the Ministry of Tourism, a special celebration at the pyramid, marking the culmination of a new king of the Netherlands to succeed his mother, Queen «Beatrice» after 120 years of rule by queens, and the courtyard of sound and light, where lit three pyramids and Sphinx orange, the color of the royal family in the Netherlands.
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4/29/2013
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يا معشر الأعراب هيا عودوا إلى خيامكم
من هم الأعراب!?
قوله تعالى {الأَعْرَابُ أَشَدُّ كُفْرًا وَنِفَاقًا وَأَجْدَرُ أَلاَّ يَعْلَمُوا حُدُودَ مَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ عَلَى رَسُولِهِ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ }
(السعودية- الإمارات - الكويت - قطر - البحرين )
بمعنى اصح دول الخليج فقط.
على صحراء قاحلة شحيحة كانوا يسكنون ..كانوا قوماً حفاة عراة يئدون بناتهم و يقتلون صغارهم عند وقوع مجاعة ما وكان الرجل منهم يرث حتى زوجات أبيه ، وكان إذا سافر يُقيّد زوجاته إلى شجرة حتى يرجع من سفره
كانوا مفكّكين مبعثرين يُغيرون على بعضهم البعض ..كانوا لا يُؤتمنون على أماناتهم ولا على أعراضهم ..كان القويّ منهم ينهش الضعيف ..يعلنون الحرب لأجل ناقة ويُورّثون هذه الحرب للأجيال المتلاحقة ..
كانوا يُمثّلون بجثث أعدائهم ويُعلّقون الرؤوس على مداخل مدنهم ..كانوا يلبسون ما رثّ وما بليّ ..كانوا يجلسون على التراب ويتّخذونه نمارق ويتبرّزون عليه وينظّفون به عوراتهم ..
كانوا لا يعرفون لا قراءة ولا كتابة يتناقلون ما يقرضون من الشّعر شفوياً ..كانوا يُصَعلِكون شعرائهم ويُحلّون دمائهم ويحرّمون الحب ويقرنون بينه وبين الإثم والخطيئة .
كان الرجل منهم يجمع كبار قومه أدباً ونسباً ليطؤو زوجته حتى تلد له ولد يكون وارثاً لكل صفات الجمال والكمال التي يحملها أولئك الرجال ..
كانوا قطّاعا للطرق سلاّبين نهّابين ..يعتبرون العمل مهانة واستصغارا لذلك يوكلون الأعمال من فلاحة وحدادة وحياكة للعبيد والجواري ..
جاءهم محمد إبن عبد الله ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) علمهم حتى نتف الإبط من شدة جهلهم وتخلفهم ..
أتستغربون بعد هذا أن يختن الرجل ابنته ويجلب صديقه حتى ترضعه زوجته بعدما يفاخذ صغيرته ؟
لم يُنجبوا ابطالاً فقد كان إبن خلدون من تونس وكان إبن الجزار من القيروان وكان الفارابي من بلاد ما وراء النهرين وكان الرازي وإبن المقفع من بلاد فارس وكان سيبويه من البصرة وكان إبن سيناء من بخارى وكان الغزالي من نيسابور وكان النووي من سورية …
ربما كان بينهم أدباء وشعراء فطاحلة لكنهم اُتّهموا من قبل هؤلاء الأعراب بالزندقة وبالإلحاد وبالشذوذ .. فحتى إذا أنجبت أرضهم القاحلة اِسثناء كفّروه أو قتلوه ..
كان هذا دأبهم ؛ لو حدّثتهم عن النساء لقالوا لك : جواري وختان واِرضاع الكبير ومفاخذة الصغير وبكر وعذرية ومثنى وثلاث ورباع ومتبرجة تبرج الجاهلية وعورة وما ملكت أيمانهم وهل يجوز النكاح قبل البلوغ …
ثم يقولون هذا رجس من عمل الشيطان ولا يجتنبونة ..أسَرُهم مفكّكة تملؤها الصراعات والمظالم…
الجنس في كلامهم وفي وعيهم وفي لا وعيهم في مدارسهم وفي ملابسهم وفي هواتفم وفي حواسبهم ..يزنون مع عشيقاتهم ثم يرجمنهن بالحجارة ..
ولا يكتفون بهذا بل يمزجون الجنس بلحاهم وبأفكارهم ويحاولون تصدير كبتهم عبر فتاوى شيوخهم المهوسون به ..
عندما كانوا ينسجون أساطيرهم بوادي الجن وضع أجدادنا العظماء أول دستور في البشرية ..كان أجدادي يسكنون القصور ويشربون الخمور في أواني الفضة والذهب كانوا يشيّدون المعابد والمسارح ويلتقون فيها للتٌسامر وتبادل المعارف وإقامة الألعاب و المسابقات والمناظرات الفكرية ..كانوا يبنون المكاتب قبل المطابخ ..كانت روما أعتى الإمبراطوريات تَرهَبُهم وتغار من تقدّم القرطاجين و الفينيقيين و من اِنفتاحهم ..
لو كتبت بحراً من الكلمات لم وصفت حضارة أجدادي ..
يا معشر الأعراب هيا عودوا إلى خيامكم وإبلكم واِنكحوة ما لذّ وطاب من جواركم وغلمانكم واِبتعدو عن أرضنا وشمسنا وبحرنا فأوطاننا أطهر من أن يدنّسها أمثالكم.
Egyptian Parliament Deals Blow to IMF Loan
Egyptian Parliament Deals Blow to IMF Loan
Egypt's parliament halted its reading of a
new income tax law on Monday, saying the government had not shown who
would be affected by the measure that is needed to secure a badly needed
$4.8 billion IMF loan.
Lawmakers criticized the government's competence in drafting the
legislation, adding to uncertainties about the IMF deal just days after a
deputy finance minister who was a key negotiator with the International
Monetary Fund resigned.
Speaker of the upper house of parliament Ahmed Fahmy appeared visibly
frustrated as he announced that the chamber would halt what had been
scheduled as its final reading of the law because it did not have the
necessary government data.
“What finance ministry or tax authority does not know how to calculate
the income bracket or who benefits and who is harmed? This is not worthy
of the council,” Fahmy said, as members clapped their support.
Fahmy said that debate was suspended "until the government provides
correct data, otherwise this government can go wherever it wants to go."
In addition to cutting fuel subsidies and raising sales taxes, Egypt has
said it will rein in its soaring budget deficit with measures including
tax changes targeting the wealthy.
Two weeks of talks in Cairo between Egyptian officials and an IMF team earlier this month failed to produce an agreement.
Diplomats told Reuters at the time that President Mohamed Morsi had yet
to endorse required tax increases and subsidy cuts that prompted him to
halt implementation of an earlier IMF deal in December.
Cairo has said it hopes to get an IMF deal by next month.
Saudi Reportedly Expels Men for Being Too Handsome
Attention handsome young men: you might want to reconsider any trips to Saudi Arabia.
Earlier this month, the Saudi religious police expelled three men from the United Arab Emirates, apparently for being “too good looking.”
The men were in Riyadh attending the Jenadrivah Heritage & Cultural Festival, and according to Time magazine, they were minding their own business when the police entered the pavilion and whisked them away.
According to the Arabic-language newspaper Elaph, they were removed for fear that women would not be able to resist them.
“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission members feared female visitors could fall for them,” the newspaper said.
The United Arab Emirates issued a statement after the incident saying the Saudi religious police may have been on alert because an unnamed female artist made an unplanned visit to the pavilion. There was no indication the two events were related.
One of the men named in the incident has become an Internet sensation. Photos of Omar Gala, who, according to his Facebook page, is a “fashion photographer, model, actor, poet” from Dubai, have been plastered across the web.
Earlier this month, the Saudi religious police expelled three men from the United Arab Emirates, apparently for being “too good looking.”
The men were in Riyadh attending the Jenadrivah Heritage & Cultural Festival, and according to Time magazine, they were minding their own business when the police entered the pavilion and whisked them away.
According to the Arabic-language newspaper Elaph, they were removed for fear that women would not be able to resist them.
“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission members feared female visitors could fall for them,” the newspaper said.
The United Arab Emirates issued a statement after the incident saying the Saudi religious police may have been on alert because an unnamed female artist made an unplanned visit to the pavilion. There was no indication the two events were related.
One of the men named in the incident has become an Internet sensation. Photos of Omar Gala, who, according to his Facebook page, is a “fashion photographer, model, actor, poet” from Dubai, have been plastered across the web.
4/27/2013
Egyptian Shias keep low profile in face of defamation
"Have a look upon us, have a look upon us... you who were given the precious knowledge."
Thursday marked the birthday — Mulid — of Al-Sayeda Nafisa, wife of
one of Prophet Muhammad's grandsons. The air was filled with eulogy
poems, music and Quran recitations by thousands of her devotees from
across the country who travel annually to her mausoleum in Old Cairo.
They ask her for guidance and to grant the wishes they whisper to her
tomb.
Hundreds of large tents were erected around the mosque to accommodate
the visitors. Each tent carries a banner that shows the Sufi sect that
manages it and the governorate it comes from.
One tent in particular, with a sign reading, "The Khalilia Sect — Giza" was quieter than all the others. It catered food and beverages for
the poor and needy, but offered no music nor dhikr dancing.
"Of course not all those who are celebrating the Mulid are Sufis,
many of them are Shias," said Khaled Alatfy, editor-in-chief of "The
Arabic Family" newspaper, who was sitting inside the Khalilia of Giza
tent. "But most of them don’t wish to be identified."
Sufism and Shia Islam share many characteristics, including the deep
love and glorification of Prophet Muhammad's bloodline, Ahl al-Bayt.
"Many Shias prefer to practice their faith under the umbrella of
Sufism," said Alatfy. Sufism, he said, provides a tolerant safe haven
while carrying a more socially and politically acceptable label.
Hundreds of Shia were hunted, imprisoned, and persecuted under the rule of the toppled president Hosni Mubarak.
There is no law that prohibits one from being Shia, but police and prosecutors have chosen
from a variety of "disrespecting religion," and "disrupting the social
harmony" charges that can be stretched to fit anyone who belongs to a
non acceptable faith or ideology.
Alatfy spoke in a
low voice; he didn't want to attract attention. Media were not welcomed
inside the tent, and photography was strictly prohibited.
Many members of this specific sect, Alatfy explained, had been
arrested and subjected to constant police surveillance and harassment.
In 1996, Hasan Shehata, an imam in Giza, gained notoriety for publicly
preaching Shia Islam. He was frank and spoke up harshly and satirically
against Sunni Islam.
It wasn't long before he, hundreds of his followers, and many who
were suspected to be followers were arrested without charge under
emergency law.
One of the strictly Sufi members of the sect, who wished not to be
identified, said that he spent five months in prison and was summoned
several times for security checks for no apparent reason.
"I had some friends who happened to be among the audience of Hasan Shehata, and that was my only crime," he said.
The agonizing past of Egyptian Shia in the past two decades is not the only reason that keeps many reluctant to speak.
Mohammad Al Hussieny, a Shia primary school teacher, grabbed from his
pocket a leaflet distributed in the streets of Cairo few weeks ago. It
read: "Shias are the enemy of God and the spies of Iran. They are more
dangerous to the Islamic Nation than the Jews. Shias must be expelled
out of Egypt."
The Salafist rise after the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt evoked an
unprecedented anti-Shia wave of hatred. The new Egyptian constitution
has an article that limits the interpretation of Sharia law to the
sources and jurisprudence of the Sunni doctrine.
That article is viewed by Shias as a gateway to ban the celebration
of Al-Sayeda Nafisa's birthday, and hundreds of similar Mulids
commemorated in every corner of Egypt, and enforce more hostile policies
against their freedom to express their faith.
In September 2012, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected granting
a permit for Al Tahrir Party, a socialist party founded by several Shia
figures, because it was "based on religious principle." This wasn’t an
obstacle for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, nor for
the Salafi Al-Nour party, both of which have strong declared Islamic
affiliations.
Since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Egypt last February, Salafist movements have initiated an ongoing campaign against Shias. They have called for marches to counter the "Iranian-Shia tide," and organized conferences about the "dangers of Shiism."
Since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Egypt last February, Salafist movements have initiated an ongoing campaign against Shias. They have called for marches to counter the "Iranian-Shia tide," and organized conferences about the "dangers of Shiism."
Two weeks ago, there were clashes between Salafist demonstrators and
the security forces surrounding the house of the head of the Iranian
mission in Cairo.
The reasons for the Salafists’ hostility are not merely religious,
but also political, according to Khaled Saeed, spokesperson of the
Salafi Front, one of the hardliner Sunni groups who took part in the
latest anti-Shia campaign.
"Look at the east of Saudi Arabia, the south of Lebanon, and what's happening in Bahrain and Iraq. Iran spreads havoc everywhere they reach," Saaed said in a phone interview.
Saeed claims that Egyptian Shia are not the target.
"As long as they are fully integrated inside the Egyptian society,
they are not an enemy,” said Saeed. “It is a different story if they
tried manifesting the Iranian agenda."
Saeed asserts that some Salafist groups are using the anti-Shia rhetoric for political gains.
"It is a way of attracting more followers and strengthen[ing] their unity in front of a common enemy," he said.
Saeed added that it is possible some Salafist forces are using the
Shia card to pressure the Muslim Brotherhood regime trying to normalize
diplomatic relations with Iran and allow Iranian tourism, which has been
suspended since the seventies.
It is hard to draw a strict line between where religious motives end
and electoral strategies begin. The results are the same: the majority
of Shia are keeping a low profile, and continue to practice their faith
with a great deal of secrecy and caution, yet with a strong belief that
their community shall survive the difficult circumstances.
"Isn't it ironic to see leaflets calling for kicking Shias out of
Egypt, while they were the ones who built its capital?" asked the
teacher Al Hussieny bitterly.
Cairo was built during the Fatimid Shia dynasty that ruled Egypt in
the 10th century. Shrines and holy sites like that of Al-Sayeda Nafisa
are spread everywhere in the historical parts of the capital and remain a
source of comfort and strength to Shia and Sufis.
"We built it, we will stay in it, and so will our sons and grandsons," said Al Hussieny in a resilient tone.
4/23/2013
Anonymous Calls for CISPA Internet Blackout April 22nd - April 19th, 2013
We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Number one source for Anonymous/activistic news.
Anonymous operations will be posted here; along with videos
related to Anonymous, protests, or any other forms of activistic
activities.
Check back daily for updates.
Dear citizens of the internet,
We are Anonymous.
The United States Government is again attempting to control and censor the internet. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act has just recently passed the house.
This bill would allow major internet entities such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google to voluntarily share your personal information with the U.S. Government. This will not only effect users in the United States, but also anyone with an account with these companies.
This upcoming Monday, April the 22nd, we invite you to join Anonymous in a internet blackout. We encourage all web developers and website owners to go dark on this date. Display a message as to why you are going dark, and encourage others to do the same.
We hope, just like the successful protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act, we can encourage the senate to stop this bill.
Spread the message, and inform the world.
We are Anonymous
We are the people
We are the internet
Knowledge is free
We are Anonymous.
The United States Government is again attempting to control and censor the internet. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act has just recently passed the house.
This bill would allow major internet entities such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google to voluntarily share your personal information with the U.S. Government. This will not only effect users in the United States, but also anyone with an account with these companies.
This upcoming Monday, April the 22nd, we invite you to join Anonymous in a internet blackout. We encourage all web developers and website owners to go dark on this date. Display a message as to why you are going dark, and encourage others to do the same.
We hope, just like the successful protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act, we can encourage the senate to stop this bill.
Spread the message, and inform the world.
We are Anonymous
We are the people
We are the internet
Knowledge is free
4/22/2013
Al Saud
Arab spring
Democracy
ENGLISH
GCC
Human Rights
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Islam
ksa
Politics
salafi
Saudi
social_media
Wahhabi
Arab Spring Time in Saudi Cyberspace
Not more than two years ago, the concept of reform in Saudi Arabia would
have been as much an oxymoron as business ethics or airline cuisine. In
recent months, however, the Arab Spring’s uncertain winds of change
have finally begun to sweep into the world’s last forbidden kingdom.
Finding themselves alone in a crowd (of revolution) in the Middle East,
Saudi Arabia’s monarchs are quickly realizing that their secret police
and petrodollars may be no match for their citizens’ technology-driven
empowerment.
On March 1, Saudi security forces cracked down on a woman-led protest in
the city of Buraidah, known as the nerve center of Saudi Arabia’s
ultraconservative Wahabbist ideology. Over 160 people, mostly women and
children, were arrested after erecting a tent camp to pressure the
government to free their imprisoned husbands whom they claim have been
detained for years without visitation or access to legal counsel. The
Saudi government claims that the detainees are part of a “deviant
group,” a term given to suspected Al Qaeda sympathizers or Islamist
political opposition groups across the Gulf.
News of the arrests spread like wildfire. Protests in support of the
Buraidah women were called for by activists from the Shiite minority in
the Eastern Province and liberal reformists in Riyadh and Jidda. The
mobilization of Saudi conservatives, liberals and minorities against the
government’s repressive policies bore a dangerous resemblance to the
red-green alliances that toppled governments from Cairo to Tunis. While
turnout at the demonstrations was limited due to the government’s ban on
political gatherings, the Saudi Twittersphere was teeming with anger.
Two weeks later, the government-sponsored Arab News daily published a
cover story condemning what it deemed “abusive” actions by Saudi Twitter
users. The story mentioned that the authorities were mulling over a
plan to link Twitter accounts with their users’ identification numbers.
Soon after, the story was pulled from the online version of the
newspaper without explanation.
For one of the most Internet-privy societies on the planet, any move to
link Twitter accounts with personal ID numbers would result in a mass
exodus to other online forums that are not monitored. Saudi Arabia ranks
number one in the world for Twitter users per-capita, with an estimated
51 percent of all Saudi Internet users maintaining an account with the
social media network. Analysts suggest that any such move would result
in a 60 percent reduction of Twitter usage in the country — a true
window onto how many Saudis are voicing dissent against their
government.
Still, on March 31, the Saudi Communications and Information Technology
Commission instructed Skype, WhatsApp and Viber to comply with local
regulations or risk being shut down. These applications are
Internet-based communications services that are both free of charge and
not subject to the kingdom’s telecommunications regulations.
The Saudi government has a strong interest in limiting social media and
online communications services. Protests are being increasingly
organized through use of the WhatsApp messaging application. Political
dissidents are able to use Skype to communicate with human rights
organizations and foreign media networks without fear of government
monitoring. Some government employees and those with ties to the royal
family have begun to exploit Twitter to disseminate information
regarding corruption in the kingdom.
The Saudi government is, however, becoming increasingly hesitant about
limiting social media and other communications because of the potential
for a political backlash. Freedom of speech and communication were a
hallmark demand of popular uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, with
attempts to cut online activity serving to fuel discontent rather than
mitigate unrest. Saudi Arabia is already a favorite target for civil
rights activists across the globe, and a ban on social media would only
add to a long list of reasons for further divestment and isolation
campaigns.
As an alternative, the Saudi government has begun encouraging loyalists
to condemn and pursue those suspected of online dissent rather than
close the outlets altogether. In recent weeks, a Shura Council member
filed a lawsuit against a critical Twitter user, while the
government-appointed imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca dedicated his
Friday sermon on April 5 to condemning the social network, calling it a
“threat to national unity.”
As the government remains confounded by its inability to control online
dissent, there is no doubt that the rising tide of anger across Saudi
cyberspace has begun to spill over into physical reality. Unwillingly,
the government has been forced to wrestle with undertaking previously
unimaginable reforms with regard to women’s rights and employment
opportunities for millions of young, educated citizens. With social
media as their vehicle, Saudis are threatening to take control of their
country’s destiny for the first time in history, and there may be
nothing their government can do about it.
By DANIEL NISMAN
4/21/2013
4/18/2013
Yemen’s Southern Intifada #yemen
In early February, a car made its way
along the winding road from the southern Yemeni port city of Aden to Dhale, a
dusty mountain town of traditional mud-brick houses. As the car sped toward its
destination, the flags and checkpoints increased in regularity with every
passing mile.
Yemen's flag is made up of three
horizontal stripes of red, white, and black. Those flying from the rooftops
along the roadside sported an additional blue triangle dotted with a single red
star. The flags, a remnant of the south's independent past, are a symbol of
defiance; the checkpoints, manned by soldiers from Yemen's north, a source of
simmering tension.
"See," said Fatima, an Adeni college
professor, as the car stopped at yet another checkpoint so that a uniformed
youth, his cheek bulging with the narcotic qat
leaf and an AK-47 casually slung across his shoulder, could take a look inside.
"How can they say that this is not an occupation?"
On the outskirts of Dhale, the military
checkpoints came to a sudden halt. The government had no jurisdiction beyond
the town's borders. At the top of a hill in the center of Dhale, Shalal Ali
Shaye'a, a top leader in Dhale of Hirak, squinted into the sun. "Look," he
said, pointing to another blue-triangled flag painted onto the mountainside
opposite him. "This is the free south."
----
Shaye'a is a leading member of one of the
more radical factions of Hirak al-Janoubi
("the southern movement," better known in Yemen as Hirak), a loose coalition of
southern rights groups formed in Yemen in 2007. Since a popular uprising
unseated former President Ali Abdullah Saleh -- a hated figure for many
southerners -- in 2011, secessionist sentiment has been on the rise in the
south and the pro-independence wing of Hirak has been gaining confidence. While
politicians and diplomats in the northern capital of Sanaa have been focused on
the peace plan that led to Saleh's ouster, Shaye'a and his cohort have been
planning their "peaceful intifada" which they hope will end with talks in
Geneva, an end to the checkpoints, and the arrival of U.N. peacekeepers.
But if recent events are anything to go
by, southerners' attempts to extricate themselves from their two decade-old
union with the north could prove to be a messy affair. Tensions between Hirak
and the government had been rising for months when, on February 20, security
forces raided the Aden home of Qasem Asker Jubran, Yemen's onetime ambassador
to Mauritania, now a committed secessionist. Juran was arrested, accused of
planning to disrupt "by any means possible" a rally planned for the next day by
Islah (Yemen's biggest Islamist party) to celebrate the first anniversary of
the man who replaced Saleh as president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Over the next
week, Hiraki protesters clashed again and again with security forces. By the
end of February, members of the southern movement estimated that up to 20 of
their number had died in the violence, while the Islah's party headquarters in
the southern city of Mukalla had been set on fire in just one of a series of
attacks on northern political parties and businesses.
----
Dhale and nearby Radfan hold an important
place in Hiraki and southern mythology. It was in Habilayn, a village in
Radfan, that British troops shot and killed seven men in October 1963, sparking
the uprising that ended British rule in the south. The revolt was launched
from the craggy, volcanic mountains of Dhale, and the People's Democratic
Republic of Yemen (PDRY), the socialist state that succeeded the British,
populated its military with men from the area.
In 1990, bankrupted by the fall of the
Soviet Union and a bloody 1986 civil war, the PDRY merged with its northern
neighbor, the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), led by Saleh. But four years later Ali
Salem al-Beidh, the PDRY leader who took the south into the unity deal,
declared the foundation of a new state, the Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Southerners had complained of an unequal partnership and of a campaign of
assassinations targeting their leaders since the north-south merger. Fed up
after a series of inconsequential talks, they had decided to quit the union.
The militaries of the PDRY and YAR, which
were not integrated after unity, went to war. Dhale was a key battleground
during the fighting, which the northerners won, backed by tribal militias,
mujahedeen recently returned from Afghanistan, and even former PDRY soldiers
who defected after a bloody civil war in the south in 1986.
Many southern officers and civil
servants, including Shaye'a, were forced into early retirement after the war,
and most accounts of the life in the south after1994 run down similar lines: of
northern tribal, military, and economic interests taking over vast swathes of
land and businesses; of soaring unemployment among southerners while
northerners arrived to take juicy government jobs; and of brutal repression of
any kind of secessionist sentiment or expression of southern identity.
"Before unity," Shaye'a said, "I was a
student at military college. I graduated in 1990, into unity. I practiced for a
few years and then the war started. They kicked all our soldiers out, and I
fled. I came back six months later. After they kicked us out, we lived in a
miserable situation."
In 2006, former military officers from
the region began to organize protests at home and in Aden over low pensions and
lack of jobs. A year later, Hirak was formed as an umbrella organization to
bring together the plethora of southern rights movements that had sprung up
since 1994. Today, it is made up of around seven major groups and many more
splinter organizations, loosely formed around the Supreme Council of the
Southern Movement, led by Hassan Baoum, a popular pro-independence activist.
----
Hirakis are not just disappointed former
government workers. Many of the group's most vocal supporters are so young that
they cannot remember life before unity. At one of the weekly marches the group
holds in Crater, a volcanic outcrop of the Shamsan mountain which towers over
Aden, Nour, 20, tried to explain her involvement in the movement.
"I was born inside unity; I don't like
it. I want separation," she said. "It is unfair. I don't like the poverty. I
want to get back the country. We need to support the demonstrations."
Unemployment is a big issue for young
southerners like Nour. Even those who do not actively support Hirak believe
that the best state jobs go to the friends and families of Sanaa's political
elite. This is frustrating and baffling to those who believe that most of the
country's resources are located in the south -- two of Yemen's biggest oil
fields are to be found in the former PDRY, while Aden was once one of the
busiest ports in the world.
Other Hirakis have only recently come
around to the secessionists' way of thinking. "I am from those who wanted to
correct the road of the unity," said Nasser Mohamed Al-Khubaji, one of Hirak's
top leaders in Lahj, as he reclined in the cushioned mafraj of his simple home in Radfan in mid-February. "I thought we
could do something through parliament. But when we took up the case of the
south, we faced aggression. People became angry with us."
Al-Khubaji quit parliament after the 2007
shooting of southerners preparing for a rally to celebrate the anniversary of
the revolt against the British by the central security forces. As a member of
parliament for Lahj governorate, he had taken part in the preparations. "When
we were preparing for our revolutionary activities, the military from the north
came. They killed four and injured 20," he said. The opportunity for
negotiation with the north died then, he said: "The time was over for talk."
----
If Nour had been born to the north, she
would probably have taken part in the protest movement that unseated Ali
Abdullah Saleh in 2011, voicing frustrations about Yemen's northern elite
similar to those heard across the south. But like many Hirakis, after initially
supporting the revolution she came to see it as a largely northern affair.
Yemen's 2011 uprising started as a
nonviolent movement in the big northern cities of Taiz and Sanaa. But it soon
descended into a violent elite power struggle, fought between military units
loyal to Saleh and his son Ahmed Ali; those with ties to the powerful general
and former Saleh ally Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, and militias loyal to the tribal
leaders and brothers Hamid and Sadeq al-Ahmar.
The deal brokered by members of the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) to end the fighting in November 2011 was an elite
peace accord, Nour said, not a solution to southerners' problems -- the GCC
deal explicitly references the problems in the south, but does not go far
enough toward addressing southern grievances for many Hirakis. "I don't care
about 2011; that was just a fight between Ali Abdullah Saleh and Hamid
al-Ahmar," she said. "It has nothing to do with the south."
----
Yet if foreign diplomats involved in
brokering the accord are to be believed, the GCC deal presents a unique
opportunity for southerners, in the form of a much-vaunted national dialogue
conference. The deal's brokers have effectively staked Yemen's future on the
dialogue's success and President Hadi has said that the country could descend
into civil war if it fails.
During six months of talks, which are due
to start on March 18, the conference's organizers hope that working groups will
be able to draft a new constitution and discuss solutions to the country's many
problems, including the "southern question" as it is often described in Sanaa.
Delegations from Yemen's many fissiparous factions have been invited to the conference
and Hirak has been offered the second-biggest allotment of seats, 85 in total.
Yet for many Hirakis, the conference is a non-starter.
Despite diplomats' best efforts to
convince them that attending the talks is in their best interests, a number of
Hiraki groups have said that they will not go to the dialogue. Most vocal in
rejecting the talks have been factions linked to Baoum and al-Beidh, one of the
main architects of unity in 1990 and, since 1994, one of its biggest critics.
They want bilateral negotiations between the north and the south over
separation, not to discuss the shape of the unified state.
----
Other southern movement leaders are more
open to the idea of the talks. In March 2012 Mohamed Ali Ahmed, the former
governor of Abyan governorate, returned to Aden after nearly two decades in
exile in Britain. Diplomats overseeing the GCC deal, who describe him as a
moderate, say that he has become a key point of contact in Hirak. Speaking at
his home in Aden in February, he told Foreign
Policy that he would go to the dialogue even though Hadi is yet to meet a
series of demands that he helped southerners to formulate in 2012 as a
precondition to taking part in the conference.
"We will go so that the international
community does not say that southerners do not cooperate," he said. "We cannot
ignore the international community. We will [get our demands] from the inside.
We cannot ignore the will of the people, but we want to use peaceful means."
Ali Ahmed believes the creation of a
two-state federal union between the north and south followed by a referendum
after five years could be the best path to independence, an idea first floated
by Hirakis in 2009. But the al-Beidh factions of Hirak, many who mutter that
Ali Ahmed is working for Hadi to maintain rather than end unity, has become
increasingly hard line.
----
The differences between al-Beidh and Ali
Ahmed run deep -- much deeper than mere strategy. On January 13, 1986, the
bodyguards of then-President Ali Nasser Mohammed opened fire on a meeting of
the PDRY's politburo. Former associates say that he hoped to consolidate his
power by assassinating the leaders of a faction loyal to his predecessor, Abdul
Fattah Ismail, who was killed soon after the fighting started. But Ismail
loyalists led by al-Beidh gained the upper hand in the ensuing civil war and
after a month of fighting Mohammed fled to the north along with tens of
thousands of his followers. Among those who fled north with him were Ali Ahmed
and Hadi -- Yemen's current president.
Hirak's leadership has worked in recent
years to reconcile the differences between the Toghma -- the winners of the 1986 war -- and the Zomra -- Nasser Mohammed's "desperate
band" of followers -- hoping that the common goal of independence will be
enough to patch over past rivalries and resentments. Since 2009, Hirak has held
reconciliation marches every January 13 to mark the anniversary of the civil
war. The 2013 rally was the biggest ever, according to the local Yemen Post. A number of Hirakis, who see
the march as a watershed moment for the independence movement, claim that one
million people attended (more reliable estimates run to the tens of thousands).
But many Toghma still view their Zomra counterparts with suspicion. Some
of the bloodiest fighting during the 1986 war occurred between militias loyal
to Ali Ahmed and Baoum in Abyan; Shaye'a still recalls how his father, ministry
of interior at the time, was killed by Nasser Mohammed's men at the January
1986 politburo meeting.
Hirak is unified in its quest for
independence, said Jubran, who is widely seen as al-Beidh's man in Aden (the
former president lives in exile in Beirut) during an interview at his home in
the southern capital a week before he was arrested. "There are a lot of
disputes between the different parties of Hirak," he said. "But the main goal
is freedom. We are unified. In some other parties they want five years and a
referendum but they will not prevail. When we got independence in 1967 no one
told us to make freedom or a referendum and we don't need a referendum now."
"Ninety-nine percent" of southerners are
behind the al-Beidh faction of Hirak, Jubran argued. While this figure is
likely some way off -- and a of number Hirakis say that they support the
equally pro-independence Baoum, who is based in Yemen, rather than Beirut-bound
al-Beidh -- it is fair to say that a growing number of southerners are falling
in behind the two men's uncompromising approach. And at rallies across the
country, it is al-Beidh's image that is most visible on placards and banners.
In Dhale and Lahj it is not uncommon to hear him described as "the president,"
a title he still bestows upon himself. Analysts estimate that support for the
al-Beidh and Ahmed factions is split about 70 to 30 among Hirakis.
----
Some southerners had hoped that the
northern revolution would lead to improvements in life in the former PDRY, and
worried that independence would require a long, potentially bloody, and hugely
costly struggle. Others thought that having Hadi, a southerner, as president
might see Hirak treated with more leniency and were encouraged when the huge
reconciliation march in January was allowed to pass unmolested. But the
violence in February proved a tipping point for even more moderate southerners.
"I don't support Hirak, I am not a
Hiraki," said Anas, a young southern woman who lives in Aden, in March. "But I
no longer support unity either."
Perhaps sensing the direction in which
popular opinion is going, southern movement leaders who had previously
expressed willingness to compromise have also been taking a more combative
stance of late. In February, Haydar al-Attas, prime minister of Yemen's first
unity government, said that he would reject an invitation to the dialogue and
demanded that Jamal Benomar, the U.N. envoy to Yemen, oversee a referendum on
independence.
"In the end, they will all come around to
our way of thinking or they will not matter," said one al-Beidh aligned Hiraki
leader in response to the news. Ali Ahmed, who is not as widely popular as
Baoum and al-Beidh, could lose the chance of a future role in the south if he
attends the talks, he added.
Many southerners are skeptical of the
international community's intentions meanwhile. At the Crater march, Mohamed, a
pro-independence activist, could barely contain himself. "Where is the
international community in all of this?" he asked, an often-repeated refrain at
the march. "Where are our rights? In the north, they fought for one year,
people were killed, and the international community gave them their peace. The
northerners have dominated us, killed us, stolen from us since unity. Where is
our dialogue with the north? We have been fighting for 20 years, but still they
ignore us."
----
Thus far, the southern movement has been
largely peaceful -- surprisingly so, given the availability of arms in Yemen
and the number of disaffected, unemployed young men in the south. The leaders
of even its more radical factions say that they are committed to peaceful
protest, and while violence flared up in February, it did not boil over into
the kind of devastating armed conflict seen in the north during 2011.
But a number of questions about Hirak's
more extreme wing remain to be answered, not least its commitment to a
nonviolent struggle. While Hiraki activists at marches like those in Crater are
unarmed, and it is easy to believe people like Nour when she expresses her
commitment to a peaceful uprising, al-Beidh's arm of Hirak has been accused on
a number of occasions of building its own militia, and has recently been linked
with arms shipments from Iran. Clashes have broken out between Hirak-aligned
armed groups and government troops in recent years, many of them in Dhale and
Lahj, a stronghold for the al-Beidh faction.
It is particularly hard to reconcile
Shaye'a with the idea of Hirak's peaceful intifada. A number of Yemeni analysts
say that he is one of the leaders of "The Movement for Self Determination," or
Hatam, a militia formed after the civil war which has fought with the Yemeni
military on a number of occasions in the past. In October 2010, a bomb placed
outside of Al-Wahda Sports Club in Aden killed four people. The attack was
blamed on Hatam, which planned to disrupt an upcoming football tournament, and
Hirak. The government named Shaye'a as the ringleader of the group that planned
the blast -- a charge he denies. "They are willing to say anything about the
southern people," he said. "It is far from my peaceful revolution. I love
sports."
Shaye'a remained tightlipped as to
whether Hirak has armed militias in and around Dhale, but when he left his
home, he clambered into a battered Toyota pickup, armed gunmen -- one man
wielding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher -- bouncing in the back as the
truck wound its way along the dirt road. Earlier, he had explained why he lived
in Dhale rather than Aden.
"We started here, in Dhale and in Radfan,
because we were safe here," Shaye'a said. "Here, all the people are active with
Hirak. Most of our army who were kicked out of their jobs came from here. Most
of the military forces who were retired came from here. Here, the community
helped us to start out activities. They were ready. The occupation forces were
here -- there was action and there was reaction."
Al-Khubaji, Hirak's man in Lahj, agreed
that his area was under Hiraki control but disagreed that the movement's
success in the area had been achieved through force. Hirak has spent much of
the past six years building a parallel state structure, providing public goods
to residents of the area, he said. "Most of our work is in enhancing
administrative and regulatory capacities," he said. "Politically the
governorate is under the rule of Hirak. But we are under occupation. Before us,
the courts were full of cases. Now, we have the councils of Hirak to solve
problems. We even solve security problems. I would say that 90 percent of Lahj
is under Hirak control. The occupation forces are still here; here, but not in
control."
But few moments later, he added a
familiar caveat. "Our movement is to get separation peacefully," he said. "But
I cannot guarantee that other interests and movements will not take action. We
insist on a peaceful movement. But we will not discourage anyone who wants to
take this path."
----
It might not be long before it becomes
apparent how, exactly, Shaye'a, Jubran, and others plan to move forward. Jubran
-- who was freed in late February having declared his commitment to peaceful
protest -- ended his interview with the promise that by the 20th anniversary of
the south's last attempt at separation, it would be an independent state once
again. "On 21 May 2013, you will see," he said. "The peaceful intifada will
begin."
Within a year, he said, it would all be
over.
4/16/2013
Did We Get the #Muslim_Brotherhood Wrong?
Nope. But it's time to revise our assessments.
The deterioration of Egyptian politics has spurred an intense, often vitriolic polarization between Islamists and their rivals that has increasingly spilled over into analytical disputes. Some principled liberalswho once supported the Muslim Brotherhood against the Mubarak regime's repression have recanted. Longtime critics of the Islamists view themselves as vindicated and demand that Americans, including me, apologize for getting the Brotherhood wrong. As one prominent Egyptian blogger recently put it, "are you ready to apologize for at least 5 years of promoting the MB as fluffy Democrats to everyone? ARE YOU?"
So, should we apologize? Did we get the
Brotherhood wrong? Not really. The academic consensus about the Brotherhood got
most of the big things right about that organization ... at least as it existed
prior to the 2011 Egyptian revolution. U.S. analysists and academics correctly identified the major
strands in its ideological development and internal factional struggles, its
electoral prowess, its conflicts with al Qaeda and hard-line Salafis, and the
tension between its democratic ambitions and its illiberal aspirations. And
liberals who defended the Brotherhood against the Mubarak regime's torture and
repression were unquestionably right to do so -- indeed, I would regard
defending the human rights and political participation of a group with which
one disagrees as a litmus test for liberalism.
But getting the pre-2011 period right doesn't let us
off the hook for what has come since. How one felt about questions of the
Brotherhood's ability to be democratic in the past has nothing to do with the
urgency of holding it to those commitments today. Giving the group the chance to
participate fully in the democratic process does not mean giving it a pass on
bad behavior once it is in power -- or letting it off the hook for abuses of
pluralism, tolerance, or universal values.
That's why I would like to see Egypt's electoral process continue,
and for the Brotherhood to be punished at the ballot box for their manifest
failures.
So what did we say about the Brotherhood, and
what did they get wrong or right? I wouldn't presume to speak for a diverse
academic community that disagrees about many important things, but some broad
themes do emerge from a decade of literature. For one, most academics viewed
the Brotherhood of the 2000s as a democratic actor but not a liberal one. That's
an important distinction. By the late 2000s, the Brotherhood had a nearly two-decade
track record of participation in national, professional, and student elections.
It had developed an elaborate ideological justification for not just the
acceptability but the necessity of democratic procedure. When it lost
elections, such as in the professional associations, it peacefully surrendered
power (and, ironically given current debates, it was willing to boycott when it
saw the rules stacked against it). By 2007, it seemed to me that there was nothing more the
Brotherhood could have done to demonstrate its commitment to democratic
procedures in the absence of the actual opportunity to win elections and
govern. I think that was right.
And of course it had developed a well-honed electoral
machine ready for use whenever the opportunity presented itself. Nobody in the academic community doubted that
the Brotherhood would do well in the first wave of elections. Academics also
pegged public support for the Brotherhood at about 20 percent, not far off the
25 percent Mohammed Morsy managed in the first round of the presidential election. They
correctly identified the organizational advantages the Brotherhood would have
in early elections, which would allow them to significantly overperform that
baseline of support against new, less-organized opponents.
The Brotherhood's commitment to democratic procedures never
really translated into a commitment to democratic or liberal norms, however. It
always struggled with the obvious tension between its commitment to sharia (Islamic law) and its participation
in democratic elections. Not being able to win allowed the Brothers to avoid
confronting this yawning gap, even if they frequently found themselves enmeshed
in public controversies over their true intentions -- for instance, with the
release of a draft political party platform in 2007 that hinted at the creation
of a state committee to review legislation for compliance with sharia and a
rejection of a female or non-Muslim president. As for liberalism, nobody ever doubted the
obvious point that this was an Islamist movement with deeply socially
conservative values and priorities. The real question was over their
willingness to tolerate different points of view -- and there, deep skepticism
remained the rule across the academic community.
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How the #Muslim_Brotherhood Hijacked #Syria Revolution
No
one in Syria expected the anti-regime uprising to last this long or be this
deadly, but after around 70,000 dead, 1
million refugees, and two years of unrest, there is still no end in
sight. While President Bashar al-Assad's brutal response is mostly to blame,
the opposition's chronic failure to form a viable front against the regime has
also allowed the conflict to drag on. And there's one anti-Assad group that is
largely responsible for this dismal state of affairs: Syria's Muslim
Brotherhood.
Throughout
the Syrian uprising, I have had discussions with opposition figures, activists,
and foreign diplomats about how the Brotherhood has built influence within the
emerging opposition forces. It has been a dizzying rise for the Islamist
movement. It was massacred out of existence in the 1980s after the Baathist
regime put down a Brotherhood-led uprising in Hama. Since then, membership in
the Brotherhood has been an offense punishable by death in Syria, and the group
saw its presence on the ground wither to almost nothing. But since the uprising
erupted on March 15, 2011, the Brotherhood has moved adroitly to seize the
reins of power of the opposition's political and military factions.
According
to a figure present at the
first conference to organize Syria's political opposition, held
in Antalya, Turkey, in May 2011, the Brotherhood was initially hesitant to join
an anti-Assad political body. The group had officially
suspended its opposition to the Baathist regime in the wake of
the Israeli onslaught on Gaza in 2009, and it pulled out of an alliance with Abdul
Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian vice president who defected in 2005.
The
Brotherhood nonetheless sent members to participate in the conference,
including Molhem Droubi, who became a member of the conference's
executive bureau. Meanwhile, it took steps to form fighting groups
inside Syria,
recruiting potential fighters and calling on its relatively meager
contacts on
the ground in Homs, Hama, Idlib, and Aleppo.
As
the idea of a unified opposition group to lead the popular revolt gained momentum,
the Brotherhood became more involved. A month after the meeting in Antalya, it
organized a conference in Brussels, attended by 200 people, mostly Islamists --
one of the first obvious fractures in the unity of the opposition. The
Brotherhood subsequently organized several conferences that formed opposition
groups to serve as fronts for the movement, allowing it to beef up its presence
in political bodies.
After
the conference in Brussels, at least three groups were
formed "to support the Syrian revolution." The organizations
continued to hatch, and a few months after the first conference they were
present in opposition bodies that later formed the core of the Syrian National
Council (SNC), an umbrella group that ostensibly represented all anti-Assad
forces. The council set aside seats for both the Brotherhood and members of the
Damascus Declaration, a group of Syrian reformists established in 2005 --
but the Brotherhood already had a significant presence within the Damascus
Declaration group.
4/14/2013
PSY Says He Hopes NKoreans Enjoy His New Single
South Korean rapper PSY said on
Saturday that he hopes North Koreans will enjoy his new single, even as
tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula.
The follow-up to his international mega-hit, Gangnam Style, was released in the UK yesterday (Friday, April 12). Gangnam Style, which has sold over a million copies in the UK, topped the singles charts in 27 countries, including the our very own Official Singles Chart. The accompanying video has been viewed over 1.5 billion times on YouTube.
You can watch Psy’s new video for Gentleman – complete with new dance routine! – below:
The follow-up to his international mega-hit, Gangnam Style, was released in the UK yesterday (Friday, April 12). Gangnam Style, which has sold over a million copies in the UK, topped the singles charts in 27 countries, including the our very own Official Singles Chart. The accompanying video has been viewed over 1.5 billion times on YouTube.
You can watch Psy’s new video for Gentleman – complete with new dance routine! – below:
4/13/2013
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سقوط الدولة المصرية: غياب قواعد اللعبة السياسية
من ساعة 25 يناير 2011 لم أرى أي فصيل سياسي في
مصر يتحدث عن وضع قواد أساسية و واضحة و بسيطة تكون أساس إعادة بناء النظام
السياسي في مصر.
القواعد دي غير تقديمها، كان لازم يبقى عليها إجماع... تكون مجموعة مبادئ
لا يتنازع عليها أي فصيل سياسي: ليبرالي، إسلامي/ديني، يساري، إلخ
من الأمثلة في التاريخ هو إعلان الإستقلال الأمريكي. كان إعلان إستقلال لكنه كان إعلان مبادئ. الإعلان كان لا يزيد على صفحة وحدة.
الوقت بين إعلان الإستقلال لحد وضع الدستور
الأمريكي كان 11 سنة!في هذه الأثناء كان إعلان الإستقلال ومبادئه هم قواعد
اللعبة السياسية في امريكا.
الليبرالية لايمكنها تقديم أي حلول لولم يكن
هناك قواعد واضحة حتى وإن كانت أقل من المستوى لئن اللمنهج الليبرالي يعتمد
على البناء و التصحيح.
لكن مصر في السنتين إلي فاتوا و بالذات الفترة الأخيرة تفتقد لأي معالم واضحة و مطبقة تعطي ضمانات و تطمينات لكل الأطراف السياسية.
و الأسباب معروفة... فالإخوان تغطرسوا و ابعدوا الأخر و شكلوا قواعد اللعبة و غيروها على أهوائهم كما تطورت الأحداث.
هم كدة فاكرين انهم على طريق النجاح... لكن اللي
مش فهمينه إنه لا يمكنهم تحقيق حتى اهدافهم الضيقة من غير قواعد واضحة
مطبقة بحياد على الجميع.
و عشان كدة اسلوبهم و منهجهم لن يخلق إلا نظام مهلهل ساقط كالوضع في باكستان.
ما يحدث في مصر هو انها ما بقتش دولة قانون... لكنها دولة ساقطة... Failed State... أو على طريقها لذلك.
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