Security, not Politics, primary concern of the Tunisians

By Wafa Amr

TUNIS-Three years after setting off what became known as the Arab Spring, Tunisia has taken wide strides towards democratization. Compared to the ongoing tension in Egypt, a bloody conflict in Syria, chaos and violence in Libya, fighting in Yemen, and political challenges  or simmering anger elsewhere in the Arab world, Tunisia is celebrated as the Arab Spring’s success story.

The Tunisian people are cautiously hopeful. They are in a “wait and see” mode. The passing of a new constitution hailed by the world as the most moderate in the Arab world, has put Tunisia on the right track.  (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eca21fa6-8734-11e3-ba87-00144feab7de.html#axzz2x8FX5y6x)

 

“The constitution is good, but it has loopholes. Critical articles in the constitution are vague, and could be interpreted in many ways. Let’s wait and see how it will be implemented,” said 24-year-old bank employee Zina.

I spent some time in Tunisia speaking to people from different wakes of life, the poor, the rich, young and old. I was struck by the pessimism, by the feeling that the revolution has indeed changed their lives, but not for the better. Everywhere I went, I heard people reminiscing about the days under the ousted dictator Zein El Abidine Bin Ali.

But why? I asked in surprise. They told me that freedom has come with chaos and shocking violence, a deteriorating economy, and a significant rise in poverty.

(http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/tunisia/137-tunisia-violence-and-the-salafi-challenge.aspx)

There were those who carried similar frustrations, but who also were hopeful that with time, the new rulers would save the country and contain the extremists.

“It will take time, but I’m confident Tunisia will improve. I have no regrets. We are in a much better situation than we have been under Bin Ali,” Sidi Wasseem told me.

Politics is not the primary concern for Tunisians. Security and the economy have become the most pressing issues for Tunisians who have enjoyed stability and peace for as long as they can remember, and who thought after the revolution, their economic woes would disappear. .

Police have manned checkpoints in different parts of the capital Tunis, but they too complained of low wages and the harshness of life. One policeman said he could barely make ends meet, and was hoping to secure a loan from a bank to feed his big family.

“We knew Bin Ali and his cronies were stealing the country, but we had a stable economy, we lived sort of comfortably,” Najwa, a teacher and mother of three, said.

“We were better off under Bin Ali,” she said. “I don’t know how to manage with my salary. Food prices have risen significantly, rents too, everything is more expensive now,” she added.

The Tunisian economy was stable under Ben Ali. Unemployment was high then, it is high now. There were almost daily street protests demanding jobs or higher wages in different parts of the country.  

The government is struggling to improve the economy and attract foreign investment following its success in achieving political stability.  

Tourism and foreign investment have suffered since the revolution. The violence and uncertainty have kept tourists and investors away. Hotels have minimum occupancy, I was told.

People speak about the rising crime and chaos in their country.

“Look at the women and men begging on the streets. Now they are everywhere,” said Ameena, a university graduate searching for a job.

 

Egypt, what next?

Cairo, a lively city that never sleeps, defiant as ever.  

I recently visited Cairo for the first time in seven months. Back in April, it was still under the rule of the Moslem Brotherhood. People then grumbled about economic devastation and political restrictions: these included fuel shortages, power outages, the Brotherhood’s attempts to monopolize power, chaos, restriction on the freedom of speech, and lack of security, among others.  

In November, Egypt’s  former presidents, Hosni Mubarak and Mohammed Morsi were both in jail, the military was in charge, and the Gulf were pumping money into the economy to help the county’s second transition. Society has become extremely polarized and intolerance of the other prevailed.

This time, people were still complaining about the economy and political domination, but there was a general sense of hope that life could gradually improve. There were some who shyly expressed concern about what they called “the culture of fear” that was seeping back into their lives.  

The Islamists, reeling from a devastating defeat after the June 30 ousting of Morsi, seemed to have lost much of their support, not only in Cairo of 18 million, but also in villages and towns throughout the country. Morsi’s supporters, the core of the Moslem Brotherhood, lamenting what they see as the unlawful ousting of their rule, are convinced they can salvage their losses if they resort to the streets. There was sporadic violence in Cairo, and the new regime was pressing forcefully with what they called “the fight against terrorism”.
 

The interim government is driven by determination to restore normalcy, and to ensure there was no turning back.

People were handling the change differently. The media hails the military rule. The notion of eliminating the other side has become widely accepted as the people were fed one narrative. Those who question the logic behind the firmness in dealing with the Islamists are a minority. Army Chief General Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi is glorified a national hero, and a pro-army song “Tislam al-Ayadi” or “Well-Done” has become the number one hit in Egypt these days, a symbol of the resurgence of nationalism in the country. Another song called “A Message from the Egyptian Children to the Whole World” has school children dressed in military suits saluting the Egyptian flag and singing of their love for their country.  

One can easily be put in the mind frame that the nation was pitted against an enemy. The people rallied around a “person”, not an ideology or a political program. They now seek a military ruler, hoping he would end the chaos and restore the sense of security lost since Mubarak was toppled. Issues such as democracy or human rights are secondary as the country undergoes its second major transition.

A taxi driver told me that democracy and human rights are a “luxury”.
 

“People have other more important things to worry about, such as security and bread. We want to feel safe, we want tourists to return, and we want the economy to improve. I have not slept for two nights driving this taxi to try to come up with enough money that will pay for the cost of renting this taxi. I have not made enough money to buy dinner for my family,” he said.

Others I chatted with in shops or on the streets, even in the well-off neighborhoods of Zamalek and Garden City, echoed the same sentiments.  

What needs to be done to change things for the better? I asked a friend, an academic.

“The people need to get angry again so things can happen. The situation is not expected to get better soon,” my friend said.

The liberals, united in their opposition to Morsi and his movement, no longer face the Islamist threat, but they still have not organized, and still have little grassroots support. Some people are also asking: where have the January 25, 2011 activists who sparked the revolution and were expected to lead, gone? I was told those young people, who called for freedom and social justice, are dispersed. They say some may have left the country, such as Wael Ghuneim, others gave up in frustration at the democracy failure, while others are defamed and accused of acquiring funds from foreign countries.   

“Nobody knows where the country is going,” a journalist colleague told me.
 

Diplomats however, paint a more cautiously positive picture, and believe that with time, security and political conditions will improve. They are however concerned about the apparent hesitancy to implement economic reforms for fear of a popular backlash. The Gulf will not pour money forever, and unless reforms are carried out, Egypt could find itself in a worse situation than it was under the Moslem Brotherhood, several diplomats noted. The other challenge for the new rulers is to hold elections as planned next year, and proceed on the path to democracy, they added. 

Businessmen said foreign and Egyptian investors have not returned after the June 30, 2013 ousting of Morsi, and neither have the tourists. Stable owners at the Pyramids complained they have not seen a foreign tourist in months, and they did not have enough to feed their horses. I felt sorry for Jamil, the horse I rode around the Pyramids. He was skinny, and undernourished.
 

What will you do if the economic situation doesn’t improve after a year or so? I asked an unemployed father of eight sipping tea in a café in one of Cairo’s less privileged neighborhoods.

“We might revolt again against the revolution. I want a job, I want to feed my children, that is all I care about now,” he said.   

In Washington, Malala Makes Passionate Plea for Women's Rights

 

 

Tears welled up in the eyes of some women listening to 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai speak to a crowd at the World Bank today. Her audience were deeply touched by her story and courage as she advocated for girl’s education.  

“I’m proud to be a girl because we girls can change the world,” Malala told her mesmerized audience. I felt a chill run through my body at her strong words and her determination to pursue the struggle for the education of girls like her, banned from education.  

One year ago, on October 9, 2012, Malala, the daughter of a school owner, almost lost her life when she was shot in the head by an extremist Talibani as she rode a bus home from school in Pakistan. The Taliban movement in her remote valley in Pakistan had banned education of girls in her region. 

Malala survived, but her face remains partly paralyzed from the point-blank range shooting. Her painful experience, at such a young age, turned her into a brave, global symbol of peaceful activism, and she became the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

At an hour-long debate with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Malala spoke with passion, boldness, and confidence. She pleaded for collective work to help girls win their right to education.  

Not many of us have to risk our lives to go to school. In several conservative regions in the Middle East where I come from, many girls banned by their culture and families from education, and are married off at a young age, have not walked the path Malala took. They submitted to their fate, and lived a bitterly painful life. Other women however, are defying their cultures to fight for their right to drive, to enter the labour force, and to resist child marriage. It is not easy for women to extract their rights in a society that uses and twists religion to persecute women. Despite the difficulties, women’s movements in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa have made wide strides.  

Today, Masood Ahmed, Director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, spoke to reporters at the IMF about the importance of women’s participation in the labor force in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. He said the female labour force participation was low in the MENA region, actually, the gap between male and female labour force participation there remains the widest in the world, and has grave economic implications. He said policies can make a difference by raising women’s educational attainment and benefits for working parents, reducing gender wage gaps, and supporting women’s independent mobility and equal opportunity in employment.  

“I believe in the power of the wisdom of women. I believe when we walk together, it will be easy to achieve our goals,” Malala, wearing a black head scarf and traditional Pakistani dress, said, surrounded by applause and admiration in Washington, D.C. She is in the United States to promote her book titled “I Am Malala”, written with foreign correspondent Christina Lamb.

 

Malala wanted to be a doctor, but after her shooting, she wants to be a politician.

“If I become a politician, I can help make a tomorrow where there are no more cases of people being shot,” she said.

Malala announced the creation of the Malala Fund to help educate girls, to which immediately Kim donated $200,000 from the World Bank.

"Now millions of girls are raising their voice...but we need to work hard  and to work together," Malala said.

 

  

Downfall of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood a blow for political Islam

The ousting of  Mohammad Morsi, Egypt's first civilian, democratically elected president today, is  a drastic defeat for political Islam in the traditionally conservative, religious Egypt.  The rebellion of millions of Egyptians against the rule of the Moslem Brotherhood will have wider repercussions in the region that is witnessing unprecedented political and social transitions. The toppling of the Ikhwan, however, does not mean that people in Egypt are demanding the "secular" rule. 

Egypt's military forces removed Morsi, suspended the Constitution, and installed an interim government, placed Morsi and senior Muslim Brotherhood officials under house arrest, and called on all sides to prepare for early presidential elections and a parliamentary vote, thus ending a little over a year of Islamists' rule. The military orchestrated their move carefully, bringing along political and religious figures to avoid calling their intervention a "coup". This was accompanied by a crackdown on Islamists' media outlets and supporters in Alexandria mosques and elsewhere throughout the country. The salafis, who won a majority in last year's parliamentary elections, chose to quickly endorse the military's road map.

The country remains deeply split. The ouster of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood throws the country into the unknown, with a danger of reprisals and confrontation. The question is whether the country will take the course of democracy.

The Moslem Brotherhood, working against time to control the country, had angered the public and isolated other political parties, including the salafis. The people felt the Muslim Brotherhood was  "ikhwanising" state institutions, and had poorly managed a country delving deeper into economic woes and chaos.

"For the thousandth time, we say that President Mosris had made big mistakes, be in in tackling internal Egyptian issues, or Arab affairs, foremost the Palestinian and Syrian files," AbdelBari Atwan, editor of al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper wrote in his editorial today.

Palestinians in West Bank cities, rejoiced the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The "coup" in Gaza in 2007, had led to the division of the future Palestinian state and placed the coastal strip under the Islamist rule of Hamas. Inspired by the popular rebellion launched by the "Tamarrud" group in Egypt, a Palestinian group in Gaza, calling itself "Tamarrud Gaza", issued a statement on facebook to oust Hamas from Gaza. In Tunis, small groups of youth were reorganizing to follow Egypt's suit.

For now, the Egyptians have succeeded in giving themselves another chance at achieving their Arab Spring
The transitions in the Arab world are incomplete, and the future remains uncertain. . Will we see more bloodshed before a "modern, civilian" rule is installed in these countries, or will  the second phase of the "Arab Spring" take a more democratic course?

Birth Certificate for the State of Palestine

Sixty-five years after the U.N. partitioned mandatory Palestine, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recognize Palestine a non-member observer state. 138 countries voted in favour, 41 abstained, and 9 rejected. For Palestinians struggling for statehood, it is the beginning towards recognition as a full member state in the international body.
http://youtu.be/dxx9eoKpYBU
Though symbolic, the move was a historic recognition for the Palestinians, a step towards a dream that slowly seemed to materialize into reality. The word "PALESTINE" is rooted in the depth of every Palestinian. It means identity for the uprooted people scattered across the world, many driven in 1948 to live in squalid refugee camps, while many others became pillars and builders of countries in the Middle East.
People wept when the vote was announced at the U.N.'s General Assembly in New York today. Delegation members hugged and congratulated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who defied intense pressure from the U.S. and other Western powers to back down.
Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah and elsewhere in PALESTINE celebrated, danced, and chanted  national songs.
"We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather, we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine," Abbas said in his historic speech at the U.N.
The Palestinian state that was recognized today is 22 percent of mandatory Palestine: the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital, a victory  for the Palestinians, a rebuff to Israel and its allies.But for the move to advance towards peace and a two-state solutio, U.S. meaningful involvement is required.
The hope that was placed on U.S. President Barack Obama after his election in 2009 subsided quickly as he proved unable or hesitant to change the rules of the Amerian game. Like his predecessors, he placed presure on the Palestinian leaders to make unilateral compromises that did not and would not lead to a 2-state solution.
The late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had accepted the Oslo Accords in 1993 as a stepping stone for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. He died without realizing the dream he lived and struggled for. His body was exhumed two days ago to search for evidence that he was poisoned. Peace talks have stalled, and violence replaced peace moves. The state that Arafat sought became cantons divided by walls and checkpoints.
Abbas believed it was now or never. Abbas, a form believer in peace, was determined to win recognition for a state under occupation.He has warned that the window  for a two-state solution was closing, and hopes the U.N. recognition would nudge the U.S. to break the impasse and work towards meaningful talks.
The boundaries of Falasteen, or Palestine, the area between the Mediterranean Sea and th Jordan River, have changed over the years.
In 1994, Jordan's King Hussein told me he worked towards peace between Israel and Jordan to protect  the borders of his Kingdom. Today, Abbas won recognition for the boundaries of the Palestinian state under occupation.

MARIE COLVIN

It is with deep sorrow that I write today about the loss of my dear friend, Marie Colvin, who, just a few months ago, urged me never to stop writing.

I still remember  the  sms messages she sent me from Cairo. I was working for UNHCR, sitting in my office in Beirut, watching the Revolution on TV and aching to be with Marie in Tahrir Square. “Your place is here, not in an office, come to Tahrir. I’m waiting for you,” Marie wrote.

Again, she would call me from Libya to tell me how much excitement I was missing by not covering the war there, and the sadness that filled her heart to see so many people killed.  

I have worked closely with Marie since 1987. We shared the good and bad times. I learned so much from her, about life, and journalism.

Our foreign correspondent friends in Jerusalem would look at us in confusion and disbelief when we told them about the great time we had covering stories in Gaza, a, a city many would visit only if a big story unraveled, but a place we made our second home.

We covered peace and war, and the adrenaline kept us going, believing that the more risk we took, the more deeply we would seek the truth and relay it to the world.

I worked with Marie during the first and second wars in Iraq. Her passion for seeking the truth stopped at nothing. I remember how her dedication to help people made her rent a bulldozer in Iraq to uncover mass graves and help families reunite with the bones of their loved ones.

Her courage was unique. Wars she covered in all places of the earth should have hardened her, but she was soft, kind, and caring. She was not tough. The kind of human stories she told so well showed the real  person she was.

She lived her life passionately, both as a journalist and as a human being. War correspondents are not normal human beings, she would tell me.

It is rare to find journalists so dedicated. She risked death so many times, we knew she would die trying to save lives, but the loss of such a legendary journalist and a good friend is always shocking.

She did not go to wars to prove herself, she had a point to prove, she was on a mission.

Last month I invited her to my new home in Washington and told her: “Take care of yourself”, she replied, “You know me”.

It’s a very sad day for all of us. This day underlines the risks journalists take.

Abbas issues emotional plea for Palestinian statehood recognition at UN

GENERAL ASSEMBLY, United Nations- It was a historic, emotional day for the Palestinian people.

Many members of the Palestinian delegation and may others sitting in the hall and balconies of the General Assembly wept as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made his passionate plea for state recognition on behalf of his people.

As a refugee himself, uprooted from his hometown in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, Abbas spoke of the pain of displacement and the suffering of the refugees. "Enough, enough, enough," he said. "It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and independence...to end their displacement and end their plight."

"This is the moment of truth...we are the last people to remain under occupation," the Palestinian President said.

Abbas was welcomed to the podium by applause, cheers, and a standing ovation by many delegates, not including the Americans and Israelis who seemed isolated by their rejection of the Palestinian decision to approach the United Nations. He was interrupted 15 times by applause and cheers during his speech.

Abbas did not spare the U.S. and Israel from criticism.

"I don't believe anyone with a shred of conscience can reject our application for a full membership at the UN and our admission as a state," he said.

It was obvious Abbas was impatient with Israel's rejection to halt settlement expansion and with the U.S.' inability and refusal to press Israel to accept agreed parameters after 20 years of futile negotiations.

Abbas' credibility was on line. He knew he could not go on negotiating forever. His people gave negotiations a chance and were losing patience.

 The status quo of building more settlements, changing facts on the ground, demolition of homes, the eviction of Palestinians from Jerusalem, and many more actions would have imminently led to violent protests.

The Palestinian President urged his people to use peaceful means to resist occupation.

In an unprecedented move, Abbas warned of the possibility of the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and the death of the two-state solution if the Palestinians continued to be deprived of freedom and independence.

"This policy will destroy the chances of achieving a two-State solution which enjoys international consensus, and here I warn loudly: The settlements policy threatens to also undermine the structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even end its existence," Abbas said.

It was an appointment with history for many Palestinians. For others, such as Abbas' rival Hamas, it was a symbolic move void of content.

An Arab American friend agreed and said" As long as the Palestinians approach the world with emotions, they will never get a state."

A Jordanian of Palestinian origin called me from Amman to say that the speech made him feel "proud, and hoped this UN bid will bring the Palestinians a step closer to their state."
It is not clear what step the Palestinians will take next. But whatever it is, it does not look like they're heading for negotiations with this Israeli government any time soon.