Let's Pretend We're Enemies

The success of the Arab summit will depend on whether or not the Arab masses believe that Saudi Arabia is becoming less friendly with America.

The Arabs Are Coming

Let's say you're Saudi Arabia and you're stuck with a strategic regional rival, Iran, whose President keeps blaring anti-western rhetoric that the Arabs just love to hear. How do you confront such a rampant threat?

How about restoring Arabism from the freezer to frame this conflict as one between Arabs and non Arabs (read Persians), mixing in some make-believe anti-Americanism to bring back the hardliners from Iran's lap into the fold, while discretely reshaping the Arab project into a more moderate and progressive project to placate western countries?

Don't bother worrying about what seems like an American/Saudi rift. In fact, the louder the noise, the merrier.

Who's The Guest?

Emile Lahoud insists that Lebanese PM Seniora will attend the Arab summit as a 'guest'. The Saudis don't agree

Don't let those pesky Arabs bully you

The Baabda palace issued a statement that the Arab League summit was for "kings, heads of state and princes" and that anyone else is only considered as a "guest."

Perhaps Mr. Lahhoud, who will be traveling abroad the MEA, should pick up a copy of the free "Al-Hayat" newspapers available on board. The newspaper, which is a Saudi Government media outlet, published today the agenda of the coming Arab summit. Here's the wording on Lebanon:

كما تناقش القمة توفير الدعم السياسي والاقتصادي للحكومة اللبنانية بما يحفظ الوحدة الوطنية وأمن لبنان واستقراره وسيادته على كامل أراضيه

Translation:
The summit will discuss providing political and economic support to the Lebanese Government to keep national unity and the security and stability of Lebanon and its sovereignty over all its territory.

It's obvious who the host thinks the unwelcome guest is.

Is War Nigh?

Something deep in my gut is not comfortable with the latest Iranian British row.


I was having a mental exercise the other day. I was trying to figure out how the U.S would ever pull off a war on Iran with all the troubles it's having at home with Iraq.

One of the 'creative' scenarios I thought of was this: The British would provoke the Iranians, the Iranians would over-react, Britain would then declare war and the US would have to "return the favor to our allies". A great excuse: "We can't leave our friends in this alone. They stood by us when we needed them most"

It's not as far-fetched as you might imagine. Just think of this: Britain has been the most hardline country when it comes to Iran in the last few weeks. From reports in its press about impending American air-Strikes on Iran to hardline comments made by the British ambassador to the Security Council about the futility of giving Iran second chances.

By seizing 15 UK royal marines for "suspicious acts", Iranians are effectively trying to get back at the Brits. Remember, we're talking about a country that went to war over a tiny Island at the other end of the world. The Brits are not happy. They are "Demanding" the release of the marines, you could actually smell the "or-else" in between the lines.

More worrying are the large scale Israeli-American missile defence exercises for what analysts said would be in the event of a war with Iran. America won't launch a war with Iran before warning the Israelis, and it seems they did.

The British media already seems very mobilized. Could this incident be the beginning of World War III? Let's hope not..

Crystal Ball Or Folly?

Thomas Friedman suggested that the King of Saudi Arabia should declare the next Arab peace initiative from the Israeli parliament.

A wild speculations from an out-of-touch western journalist? Perhaps. It would have been more so if the writer weren't Thomas Friedman, the journalist to whom King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, rather weirdly, first announced his Peace Plan back in 2002.

Tom Friedman's articles are regularly translated into Arabic in Al-Sharq Al Awsat and Al-Arabiya, (with few exceptions like this anti-Saudi article) both Saudi establishment media outlets. So Friedman, more than any other western journalist, is supposed to have the Saudi "ear".

Still, it is unclear whether today's article was a leak to prepare the public or simply unsolicited advice (more likely). What did he say?

Friedman starts by saying that Saudi Arabia has become "the new Egypt", the new leader in the Arab world, and praises the kingdom for its assertive diplomacy and its king's "integrity". Then he goes straight to the beef:

What the moribund Israeli-Palestinian talks need most today is an emotional breakthrough. Another Arab declaration, just reaffirming the Abdullah initiative, won’t cut it. If King Abdullah wants to lead — and he has the integrity and credibility to do so — he needs to fly from the Riyadh summit to Jerusalem and deliver the offer personally to the Israeli people

Then Friedman goes to the nuts and bolts of his "humble suggestion":

the Saudi king [should] make four stops. His first stop should be to Al Aksa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. There, he, the custodian of Mecca and Medina, could reaffirm the Muslim claim to Arab East Jerusalem by praying at Al Aksa.
[..]
From there, he could travel to Ramallah and address the Palestinian parliament, making clear that the Abdullah initiative aims to give Palestinians the leverage to offer Israel peace with the whole Arab world in return for full withdrawal
[..]
From there, King Abdullah could helicopter to Yad Vashem, the memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. A visit there would seal the deal with Israelis and affirm that the Muslim world rejects the Holocaust denialism of Iran. Then he could go to the Israeli parliament and formally deliver his peace initiative."

Alright, I guess he is just an out-of-touch Western journalist.

Targeting Education?

That they may have bombs and have it more abundantly

Almost a crime scene

It is hard to extract symbolism from today's "warning" acts. In one day, two education institutions, a venerable American university, and a school in a Beirut suburb were shaken by security warnings.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) woke up to the news of a bomb that was found in their 'secure' premises, while the students in the Gebran school in Bir Hassan came to school and found scores of soldiers and policemen searching their premises only to realize later that they were the subject of a phone hoax.

Every time Serges Brammertz, the head of commission investigating Hariri's murder, presents a progress report to the UN security council (which yesterday stopped short of naming Syria), you can expect security "warnings" in Beirut. But the fact that this time the target was two education institutes is a bit puzzling.

What are the perpetrators trying to say? If you go through with the tribunal, we will kill your youth and destroy your future?

If you have other suggestions please enlighten us.

A Parliament to Watch

In what I think is a first in Egyptian political history, on Sunday 18 March, 102 opposition legislators began a boycott of parliament’s plenary sessions. The sessions are devoted to swiftly passing what the Mubarak regime is calling “amendments” to the 1971 constitution. In reality, the alterations augment executive powers and constitutionalise the exclusion of Mubarak’s challengers. Naturally, what gave the protest its heft was the presence of 88 Muslim Brother deputies, but equally significant was the active participation of Hamdeen Sabahy and Saad Abboud from the Karama party, noteworthy independents such as Gamal Zahran and Alaa Abdel Moneim, and maverick Wafdist Mohamed Abdel Haleem, among others.

Under a blinding high noon sun, the deputies stood swaddled in black sashes protesting the “constitutional coup” and carried bright-yellow signs announcing the death of the constitution, the end of personal liberties, and the extinction of free elections. Some wore black ties in mourning. Ikhwan MP Mohsen Radi brandished the constitution and called out, “Here’s the constitution that the NDP wants to destroy.”












As prominent deputies made fiery statements to an army of jostling reporters and cameramen, I couldn’t help pondering a couple of glaring ironies. First, Mubarak’s tampering with the constitution has transformed a flawed and musty document into a significant contract of basic rights worth defending. Second, the regime’s attack on the last vestiges of constitutional freedoms is unintentionally fostering coordination and collective action by the parliamentary opposition. For the past several days, independent deputies have been deliberating round the clock to weigh various courses of action, including collective resignation. Ultimately, that option was dropped because (a) lack of time to investigate the full legal and political ramifications of such a momentous decision, (b) the regime would like nothing more than to be rid of the high percentage of opposition deputies and to engineer new, better controlled elections, and (c) the boycott proposal was floated by a dubious source: the revolting and utterly untrustworthy Mustafa Bakri, State Security’s point man in parliament (who of course was not among the 102 boycotters).

Obviously we’re still a very long way from a real parliament capable of both checking and bargaining with the executive and forging durable extra-parliamentary coalitions. But I can’t shake off the feeling that what happened Sunday portends something new, perhaps even the spark that may ignite the parliamentarisation of Egyptian politics. The group of 88 are complicating business as usual under the rotunda. Recall their stand against the extension of emergency rule last spring, their participation in the pro-judges’ protests, and their tireless challenges to Fathi Sorour. If coordination between them and other opposition deputies continues on a variety of issues, then we may have to start taking parliament seriously.




For a few hours on Sunday, the grounds of parliament were overrun by the authentic representatives of the people, not the overfed, under-qualified cronies of the ruling regime. Parliament security guards, administrative staff, and buffet personnel gaped in awe at the independent deputies and the media menagerie they attracted, recognising that they had done something new and important. Passers-by lingered to stare and listen. An elderly woman smiled and wondered out loud to no one in particular, “Today is your day. Is this going to be on television?”


This here is Hussein Abdel Hafeez. He was on his daily round of errands in government buildings when he saw the colourful protest, so he decided to watch what’s going on. He had no idea what the protest was about and didn’t care that much, but he did care that it took him entire days to get basic services from the government bureaucracy. He said the MPs looked like good people who would listen to ordinary people’s problems, so he joined in to support them in whatever it is they’re demanding.

But then again, public support is trifling compared to what was heaped on judges last spring. Parliament is still very much perceived as the home of crooks, charlatans, and crazies, an institution best dismissed and mocked, and always steadfastly avoided. I can’t imagine Egyptians taking to the streets to rally around their legislators. But I also can’t stop wondering when and how the People’s Assembly will turn into a real institution. When will parliament make a real claim to represent the people and check the executive branch? I have no idea, but I’d bet on the role of independent MPs, regardless of their political affiliation. Their burgeoning collective action, the linkages they forge with constituents, and their ability to annoy and perturb the ruling regime and break up its power monopoly are the real building blocks of representative democracy.

Spin The Picture

How the same picture can mean different things.

Not Just a Picture

So what does the picture above mean to you? The answer is: It depends on where you stand.

The picture of Saad Hariri, leader of the Lebanese parliamentary majority receiving a medal of honor from the French President Jacques Chirac was featured in just about every mainstream newspaper published in Beirut this morning.

But while it was a source of pride to pro-government newspapers like Al-Mustaqbal (Hariri owned) and Annahar, the same picture was used for more malicious ends by opposition media like Al-Akhbar and Assafir. Here's how:

Both newspapers featured the picture in large format, but didn't forget to couple it with reports by Israeli newspapers that Jacques Chirac (yes, the man in the picture) had urged the Israelis to invade Syria and topple its regime while the Lebanon Israel war was still waging back in summer. According to Al-Akhbar, a staunchly pro-Syrian newspaper, Chirac's only reason was: He was angry with Assad.

This is meant to embarrass March14 and label them as pro-western stooges willing to collaborate with foreigners who want to kill innocent Arabs. Expect the row to grow as the majority is not comfortable with such a guilt-by-association position.

Announcement!

Well, it finally had to happen, I guess. I have just moved my blog to the Tharwa Community. It can be accessed using the following link:

http://www.tharwacommunity.org/amarji/

I think the move makes some sense in light of the fact that Tharwa is indeed my own project, which I have been slaving over for a few years now. The new site uses Typepad which is a far more developed blogging tool than Blogger. The migration of the content from Blogger to Typepad was somewhat smooth, but there a few glitches that I need to work on iun due course of time. But, anybody with an email can still comment on the blog, so the move will not affect the ease with which we interact.

See you on the new site.

Axis Of Needles

A few months after the Iranians claimed that they found a cure for AIDS, a Lebanese doctor declared that he discovered a cure for Cancer.

You hear this stuff in the news all the time, but somehow it ends up fizzling.. Could these cases be any different? Could it be that all that is left is some testing time before an Iranian doctor and a Lebanese doctor share a podium for the Nobel prize for medicine?

I can Imagine Ahmadinajad telling the security council in New York next week:

"Look, our medical breaktrhough will save millions of people while our nuclear weapon can only kill tens of thousands. On the balance of it, we can have our nuclear cake, eat it, and still get both the Nobel prizes for medicine and for peace.."

Now that's a deal you can't refuse.

Michael Young responds to Joshua Landis (Remember him? the guy who won my award for the least insightful post on Lebanon?). Here's a highlight:

"Having been denied a timely chance to respond on his site, I do so here. Why should a row matter? It matters to me because in the polarized Lebanese atmosphere, fabricated accusations can be irresponsible, even dangerous. The theme of Landis' post is that Lebanon's Shiites, since they are under-represented in Parliament, are comparable to black slaves in America. For some reason Landis makes me the embodiment of those Lebanese denying Shiites their rights. This is troubling for being visibly personal in intent, given how inconsequential I am in the matter of Shiite power; but also because I've repeatedly argued that the Taif agreement needs overhauling so Shiites receive a greater stake in the system. I wrote last summer that "Taif was designed to build a post-war state. It should be re-tooled to bring the Shiite community back into the Lebanese fold."

Philosophical words from Akbar Hashimi Rafsanjani:

Now that Aoun has joined the Islamic resistance, the Islamic resistance is no longer... Euh, Islamic.
[Read more+]

Man2oush

Warning: Hazardous material if you're hungry, Lebanese and living outside of Lebanon.


Other great pictures here

Party Poopers

How the opposition's media is spoiling the fun.

While the March 14 media was celebrating the capture of a "Syrian-based terrorist network" and the March 14 Minister of Interior was busy pointing his official finger at Syrian intelligence, the Syrian-apologists immediately began casting doubt.

According to Assafir for example, the Interior minister "rushed into" accusing Syrian intelligence while Lebanese security sources were telling Pan-Arab TV stations that Al-Qaeda was behind the terrorist network.

Assafir sees no coincidence in the fact that the accusations came on the eve of the resumption of high-level talks between the European commission and Syria. (Javier Solana is coming to Damascus today) especially that Europe's agenda includes asking Syria to stop leaking weapons and terrorists to the Lebanese territories. (Assafir never says die to conspiracies)

Also according to Assafir , "Damascus visitors" see the accusations as an attempt to sabotage the efforts to restore a good relationship between the Syrians and Saudis/Egyptians.

Meanwhile, Al-Akhbar, while busy as usual splitting Lebanese Christians, cheekily slipped the fact that four of the captured are Saudi-nationals.

Finally, Aoun's FPM is still not totally convinced. Ibrahim Kenaan wants to see the evidence declassified as soon as possible, implying that the movement doesn't trust the Lebanese government. It seems the FPM is convinced that the evidence in ongoing large-scale anti-terrorist operations should always be available to the public.

Busted

Why it matters that the perpetrators of recent terrorist activities are caught.

They did this

Beirut is rejoicing. The police caught a terrorist network that confessed to committing the double-bus explosions on February 13 and to planning the assassination of 36 prominent Lebanese personalities. So why are the Lebanese so happy?

This event is significant for three reasons:

1- It will add substance to charges of Syrian meddling. All the captured carry Syrian passports and are lead by a Syrian national. This puts an end to the claims of pro-Syrian Lebanese groups that the anti-Syrians always level empty accusations against Syria, and that the perpetrators could as well be American or Israeli.

2- It will be an enormous psychological boost to wary Lebanese. Imagine living in a country where Ministers were killed regularly with impunity. The Lebanese had lost trust of the government's security agencies, while watching with envy how other countries usually catch high-profile criminals, like say Hrant Dink's killer in Turkey, in a matter of days.

3- It will deprive the opposition of an argument that sought to create moral equivalence between the pro-Syrians and the anti-Syrians. Namely that the government is not protecting its citizens and not doing its job properly, an accusation used by the likes of Michel Aoun to discredit Seniora's government (and the Minister of Interior)

The March 14 people just got a great gift on the eve of their anniversary.

The Dying of Old Damascus!

Despite ample protests by civil society advocates, current residents and international NGOs, the Syrian authorities are said to move forward with plans to destroy the last pieces of Old Damascus that remain just outside the Old City Walls, especially the area known as Souq al-Manakhliyyah. Should this indeed take place, thousands of Damascene families will be thrown out of their dwellings with little or no compensation, and a piece of history will perish forever. Unless we can bring prompt international attention to this matter, soon there will be nothing to protest, as we will all be faced with a fait accomplit.

This is not the first time that such a measure has been adopted by the Syrian authorities. Indeed, in the early 90s, the Syrian authorities destroyed much of the old dwellings encroaching upon the old dwellings encroaching on the walls of the Umayyad mosque, including the cloister of the famous medieval philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Protests came too late at that time as well.

If this trend should continue, soon there won’t be anything truly Damascene about Damascus. The old forest al-Ghouta has been all but completely wiped off, the River Barada, has all but completely dried up, Qasayoun, the simple of its resisting spirit, has long been tamed by squatter settlements, unruly development, and, of course, palaces. And death haunts the Old City itself. Old Damascus, it seems, is following, or, to be more exact, is made to follow, in the footsteps of Old Hama, albeit armed with nothing but whimpers.

It may not be too late, however, to prevent the crowning of this macabre achievement, if we made our protests loud enough and avoided, for the sake of Damascus at least, the overpoliticization of the issue - a pretty strange demand, I admit, coming from me.


This report is based on contact with an old friend who is in a position to know.

The Perils of Succession

There are few more profoundly grotesque and unjust practices in Egypt’s republican history than presidential referrals of civilians to military tribunals, civilians who have done nothing more than peacefully express their political beliefs. Each of Egypt’s three presidents has tried and failed to defeat his challengers by using this faux-legal instrument. Nasser referred communists and Muslim Brothers to trial, Sadat referred our beloved bard Ahmad Fu’ad Nigm to a military court (because he couldn’t handle being mocked by the great one), and since 1995 Mubarak has sent to trial the most effective cadres of the Muslim Brothers, usually in the run-up to elections. Sadly, his 6 February referral of 32 members of the Muslim Brothers to trial is nothing new, and neither is the crackdown that has netted the group’s leaders and economic assets. What has changed this time around is the political context.

What distinguishes Mubarak’s current manoeuvres from both his own earlier tactics and predecessors’ actions is the extraordinary degree of uncertainty surrounding his regime’s future. This does not mean that it will collapse any day now. It means that the regime is on the cusp of a very risky succession. With Hosni Mubarak’s rapidly advancing senility and Gamal Mubarak’s incremental supremacy, the moment of power transfer is imminent and its direction appears clear. But there are so many wild cards and possible eleventh-hour developments at this juncture that the only certainty is that extraordinary uncertainty will accompany the process of succession.

A Risky Proposition

Succession is always a tetchy matter for undemocratic regimes, but the danger is even more acute in this case where the man in charge has hogged power for 26 years without cultivating a successor other than his own dull and despised offspring. To thicken the plot, the succession scheme appears to involve elections as both the mechanism and the legitimation of the power handover. How else to interpret the engineering of new constitutional rules to disqualify the regime’s most effective electoral opponent (the Ikhwan) and defang effective electoral monitoring (by the judges)? But as we know, elections are an extraordinarily complicated, exhausting project involving intricate coordination between many sites and very high levels of uncertainty. It’s as if Mubarak’s regime picked the most risky successor possible and planned to install him using the riskiest method possible.

If we adopt the logical though not inevitable scenario that Gamal is the heir apparent, what Mubarak and his newly nuclear son have going for them is the tacit endorsement of foreign patrons, principally the Americans, the self-interested enthusiasm of a circle of crony businessmen, and the co-opted top officials of the sprawling bureaucracy. That leaves organized sectors of the domestic public to be neutralised and/or crushed. As for the preferences and proclivities of the rest of the population, that is a total enigma.

Thus, the official retaliation against university students for organizing free and fair parallel elections; the crackdown on the Ikhwan for making trouble in parliament and generally acting like a real political force; the ostensibly legal throttling of the Karama and Wasat parties; the low-intensity battle against recalcitrant judges waged by the new strongman Minister of Justice, and of course the brazen plan to doctor the 1971 constitution. These strikes are needed not simply because many of these sectors are deeply opposed to a Gamal Mubarak presidency, and not simply because all are campaigning for honest and fair elections, but because the regime feels the need to signal toughness. It fears that its opponents will catch whiffs of its vulnerability during this transitional phase and attempt to use it to their own advantage. Like an ageing neighbourhood bully who lives by the credo of force, Hosni Mubarak’s regime is all about projecting strength.

Signalling toughness is especially critical given the steady stream of crises over the past year. There’s the cascade of transportation disasters starting with the February 2006 al-Salam 98 ferry sinking and the August Qalyoub train collision; the socio-economic fallout from the avian flu outbreak, the spring 2006 pro-judges’ street protests; the remarkable string of labour strikes in 2006 and 2007; bloggers’ and independent newspapers’ broadcasting of citizen torture in police stations; protests over the construction of mobile phone towers, and the recent scandal over collusion between the Health Ministry and a Gamal crony in disseminating contaminated blood bags.

For the most part, these are separate incidents, but their rapid cascade and government agents’ entanglement in each heighten the ambient sense of an embattled regime unable to control society. To make matters worse for the architects of succession, Egyptians have been a very contentious lot for some time now, yelling and screaming and complaining in a most unbecoming manner. They’ve been downright impudent and grabby, wanting rights and dignity and independence and fairness and so forth. And they’ve been organising to get those things. That can’t be allowed to stand.

Crushing the Ikhwan

Embarking on an electoral-hereditary succession means eliminating your most potent electoral rival. Hence the regime’s current crackdown on the Ikhwan. But there’s just one annoying kink: the Brothers are stronger today than at any time during Mubarak’s tenure. This is because of their relative success over the past ten years in building bridges with key actors: voters, nationalist and secular intellectuals and competing political forces, foreign parties, and their own sprawling membership base. Before and after their stunning performance in the 2005 elections, the Ikhwan put considerable effort in a reputation-building project aimed at normalising their position in Egyptian political life and transcending the silly but real constraint of their nominal illegality. They built effective, regularised links to constituents, courted secular rivals and assuaged their fears, and piqued the interest of foreign governments, whose agents began to probe the possibilities of engagement with the officially banned group. Equally important, the Ikhwan in the last few years have been working on their internal organisation. They have tried to re-establish ruptured ties between the leadership and rank-and-file, and worked to manage ideological, generational, and personality conflicts among their top decision-makers.

It doesn’t take a genius to see why this would constitute a nightmare for Hosni Mubarak. The Ikhwan’s capture of 88 seats in the 2005 vote was very inconvenient, causing the shaken regime to postpone municipal elections to avoid a damaging repeat, and to gain some breathing space to cook up the succession scheme. At first, the counter-mobilisation against the Ikhwan was predictable, reinforcing the group’s plucky underdog image and increasing public sympathy. In spring 2006, hundreds of Ikhwan were arrested for months for participating in the pro-judges’ protests (including Essam al-Eryan and Muhammad Mursi). Then, in a repeat of the 2005 vote, the government came out in full force to block the group from participating in the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce elections.

In April, to prevent professors affiliated with the group from holding faculty club elections, Alexandria University administrators locked the campus gates; professors had to convene their general assembly in the open air on the corniche. Meanwhile in parliament, the Ikhwan’s 88 deputies have been complicating the regime’s command and control tasks in this important arena, constantly sparring with Speaker-for-life Fathi Sorour and pressing parliamentary investigation of such inconvenient issues as very high-ranking official malfeasance in the Salam 98 sinking.

But it was an incident that took place on 10 December that was the regime’s real opportunity to roll back Ikhwan gains. On that day, Ikhwan students at al-Azhar were protesting their university administration’s obstruction of student union elections. During the protest, a contingent of students performed martial arts exercises, their faces swaddled in black, Hamas-style. Seizing this heaven-sent gift, the regime orchestrated a highly organised campaign in all of its publications and broadcast outlets designed to repel and frighten public opinion, just when it had gingerly begun to accept the group. The regime’s agents (from the president of al-Azhar University to State Security investigators to the lowliest government scribe) successfully portrayed the Ikhwan as a sinister, secretive organisation methodically infiltrating all critical societal institutions with the intent of taking over the country and turning it into an Islamic caliphate. Naturally, the specific context of the students’ act was obliterated to sow indiscriminate mistrust and fear, especially among those segments of the public that had always eyed the Ikhwan with some suspicion.

The spectre of the group’s 1940s violent wing was craftily invoked, in one fell swoop erasing years of work by the Ikhwan’s members to fend off claims that they’re nourishing militant underground cells ready to strike at the right moment. It was only a logical step for the government to then round up the organisation’s best cadres and send them to a military tribunal that would reliably put them behind bars for at least three years, thus depriving the group of critical skills and assets and fomenting internal dissension and confusion.

Abetting the regime’s offensive was the flustered response of the Ikhwan’s leadership. First they wrote off the martial arts exercise as a harmless skit, then they pooh-poohed it as a silly act by immature students, then they compelled the students to issue an ‘apology’ (thus reinforcing government claims of a militant organisation run by a handful of shadowy decision-makers), then they said they would form an official political party, then they backtracked and denied this. It would be an exaggeration to claim that Hosni Mubarak’s regime has wrought permanent damage to the Ikhwan’s carefully built political reputation. What the regime has done is recoup some of its own reputation for effortless control. This need to project strength is vital when considering the government’s unexpectedly non-violent response to striking workers.

Caressing Labour

The last thing the regime wants is a labour mutiny on its hands when all its energies need to be devoted to engineering succession. So aggrieved labourers need to be neutralised. I don’t think anyone has failed to notice the comparatively ‘soft’ manner in which Mubarak’s regime has handled the series of worker strikes at textile and cement factories and the national railways. This is noteworthy not just because of the contrasting gruffness with which Muslim Brothers and judges have been treated, but because of Mubarak’s past handling of organised labour action: the 1984-1987 wave of worker protest was met with swift police violence, mass arrests, and grave legal reprisals: in 1986, striking train drivers were referred to a High State Security court (it eventually acquitted them).

There’s one obvious reason why labour is treated differently: the regime’s security agents calculate that it would be suicidal to put down thousands of very angry labourers radicalised by years of substandard work conditions, maimed by avoidable workplace injuries, and steeped in a culture of collective action and protest. Putting down a few dozen white-collar demonstrators in the centre of the capital is easy, but wading into a sea of livid blue-collar protesters is another story entirely. Violent suppression at one plant could unleash a hellish cycle of copycat strikes, increased public outrage, more violence, and real instability that could seriously threaten regime survival.

There’s another important element in this wave of strikes that distinguishes it from past waves and gives the regime pause. Workers are not only demanding fair wages, payment of delayed bonuses, safer working conditions, and more benefits. And they’re not just blaming management anymore. They’re making concrete moves to recall their local union officials by organising massive petition drives for votes of no-confidence, and failing that, they’re threatening to simply withdraw from local union membership. Why does this matter? Because for as long as they’ve existed, the local unions have served as critical levers of state control over labour rather than as mechanisms for the representation of workers’ interests. The present wave of worker strikes is intimately connected to workers’ struggle for real representation.

Last year, workers began their collective action in the run-up to trade union elections to gain some leverage during a vote they knew would be cooked. When, as expected, independent candidates were barred from running and the same old cronies were elected, workers resumed their strike action. Their goal is to overhaul the structures that ostensibly represent their interests but in reality work to monitor their behaviour and abort incipient collective action. This is deeply threatening to the regime: a gathering mutiny against local union officials strikes at the heart of the state’s control and command structure over the critical sector of labour.

Thus, in a manner not seen in other areas of Egyptian politics, high-ranking officials have personally and publicly intervened to negotiate with and cajole striking workers, promising to deliver their unpaid bonuses and incentives in hopes of snuffing out grievances over representation. Everyone from the chairman of ETUF to the Minister of Labour to provincial governors have waded into the midst of the strikers, laden with conciliatory words and promises and a generous smattering of paternalistic discourse, as when Aisha Abdel Hady volunteered the information that Hosni Mubarak cannot sleep at night if he feels there is a single unhappy worker. Madame Abdel Hady has also recently exhibited a strong allergy to the term “civil disobedience.” During a parliamentary discussion of a possible wave of societal disobedience led by striking workers, she firmly averred that “civil disobedience” is not part of the make-up (khameera) of the Egyptian worker.

Containing Judges

Mubarak’s regime knows that we know that it has conceded to worker demands, and that this knowledge might provoke other forces to engage in collective action to gain concessions from a regime that has built its reputation on never negotiating. So it is of critical importance that it apply maximum toughness with the one other sector that can make a credible bid at negotiation: judges. Indeed, one reason why Minister of Justice Mahmoud Abou el-Layl was removed was that he showed too much readiness to negotiate and give and take with judges. His replacement is a perfect embodiment of the credo of non-negotiation.

Mamdouh Marei’s personal style and professional background are all about issuing orders: as a person, he’s brusque and bossy. Professionally, he does not practice collegiality but is condescending and supercilious, qualities he acquired from years at the helm of the judicial internal affairs department in the Ministry of Justice. Let’s not forget that his recent term of service as Chairman of the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC) drove a huge wedge between him and thousands of reformist judges. All in all, he is the perfect candidate for the job of quashing the movement for judicial reform and clean elections.

Marei and his bosses know from last spring that a PR campaign to discredit reformist judges will carry no weight with a public that adores and idolises leaders of the judicial independence movement. So Marei has cunningly selected an alternative, much more effective plank: judicial modernisation. Under this general rubric, Marei will focus on three tracks: judicial training, services and support, and the induction of women into the profession. How will these fragment and weaken reformist judges?

First, Marei will hitch onto the genuine problem of the abysmal training judges receive to push the idea that judicial supervision of elections should be at the bottom of judges’ priorities. Judges belong on the bench, not in the polling station, goes the technically correct argument. Instead of being drawn into the exhausting minutiae of electoral disputes, judges should focus their energies on professional development and the Ministry will help them do that. Judges who insist on “one judge for every ballot box” will appear to be ignoring their duties and ‘becoming involved in politics.’ The judicial training argument has real potential to divide the clean elections movement because it resonates with a strong current of opinion among judges.

Marei’s second strategy is to erode the mobilising potential of judges’ Clubs, particularly in Cairo and Alexandria. To this end, he has already started installing all sorts of critical judicial support services within courthouses (especially primary courts) so that judges won’t ever need to go to their Clubs for bank services and loans, housing and mobile phone benefits, and a host of other auxiliary services. At the same time, earmarked Ministry of Justice funds to the Clubs are being dried up or cut off altogether, and public utility companies are instructed to cut off or scale back water and electricity service. However, reformist judges are very alert to this strategy and have counteracted Marei’s actions by unanimously voting to raise individual monthly dues to their Clubs from £E2 to £E20.

The third strategy portrays the regime as the progressive, courageous champion of women’s rights valiantly resisting sexist, exclusionary judges who preach democracy and reform but refuse to allow women entry into the judiciary. Women’s accession to the judiciary in Egypt has been a hot button issue among judges for at least 10 years, eliciting very strong feelings, with a minority of ardent supporters and a majority of variously motivated detractors. Marei has already selected 124 women legal officers for qualifying exams and training in the National Center for Judicial Studies in preparation for their admission into the profession. By playing the woman card, the regime burnishes its own reputation, casts doubt on the integrity of its judicial critics, and drives a wedge between pro- and anti-women judges within the judicial reform movement that the regime hopes will block further collective action.

It’s far too early to call Marei’s strategies unequivocal successes or failures. So far, he has managed to bring together the conventionally separate administrative judges with the rest of the judicial corps in unified opposition to his policies and tough guy persona. The cynical bid to appear as the champion of women’s rights is waved off by judges as Marei’s toadying to Suzanne Mubarak’s wishes, and of course Suzanne’s imprimatur is a political kiss of death. Whether the regime will attain its real objective of wresting electoral supervision away from the Judges Club and entrusting it to a pliable central Commission remains an open question.

Savouring the Irony

Would Mubarak’s regime be crushing the Ikhwan, containing judges, and managing labour unrest if it wasn’t embarking on a delicate, very unpopular, and sure to be undemocratic succession? Absolutely. The difference that succession makes is that all of these manoeuvres become matters of political survival rather than garden variety political management. By raising the stakes, the regime unwittingly invites political challenges, unforeseen alliances, unexpected mobilisation, and acts of political adventurism and risk-taking unlikely in normal times; think of Ayman Nour’s gamble for the presidency that catapulted him from a small-time politician to a heroic national figure and international cause célèbre. Even if the succession proceeds smoothly, the post-succession days, weeks, and months promise to be full of turbulence as the heir works to consolidate his rule in the all-important early phases.

How ironic that in attempting to secure his regime’s survival, Mubarak is actually ushering in one of the most uncertain political junctures in Egypt’s republican history. It’s just like when his amendment of Article 76 to transfer the presidency to a handpicked successor actually turned into multiple opportunities for political mobilisation and societal protest. I’d like to think that the perils of succession might also hold the possibilities of an incrementally more democratic politics, with new actors plunging into the fray, old actors reinventing themselves, new alliances struck, and more competition in the political arena. Prescience or wishful thinking? I can hardly wait to find out.

*All Photos from AP.