eatbees blog

From today’s New York Times:

Fame has become an existential condition: If your image isn’t reflected back at you, then how do you know you’re alive?

Reminds me a bit of this:

We live today in a society where it is necessary to see yourself, or your likeness, in the media as confirmation of your existence. People scan the television dial, major magazines, movies, or the latest pop novel to find someone who resembles them, someone who is out there mimicking their actions and gestures in the big arena. … Lest we forget, this whole scenario is market driven, and if your image does not appear en grand across the whole media superstructure of America, it is because the marketing mechanism has not deemed your niche to be worthy of selective attention, and thus—O humiliating failure!—there is nothing out there for you to buy. Which is to say, You don’t exist, go die. … You have no identity, you are invisible. You don’t even need to be “disappeared” because you are already not there.

This was written back in 1994, so it took the New York Times just sixteen years to catch up. Though I will give them credit for distilling the idea to its purest form.

Israel has fired on a naval relief convoy attempting to reach Gaza with supplies such as concrete, medicines and food, leaving nine civilian activists dead and around thirty injured. The attack took place in international waters. A report from the scene:

Already the justifications have begun. According to Ha’aretz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “said the Israeli troops who opened fire were justified for defending themselves.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak “called the flotilla a political provocation and said the sponsors of the flotilla were violent supporters of a terror organization.” Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said “that the organizers of the Gaza aid flotilla have connections to international terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Al-Qaida.”

But in the words of Al Jazeera reporter Ayman Mohyeldin:

“All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical supplies on board. So it will surprise many in the international community to learn what could have possibly led to this type of confrontation.”

Turkey called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the incident, and summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest. Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden also summoned their Israeli ambassadors. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan called the raid “state terrorism,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniya labeled it “barbaric,” and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it was “inhuman.” The response of Western leaders has been more tepid, with talk of “disproportionate” use of force. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was “shocked” and added, “I condemn this violence.”

Turkish foreign affairs specialist Murat Mercan had the best commentary I’ve seen so far on the repurcussions of the event:

“We are going to see in the following days whether Israel has done it as a display of decisiveness or to commit political suicide.”

Morocco’s largest daily newspaper, Al Massae, has been running excerpts from Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan’s memoir A Country of Words. Here is an excerpt from his latest editorial, “Kyrgyz Lesson to Arab Peoples,” in which he draws lessons from the recent popular revolt against strongman President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

President Bakiyev’s downfall was that his regime was characterized by corruption, cronyism, supression of the populace by the security forces and looting public funds, in a manner not that far removed from that of his counterparts in some Arab and Islamic countries.

Bakiyev… held deeply flawed elections and appointed members of his family — including his eldest son — to key positions, just as certain Arab leaders are wont to do. …

Some may argue that people in these repressive Arab states are too frightened of the security forces to rebel and this is why they are so passive and submissive. Yet the security forces in Kyrgyzstan are proving to be exceptionally brutal and violent — they opened fire on protesters, killing well over a hundred to date, and yet they continue to demonstrate, even storming the presidential palace and setting it on fire.

People who are oppressed must start to defend their interests and their basic human rights; they need to be prepared to make sacrifices for this lofty goal. Since they do not, it seems that the problem is no longer Arab rulers alone, but Arab people as well. …

No amount of foreign bases in Kyrgyzstan can ultimately protect an unpopular leader from the anger of the people and their demands for political reform and true democracy. If the Arab people would only learn this simple lesson of history our current state of opression would be ended.

Via Palestinian Pundit.

My latest essay for Talk Morocco is up, on the theme of “Moroccan identity.” Read it here.

Said Benjebli, Casablanca, July 19, 2009.

Said Benjebli, president of the Association of Moroccan Bloggers, describes the group (from an interview in Afrik.com):

“Our movement is secular and our members come from very diverse backgrounds. Atheists, socialists, Amazigh, secular… everyone is represented in our association. We are above all free and we operate in a democratic manner. …

“We cannot insult religions. Whether it’s Muslim, Jewish, Christian or otherwise. Within our association, we are able to differentiate between criticisms and insults. We of course encourage criticism, but we neither insult people nor what is sacred. Regarding homosexuals, I have backed some in the past. I have no problem with that. I think they have every right to express themselves, to run a blog or a website. … This is to tell you that we respect everyone and remain open to all trends.”

Regarding the National Dialogue on Media and Society:

“This initiative comes from the very top. Jamal Eddine Naji, the coordinator, is a close friend of the King. He was commissioned by the ruling party, Authenticity and Modernity Party, to impose the state agenda without taking the opinion of journalists into account. …

“If it is a dialogue, it is being done without the real actors of the electronic media. They instead want to keep the press at bay, impose their rules, impose electronic censorship and muzzle it. I personally received an official invitation. I attended two of their meetings, once as a representative of the association of bloggers and another as a journalist. But once they realized that we were serious, that our proposals were credible, they discredited us by calling us fundamentalists to silence us. So we steered clear.”

Regarding the climate of blogging in Morocco generally:

“We live in a constant state of arrests and releases. … It is true that there are no laws that regulate the blogosphere to guarantee the right to free expression. However, what the authorities are looking for is a way to censor blogs. They have the means to put pressure on the media — through printing presses, distribution agencies, etc. — but blogs are difficult to censor. That is why the authorities are severe with bloggers.”

I met Said Benjebli last summer, when by coincidence I was in Casablanca on the same night as a meeting of the Association of Moroccan Bloggers. I attended by invitation from blogger Mounir Bensalah, and the photo above is from that occasion.

I have a few questions. They aren’t rhetorical questions, these are things I’m genuinely not sure about.

• Granted that 2009 wasn’t a great year for freedom of expression in Morocco. I could list the cases here, but others have done that. Said Benjebli isn’t alone in fearing that the Moroccan authorities are turning away from their earlier promise of greater freedoms. But is it possible that the recent wave of criminal prosecutions is, paradoxically, a result of those greater freedoms? Perhaps they are growing pains as journalists and bloggers test the limits, and the state struggles to define its new boundaries?
   
• Should a bloggers’ association be focused primarily on defending the rights of bloggers who test the limits, or does it have a broader constituency? I would certainly want such a group backing me if I were a Moroccan blogger who unknowingly ran afoul of the famous red lines. On the other hand, I can’t help feeling that there are infinite creative ways to express ourselves, without directly taking on the state in areas where it feels most insecure. Technology, education, history, the arts, the economy, philosophy, social science, and religion are all domains of self-expression that aren’t necessarily political. By defining bloggers as journalist-activists who test the political limits, is the association scaring away, rather than promoting, other worthy forms of self-expression?
   
• What are the right limits on freedom of expression? Surely we’ll agree that no right is absolute. Even in the U.S., a phone call to a Congresswoman threatening to torch her house, or an active-duty soldier calling on his fellows to disobey the president’s orders, will earn the attention of the authorities. Those may be extreme cases, but where do we draw the line? The Moroccan state has the right, even the duty, to protect its territorial security and social stability. If certain forms of expression are seen as a threat, it can pass laws to restrict them. We may disagree with those laws, as I have in the past, in which case we have two choices — lobby to change them while continuing to obey them, or break them consciously to show they are unjust. The second choice, civil disobedience, involves accepting the penalty as a form of protest. So what are the right limits on freedom of expression in Morocco? Should bloggers be allowed to write literally anything? What should the state do when bloggers go over the line?
   
• As a developing country in a troubled world, Morocco has its share of problems. However, when I look around me, I see a diverse population, a growing economy, and young people with a lively creative imagination. It pains me a bit to see reports of Morocco slipping back into a dark age of heavy-handed repression, because that doesn’t jibe with what I see around me every day. So let’s assume for a moment that Morocco is moving forward, but in a two-steps-forward, one-step-back kind of way. Sometimes we’re made painfully aware of the limits on progress — and yet progress is being made. What is the best way to promote self-expression in such a context? Where will it do the most good?

UPDATE: Hisham of Al Miraat has published an interview on Global Voices with blogger Bashir Hazzam, who was sentenced to four months in prison for blogging about a demonstration in the southern town of Tarhjicht. He was released on Feburary 8, two months after his arrest, partly due to interntional pressure. He explains his views about blogging this way:

“I discovered the world of blogging when I was a student. I came across a number of blogs and realized that blogging enables people to publish their ideas easily, without control and for free. I liked the idea so much that, after a brief research, I ended up creating my own blog…. The blogosphere enabled me to exchange views and ideas and communicate with many bloggers and writers from around the world. … What happened will not affect me. Despite the arbitrary detention, I kept my writing style intact. It will not affect my thoughts or my views. … I would invite people to take advantage of technologies offered by the Internet to highlight their skills and talents, and express their ambitions and aspirations through blogging, so as to break the systematic marginalization imposed by authoritarian states, especially on the youth.”

Larache, Morocco, August 8, 2009. (Click image to see a larger version.)

Anwar al-Awlaki, American citizen condemned to death without a trial.

For all I know, “radical Muslim cleric” Anwar al-Awlaki has done something deserving of a death sentence — but that’s what the judicial process is supposed to determine. In America we have the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” but instead, the National Security Council has condemned this man to death based on secret evidence.

Here’s what the British newspaper the Guardian presents as the reasoning behind the decision.

“Awlaki has been accused of encouraging terrorism in his sermons and writings. … He has been linked to Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in November, and to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. …

“The decision to place Awlaki on a hit list took place this year… as U.S. counterterrorism officials judged he had moved beyond inciting attacks against the U.S…. to participating in them. ‘The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words,’ an official told the New York Times. ‘He’s gotten involved in plots.’”

The New York Times adds this detail.

“American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula…. They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad.”

So we have the word of anonymous officials that al-Awlaki is an “operative” and “recruiter” for Al Qaeda who has “gotten involved in plots.” It’s not even a question of being asked to take their word for it — the decision to target al-Awlaki was made weeks ago, and might never have been announced publicly if journalists hadn’t done a little digging.

Of course the CIA “hit list” is nothing new, as we’ve seen in numerous drone strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen dating back to 2002. The only advantage al-Awlaki got as an American citizen was that his death sentence was approved at the highest level, in a National Security Council review.

al-Awlaki is “linked to” two terrorist plots, one successful, one not. In the case of the Fort Hood shootings, the link seems to be limited to an exchange of emails. In the case of the Christmas bombing attempt, he allegedly met with Abumultallab in Yemen and helped recruit him into the mission. He also says hateful things in his sermons that encourage others to resort to violence — but even Rush Limbaugh has been accused of that.

Even if he directly aided and abetted the two plots mentioned — by suggesting specific targets, for example, or by supplying materiel — it isn’t clear this would earn him a death sentence in a U.S. courtroom. In the Oklahoma City bombing case of 1995, Terry Nichols got off with life in prison for helping Timothy McVeigh to assemble his bomb. In any case, the charges against al-Awlaki have yet to be proven in court.

al-Awlaki with his thick beard, foreign-sounding name, and militant Islamism may not be a sympathetic figure to most Americans, but it might be helpful to remember this famous principle from the Nazi era.

“They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. … Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

al-Awlaki may very well be a security risk to the United States, if he is indeed part of a network that recruits, trains and arms terrorists. But the thing is, nothing has been proven. All we have is the word of anonymous officials, whose judgment we’re supposed to trust.

All U.S. citizens are entitled to the protections of the U.S. Constitution, which was designed as a check on the arbitrary use of power. Condemning someone to death without a trial, in a Star Chamber proceeding with secret evidence, is just that — an arbitary use of power.

Those who cheer this decision because it involves a “radical Muslim cleric” might ask themselves how they would feel if the same thing were to happen on American soil. Should the National Security Council approve “targeted killings” of groups like the Hutaree Militia, who allegedly plotted to kill a police officer and bomb his funeral?

I think we’re on a slippery slope here. America has to stick to the rule of law, no matter how inconvenient it may sometimes seem.

Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize winner and potential challenger to the 30-year rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, had this to say last week:

“Western policy towards this part of the world has been a total failure, in my view. It has not been based on dialogue, understanding, supporting civil society and empowering people, but rather it’s been based on supporting authoritarian systems as long as the oil keeps pumping.

“If you bet on individuals [like Mubarak] instead of the people, you are going to fail. And Western policy so far has been to bet on individuals, individuals who are not supported by their people and who are being discredited every day. …

“The West talks a lot about elections in Iran, for example, but at least there were elections — yet where are the elections in the Arab world? If the West doesn’t talk about that, then how can it have any credibility?

“Only if you empower the liberals, if you empower the moderate socialists, if you empower all factions of society, only then will extremists be marginalised.”

I wish Dr. ElBaradei all the luck in the world with his quixotic crusade to bring democracy to Egypt. He is exactly the sort of moderate, popular, independent-minded reformer the West has long claimed to hope for in the Middle East, so whether the West responds positively to his efforts (assuming they gain traction) will be a test of sincerity.

On the other hand, maybe Western governments should keep their mouths shut even if they do favor him, so as not to poison the well of his support. Unfortunately, the policies of the Bush administration have given “democracy creation” a bad name in the Middle East.

One thing is clear, President Mubarak is not long for this world. He is already over 80, and just returned from three weeks in Germany where he underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder. The choice of a new leader will be upon Egypt very soon, certainly no later than the presidential elections of 2011, in which he is not expected to run.

For further coverage of ElBaradei’s campaign to reform Egyptian politics, see Zeinobia’s blog, The Arabist, or this excellent summary from blogger Baheyya.

…because we’re a “depraved electorate.” Here’s a quote that is making the rounds of right-leaning websites and comment boards. It’s usually cited as “Author Unknown,” but this seems to be the original source.

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

On some of the websites where this quote appears, commenters chime in that America’s Founding Fathers had it right when they allowed only landowners to vote (more precisely, landowning white males). They seem to feel that most people who voted for Obama are ignorant freeloaders who aren’t paying their dues, are easily manipulated by the “liberal media,” and aren’t really citizens in the full sense of the word. Limiting the vote to landowners (or people who pay taxes) would presumably solve this problem. They say that America was meant to be a republic, not a democracy, and that democracy means mob rule.

Perhaps even my non-American readers have heard of the Tea Partiers, people who feel that we are living in an era of “taxation without representation” like the one that brought about the original American Revolution. Repressive laws are being forced down our throats, irresponsible spending will bankrupt the nation, and Obama is leading his blind worshippers into socialism, Nazism or Armageddon. Some of these people feel that Obama stole the election with the help of a group called ACORN, while others, like the author of the quote above, admit that he won the most votes, but feel the American people have been brainwashed by the aforementioned “liberal media.” Either way, they feel isolated and surrounded in a nation that is slipping away from them.

Some of this “Left Behind” crowd are arming themselves and talking revolution. The growth of right-wing groups on the internet such as ResistNet, Grassfire and Oath Keepers testifies to this. They want to take America back to an era before the New Deal (1933), before the income tax and the Federal Reserve (1913), and as I mentioned above, even before the vote was given to non-landowning white males in the first half of the 19th century. This extremism, which is what I have to call it (though they call themselves patriots), directs its anger at the Republican and Democratic Parties alike, but what really lit their fire was the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States.

Some of these folks have resorted to violence, the Hutaree Militia of Michigan being the latest example. A handy list of the ten most egregious examples is here. This recalls the first couple of years of the Clinton administration, which saw a similar upsurge in right-wing militias, along with burnings of black churches, abortion clinic bombings, and of course, the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. Only this time the anger seems to be fiercer. So when I get impatient with Obama for not meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or pushing for a Canadian-style national health care system, I become a little more tolerant when I realize what he’s up against. If his centrist style of governance has these people up in arms, imagine the explosion if he really were bringing socialism to America, as they fear—and I can only dream!

This sounds familiar:

“‘Semi-authoritarian regimes’ have political parties and NGOs, hold elections, and look on paper as though they at least have some democratic attributes. But behind the scenes the power elite makes sure it remains in power and reduces the ‘democratic’ activities to a shadow play for the benefit of a restless domestic public and for that of international bureaucrats.”

Middle East expert Juan Cole thinks that American policy in recent years has encouraged the formation of semi-authoritarian regimes throughout the Middle East. Those that were pure dictatorships in the past have learned to hold elections without putting at risk the monopoly of their ruling elites. As Israel hardens its nature as an apartheid state, it is moving toward authoritarianism and away from democracy. In Iraq and Palestine, where the U.S. experimented with democratization but didn’t like the results, semi-authoritarian regimes have become the more comfortable path for U.S. interests. America’s clumsy attempt to support democratizing forces in Iran has led to more authoritarianism, not less. In the two cases he mentions where movement has been in the other direction, Turkey and Pakistan, greater popular control at the expense of the military is “disturbing the world status quo,” creating awkward relations with the U.S.

Cole concludes:

“You have to wonder how committed most Washington elites really are to democratization, and have to wonder whether semi-authoritarianism in Middle Eastern allies might not be perceived as holding benefits for the U.S.”

The book to which he refers in this post, Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism by Marina Ottaway, can be found here.