupy movement, history has shown that our rights as citizens in a democratic state is gained and expanded through battles fought and won.

The reality is that no government has ever willingly conceded power; and when people are prevented by formal authority from living a dignified life, resistance is the only way. As Mahatma Ghandi presciently put it, “The choice is no longer between violence and non-violence. It is either non-violence or non-existence.” So in order to peacefully exist, resist we must.

The forgotten struggle in Palestine

by Lin Abdul Rahman
The Sputnik, Winter 2011, Issue 7

On March 12, Israeli media reported that five Israeli settlers were murdered in the West Bank city of Nablus. Israeli authority immediately arrested 20 Palestinians and, as if in revenge, the Israeli cabinet approved the building of hundreds of new settler homes in the occupied West Bank the following day.

The expansion of Israeli settlements into occupied territories clearly defies International law and the Geneva Convention of 1949. However, this flagrant violation is lost in the hubris currently sweeping across the Middle East.

Jewish scholar and Palestinian solidarity activist Norman Finkelstein noted the lack of substantial reaction from Palestinians in light of the recent political upheaval in the Arab world.

Speaking in London, Ontario as part of his Northern Ontario lecture tour, Finkelstein admitted that there was little jubilation in Gaza when Egypt’s Mubarak regime was overthrown on February 11, 2011. This is despite the fact that the Mubarak regime has been complicit in facilitating Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

Speaking at Laurier Brantford’s Israeli Apartheid Week event, Alan Sears, Ryerson University’s Professor of Sociology and founder of Faculty for Palestine, said that the political upheaval of the Arab world makes Palestine’s struggle for freedom a timely topic for discussion.

This is because Middle Eastern governments such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have largely ignored and thus facilitated Israel’s arbitrary clamp down on Palestine. Palestinians suffering under oppression are in turn left to choose between living as second-class citizens in neighbouring countries or living as non-entities in their homeland.

As pro-democracy protesters advance in Libya, Yemen and Morocco, Israel’s list of allies in the region grows short. Israel might soon have to reconsider the dynamics of its relationship to Palestine and its neighbouring countries.

Al Jazeera English’s Ali Abunimah writes, “... if Arab countries which host large Palestinian refugee populations undergo democratic transformations, new possibilities for Palestinian politics will open up.”

Potentially fuelling the combustible situation is Wikileaks’ release of the Palestine Papers – a record of negotiations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli. The leaked documents revealed the PA to be a mere puppet – a front to give the impression that Israel is seriously engaging in peace talks and working towards a two-state settlement.

Borne of the agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel under the Oslo Accords in 1994, the PA was a temporary legislative body with limited authority over urban populated areas in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestine Papers, however, proved that the PA has been acquiescing to Israeli demands, relinquishing substantial Palestinian territories to Israel. The PA’s former leader, Saeb Erekat was recorded to go so far as to offer Israel “the biggest Yerushalaim (Jerusalem) in Jewish history.”

According to Abunimah, the PA should dissolve itself and return its powers to Israel, who will then be compelled by the Geneva Convention of 1949 to treat Palestinians with justice.

At the moment, the PA is merely acting as a buffer between Palestine and its oppressors. Now that the PA has been revealed to be Israel’s lackey, the logical next step would be for Palestinians to demand for the dissolution of the PA.

“It would be a recognition of reality and an act of resistance on the part of Palestinians who would collectively refuse to continue to assist the occupier in occupying them,” Abunimah wrote.

Israel has been fidgeting nervously behind the curtains as Egypt’s pro-democracy demonstrators began gaining momentum. When it was evident that Hosni Mubarak was on an irreversible downward trajectory, Israel’s media began inflaming the Jewish citizenry’s existing fear of getting an Islamic state for a neighbour.

What Israel really fears is the possibility of a new Egyptian government that isn’t willing to ignore the oppression going on next door to them.

In fact, within days of Mubarak’s resignation on February 11, the Rafah boarder was opened, allowing Palestinians to return home after living in exile just a stone’s throw away from their homeland. According to Ken O’Keefe, a Gulf War veteran and activist who calls himself a “world citizen,” Israel’s blockade on Gaza is showing positive signs of collapse with the election of Egypt’s new Foreign Minister, Nabil Elaraby.

As the former judge of the International Court of Justice that ruled against Israel’s separation wall in 2005, Elaraby has recently reaffirmed his stand that Israel’s blockade on Gaza is a clear violation of international law.

Early this month, O’Keefe carried the first sack of cement into Gaza. He is now finalizing plans to send another 30 tons of it to help Gazans rebuild their homes, schools, hospitals and factories. Could this be a signal that the tide is turning in the Israel-Palestine conflict? For the sake of the four million Palestinians living under Israel’s military control, let us hope so.