Egypt’s Testing Times

Written by : Bakir Oweida

on : Friday, 26 Jul, 2013

Last Sunday, I received an email signed, “Kylil Morrow, 18 years old from Michigan University,” containing the following question: Do you expect the Syrian scenario to be repeated in Egypt—not between the army and the people, but between the Muslim Brotherhood and secularists? I answered thus: I do not think there is a danger of street wars in Egypt’s main cities, like we see in Syria, but jihadists will not make it easy for the army outside Cairo or other cities. As for reaching some compromise between the Muslim Brotherhood and the rest, secularists or others, this may never be achieved.

Had I received the email today, my answer would have been different. The reason is clear: Egypt is moving quickly towards the eruption of a civil war where the minority fans the flames without a care for the future of the majority, who only want to lead a normal life.

Yes, despite the disparity in numbers, and ignoring the exchange of accusations about the use of Photoshop to make the numbers seem greater, the crowds in Tahrir Square and in Raba’a Al-Adawiya remain a minority in comparison to the total population of Egypt.

Those on either side might say their numbers are many times what they really are. On the flip side, I think that once the army had resolved the issue, in what was seen as bias to the side of the majority—and after the ouster of Mursi received varying degrees of acceptance, agreement or silence from the international community—this debate lost its relevance. It is no longer needed and no longer valid. To insist on it from either the anti-Mursi/Brotherhood side or the ousted president’s side can only lead to a pointless argument, which will only delay Egypt’s return to normal life.

What is more dangerous is that the continuing disruption of stability is paralleled by a dangerous escalation that places Egypt on the edge of a civil war, which could spread from Sinai in the east to Mersa Matruh in the west, not to mention Upper Egypt and the countryside. Putting out the fires before they spread is a test each side faces, whatever its role or influence. However, I will take a risk—I expect an angry backlash—and say that the greater burden falls on the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Why? Because they are more powerful, yet they are weaker at the same time. The power of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau lies in what is known as Bay’ah (an Islamic term for offering allegiance to a leader) because anyone who swears allegiance to a leader binds themselves to obey that leader unquestioningly. This is an important source of power.

The weakness is represented by the fact that nearly two-thirds of the Egyptian people are exempt from that obligation.

The swift success of the Tamarod (Rebellion) campaign in collecting millions of signatures is an indication of the Brotherhood’s failure, which came faster than expected, to garner support from outside the confines of the organization. This meant that the support for the Tamarod movement was a protest against the Brotherhood’s ideology and rule.

The important question now is: Will the Brotherhood’s leaders accept this outcome? At the time of writing this article, there were no indications that the Brotherhood’s leadership had accepted the reality of post-June 30 Egypt. Thus, they ignored the source of their power, which would enable them to pass the test of saving Egypt, a success for which they would be credited. Had they accepted, the Guidance Bureau could have issued orders for the Brotherhood to withdraw from every street and every square. This would be a binding order.

This should also pave the way for improvements by eliminating the worst option and accepting the least harmful one, which in this case means for the Brotherhood to accept that they had failed in their attempt to govern and to accept a return to the opposition.

What was said above does not mean that the responsibility of the other parties is less important, even if the burden seems smaller, because they are in the stronger position. Like in other movements, Tamarod leaders are required to review their positions to prove the seriousness of their intentions to respect other parties and views.

The Brotherhood’s adherents need to be assured that they will not be eliminated from the political arena or hounded in everyday life should be understood. Then there is a task that no reconciliation effort can be imagined without—that is, the release of Mohamed Mursi, especially with the approach of the last ten days of Ramadan, important days for observant Muslims. Let the man go home to his family—what is the problem in that?

However, in light of General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s speech on Wednesday, it is hard to imagine that the release of Mursi is possible. It is more probable that the situation is going to escalate, with an ending which is difficult to imagine.

Egypt welcomes its visitors and allows them to enter safely. Should its people not be allowed to do what they can to put Egypt first, so that all of them can be safe on every inch of its soil?
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/07/article55311148

 

Gruesome Civil Wars… But, Who Cares?

By: Bakir Oweida

Sunday 14 July 2013
In the small hours of the day, I woke up with the painful anger I felt yesterday evening as I watched a report on Aljazeera international about the hard suffering of Syrian women and children who are living, if we can use the word “LIVING”, In a refugees camp on the border between Syria and Turkey.

It is an affront to humanity. Thousands of women and children were queuing under burning sun, trying to grab some food and water, to prepare for the breaking of their fast, as the majority of them were observing the month of Ramadan.

I couldn’t carry on watching. I imagined the same suffering at the Syrian – Jordanian border, and wherever there are Syrian refugees, or, indeed, anywhere on earth where that sort of suffering is at work against innocent people, regardless of race, nationality, or religion. I mean those who are driven out of their houses, villages, cities, and countries, by others who dare to go on lying and claim that they are fighting, bombing, and slaughtering human lives for the sake of liberating the country, any country, from despots, or to defend the same country from extreme religious terrorists.

In civil wars launched and fought in the name of people, the people themselves always pay the heaviest and hardest price, while both fighting sides, with blooded hands, carry on their pursuit of power.

It is also very sad and shameful that the civilized world is doing almost nothing serious to stop all civil wars around the globe.

Meanwhile, one can only wonder when reading some news papers, or online columns, how far can some commentators go to defend one side against another in bloody, savage, and gruesome civil wars, or to find reasons for advocating violence.
I just can’t understand how any person with an iota of humane conscious, can go to bed, sleep comfortably, with the rest of his family safe and happy, knowing that he, she, they, have, hours before, contributed to murdering innocent people, displace them, or driving tens of thousands of women and children to refugee camps, anywhere in our twenty first century world. Yet, there are a lot of that sort around.

 

Obama and Kerry need luck on their side

It is nothing new for a fresh round of Palestinian–Israeli talks to be met with opposition from sides questioning its value. Both sides (those who are with and against the talks) give reasons based on their principles, political calculations or personal opinions.

Debate raged before this week’s meeting in Washington despite the fact that its main objective was to allow the Palestinians and the Israelis to discuss the detailed negotiations that will be held later.

Nevertheless, it can be said that the meeting represented an opportunity for president Barack Obama and his secretary of state John Kerry to show their determination to go ahead with the necessary procedures in order for the forthcoming negotiations to succeed the administrations of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush failed.

This time, both objective and subjective circumstances provide Obama and Kerry with an opportunity.

As for Obama, who is not pursuing presidential elections, he is looking forward to more than the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, he yearns to make history by doing the impossible. Kerry, on the other hand, will benefit if he decides to join the presidential race one more time. Establishing such a historical peace will add to his campaign record, particularly if he gains the broadest support possible from the pro-Israel lobby in the US.

It has been reported that the meeting in Washington concluded with the two sides agreeing to reach a permanent settlement within nine months.

This is a good thing. However, it would be better for us to anticipate potential obstacles. For example, I would not be surprised if Martin Indyk, the US envoy, was accused of bias. Such accusation is expected to come from the Palestinians. However, the Israelis may in turn hold Indyk responsible for hindering negotiations. In the past, such things happened with Dennis Ross, George Mitchell and Martin Indyk himself.

I am not denying anyone the right to question, nor am I in a position to defend Indyk or others. I have no personal relationship with any of them. However, like many others, I hope serious negotiations will take place without being suspended, particularly by the ones in charge of it, for reasons similar to the previous ones that have become boring over the time. Otherwise, negotiations would prove again fruitless, as skeptics reiterate. This will give credibility to the arguments of those who oppose any settlement that does not match their preconceptions.

In the same context, is it not possible that the actions of radical settlers may serve as a justification for the Palestinians to throw their hands up in despair, or vice versa?

Well, if that happens, we will enter into an endless whirlpool again. The word “whirlpool” leads me to believe that a simple antidote for the Palestinian–Israeli malady has been available for a long time.

Many would accuse me of naivety. In fact, I do not blame them. I will simply answer, “Let them say what they want to say.”

Logically, had the most senior figures in charge tried to solve an issue, even if all sides insisted on depicting it as impossible, they would have to. If it is necessary to ask since when a solution was possible, the answer will simply be: “Before the British Mandate of Palestine ended.” It was the moral duty of London not to leave Palestine before laying the foundations for peace, but this did not happen. After Palestine was divided in 1947, the Suez crisis happened in 1956 and followed by the 1967 Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur war in 1973, the Camp David accord in 1979, and so on. Many wars ended, only to leave burning embers for more devastating ones.

Why did this happen? Because none of the “seniors” wanted a solution. So far, this is the only serious answer available. To those wondering who these seniors are, I say they are none but the key decision makers around the world, senior Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and those who feared defending the Palestinian question would compromise their leadership.

Many are the ones who tampered with the Palestinian question and transformed it into a domain for settling scores and achieving gains to serve the agenda of a certain party, organization or leader.

Going back to the main point of this article, are we facing a new and serious case of negotiations? Maybe, but this won’t happen without pressure, as the famous saying goes: “You can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.”

Nevertheless, both Obama and Kerry can perform the role of the facilitator, even if they have to put pressure on both sides. Ironically, one is confused whether the Palestinian side has anything left to compromise. Good luck to President Obama and Secretary Kerry!

http://www.aawsat.net/2013/08/article55312037

 

“Pessoptimism” on Palestine

Happy Eid? I have to admit that I have borrowed the word “pessoptimism” from the title of the tragicomic novel The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist (1974) by the late Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi. Were the author alive, he would immediately ask me to be optimistic. I can imagine him asking me with a smile on his sad face: “Come on! We have to be optimists.”

Am I in fact justified in being torn between pessimism and optimism on the day of Eid? Or am I the only one torn between these two feelings, while other people are extremely happy? It is nothing new, at least for me.

My mother used to complain that ever since she was a child, she has never had a happy Eid. But she used to also say: “C’est la vie. May God help those in worse condition.” When I inquired about who she meant, she would reply: “Thank God, son. We are in a better condition than many other people.” By “we” my mother, who was a refugee in the Gaza Strip, refers to all Palestinian refugees. As for “ever since I was a child,” my mother means her life when she was young in Acre in the Palestinian Mandate, before her family members were scattered across Sidon and Tripoli in Lebanon, as well as Damascus and Aleppo in Syria following the declaration of the “State of Israel.”

Were she alive, would my mother today be surprised that Arabs inside and outside their countries are in a much worse condition than that of the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza Strip and the West Bank?

The bitter reality of this Eid lies in the fact that tens of thousands of mothers across the Arab world are much sadder than my mother’s generation were, though for different reasons. Yet the difference in reasons is what makes reality more painful. While the Palestinians were dislocated by foreign invaders, Arabs now are being expelled from their countries at the hands of their compatriots. I wonder how painful it feels.

It is true that change always has an exorbitant price, but the Arab blood that has been shed at the hands of fellow Arabs over the past 50 years—not only in the last couple of years—has caused unbearable grief. Is the blood spilled so far in Arab civil wars a part of the price being paid for a change for the better?

In 2008, I was invited to talk at the Arab Cultural Forum in London on the 60th anniversary of the 1948 Palestinian exodus. On that day, I started my speech by saying that I am one year older than Israel. I concluded by saying that my granddaughter has just turned 10 and wished that in 2048, when she turns 40 and Israel 100, the Palestinians would be in a better condition.

I remember that a young man in his mid-twenties rebuked me for being frustrated and said that he and his generation have not got tired or hopeless yet, and that this is just the beginning of the road and the revolution will continue.

When I asked him where he was from he said, “Gaza.” I explained to him that I did not mean to impose my view on him, nor did I ask him to despair. In fact, all I wanted was for my granddaughter’s generation to be in a better condition than mine. I told him that when we were his age, my friends and I shared the same view and that those who offered any compromises regarding the Palestinian issue used to be stoned by schoolboys, if not worse.

In that speech, I touched upon the main junctures of the Palestinian tragedy. I did not conceal my wish for the Palestinians to have participated in the peace process since Oslo accord by trying to establish a state to be recognized by the entire international community. Despite the contrary attempts by senior Israeli officials such as Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, who turned 90 a few days ago, the Palestinians would have made Palestine move forward with the least possible means. Such a step would have strengthened Palestine, particularly in the fields of education and technology, as well as stepped up its active presence across the globe. In fact, a nation that boosts the intellectual capabilities of its citizens will not be defeated no matter what the usurpers do. Unfortunately, such line of thought is hardly praised.

Almost 20 years after signing the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, in the White House’s garden, I wonder what the situation of the Palestinian issue is. Has it changed for the better, the worse or has nothing happened?

Is it fair to hold the Palestinian leaders, despite the variety of figures and different political programs among them, solely responsible?

Logically speaking, the primary responsibility falls on the Israelis, simply because they are the strongest link. Had Israeli politicians been serious in their efforts to reach peace with the majority of the Palestinians who accepted coexistence, they would have offered more compromises.

Part of the responsibility rests with the US, and to some extent the Europeans, for their negligence. Both were unfair and often unjustly blamed the Palestinians, the weaker side.

This is not to deny that the Palestinians share part of the responsibility in terms of what I have mentioned above. In fact, the Palestinians have missed some significant opportunities, the most important of which was during the last days of President Bill Clinton’s term, when he visited Gaza. I can recall the Moroccan politician Dr. Abdulhadi Butalib saying that according to trusted sources the US president intended to accompany Yasser Arafat to the United Nations General Assembly to introduce him as the president of the independent state of Palestine, a full member state in the UN. Is it too much to recall such an incident?

http://www.aawsat.net/2013/08/article55312939

 

Opinion: “Pessoptimism” on Palestine

Happy Eid? I have to admit that I have borrowed the word “pessoptimism” from the title of the tragicomic novel The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist (1974) by the late Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi. Were the author alive, he would immediately ask me to be optimistic. I can imagine him asking me with a smile on his sad face: “Come on! We have to be optimists.”

Am I in fact justified in being torn between pessimism and optimism on the day of Eid? Or am I the only one torn between these two feelings, while other people are extremely happy? It is nothing new, at least for me.

My mother used to complain that ever since she was a child, she has never had a happy Eid. But she used to also say: “C’est la vie. May God help those in worse condition.” When I inquired about who she meant, she would reply: “Thank God, son. We are in a better condition than many other people.” By “we” my mother, who was a refugee in the Gaza Strip, refers to all Palestinian refugees. As for “ever since I was a child,” my mother means her life when she was young in Acre in the Palestinian Mandate, before her family members were scattered across Sidon and Tripoli in Lebanon, as well as Damascus and Aleppo in Syria following the declaration of the “State of Israel.”

Were she alive, would my mother today be surprised that Arabs inside and outside their countries are in a much worse condition than that of the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza Strip and the West Bank?

The bitter reality of this Eid lies in the fact that tens of thousands of mothers across the Arab world are much sadder than my mother’s generation were, though for different reasons. Yet the difference in reasons is what makes reality more painful. While the Palestinians were dislocated by foreign invaders, Arabs now are being expelled from their countries at the hands of their compatriots. I wonder how painful it feels.

It is true that change always has an exorbitant price, but the Arab blood that has been shed at the hands of fellow Arabs over the past 50 years—not only in the last couple of years—has caused unbearable grief. Is the blood spilled so far in Arab civil wars a part of the price being paid for a change for the better?

In 2008, I was invited to talk at the Arab Cultural Forum in London on the 60th anniversary of the 1948 Palestinian exodus. On that day, I started my speech by saying that I am one year older than Israel. I concluded by saying that my granddaughter has just turned 10 and wished that in 2048, when she turns 40 and Israel 100, the Palestinians would be in a better condition.

I remember that a young man in his mid-twenties rebuked me for being frustrated and said that he and his generation have not got tired or hopeless yet, and that this is just the beginning of the road and the revolution will continue.

When I asked him where he was from he said, “Gaza.” I explained to him that I did not mean to impose my view on him, nor did I ask him to despair. In fact, all I wanted was for my granddaughter’s generation to be in a better condition than mine. I told him that when we were his age, my friends and I shared the same view and that those who offered any compromises regarding the Palestinian issue used to be stoned by schoolboys, if not worse.

In that speech, I touched upon the main junctures of the Palestinian tragedy. I did not conceal my wish for the Palestinians to have participated in the peace process since Oslo accord by trying to establish a state to be recognized by the entire international community. Despite the contrary attempts by senior Israeli officials such as Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, who turned 90 a few days ago, the Palestinians would have made Palestine move forward with the least possible means. Such a step would have strengthened Palestine, particularly in the fields of education and technology, as well as stepped up its active presence across the globe. In fact, a nation that boosts the intellectual capabilities of its citizens will not be defeated no matter what the usurpers do. Unfortunately, such line of thought is hardly praised.

Almost 20 years after signing the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, in the White House’s garden, I wonder what the situation of the Palestinian issue is. Has it changed for the better, the worse or has nothing happened?

Is it fair to hold the Palestinian leaders, despite the variety of figures and different political programs among them, solely responsible?

Logically speaking, the primary responsibility falls on the Israelis, simply because they are the strongest link. Had Israeli politicians been serious in their efforts to reach peace with the majority of the Palestinians who accepted coexistence, they would have offered more compromises.

Part of the responsibility rests with the US, and to some extent the Europeans, for their negligence. Both were unfair and often unjustly blamed the Palestinians, the weaker side.

This is not to deny that the Palestinians share part of the responsibility in terms of what I have mentioned above. In fact, the Palestinians have missed some significant opportunities, the most important of which was during the last days of President Bill Clinton’s term, when he visited Gaza. I can recall the Moroccan politician Dr. Abdulhadi Butalib saying that according to trusted sources the US president intended to accompany Yasser Arafat to the United Nations General Assembly to introduce him as the president of the independent state of Palestine, a full member state in the UN. Is it too much to recall such an incident?