a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

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http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/14/cairo_s_judicial_coup

goole, Thursday, 14 June 2012 17:25 (eleven years ago) link

ah okay, this is the answer I was looking for

The parliamentary election law also ran against past SCC rulings requiring independents to have the same chances to get elected as party members. Of course, since the two-thirds of seats assigned to party lists were written into the constitutional declaration (as amended in September 2011), so that could not be challenged easily. But for the remaining one-third the case of unconstitutionality was easier to make. (Past rulings rested in part on constitutional rights in the 1971 constitution that had been removed from the March 2011 constitutional declaration, as Harvard's Tarek Masoud has pointed out. But there was still strong jurisprudence suggesting that the court regarded the system as discriminatory against Egyptians who were not members of any party.)

a dense custard of infinity (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 14 June 2012 17:28 (eleven years ago) link

Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel-Prize winning diplomat who withdrew from the presidential election in January because of the military's continued hold on power, warned that electing a president with no Parliament and no constitution was a recipe for dictatorship.

As the state-owned Ahram Online reports, Mr. ElBaradei "proposed two solutions to the current crisis: the first would be the formation of a 'presidential council' tasked with choosing members of the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution, along with the appointment of a 'national salvation' government to preside over fresh parliamentary and presidential elections once a new constitution is written. The second solution proposed by ElBaradei would be to elect an interim president who would then appoint a national salvation government and preside over a consensual committee tasked with choosing Constituent Assembly members, with presidential and parliamentary polls to be held once a new constitution has been drafted."

Mr. ElBaradei's was been calling for such an arrangement for months, and warning that the conditions in Egypt are still not right for a presidential election.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/latest-updates-on-electoral-turmoil-in-egypt/

curmudgeon, Thursday, 14 June 2012 17:29 (eleven years ago) link

alas, looks like the "cynics" were right.

There's a documentary film making the rounds in which the Tahrir demonstrators voice skepticism (in Feb 2011) about all this "support" from the army.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/tahrir-liberation-square/6336

Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 June 2012 16:50 (eleven years ago) link

What a mess.

Then there's this

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-islamic-banking-.html

the Brotherhood’s economic policies may run counter to demands for social justice and better living conditions for Egypt’s poor.

“Their economic doctrine is not really attentive to social justice; it is very right-wing capitalist,” Sherif said. “They aren’t interested in any social restructuring that can be disruptive to this, especially in Egypt, because there are liberals who are widely represented in the economy.”

curmudgeon, Friday, 15 June 2012 19:11 (eleven years ago) link

from what i know it's hard to place the economics of the country or its parties' proposals. the generals/military/ruling party own everything worth owning. a "right wing capitalist" position could mean making them divest everything. or nationalizing it and then selling off, or whatever.

goole, Friday, 15 June 2012 19:16 (eleven years ago) link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/15/egypt-mohamed-elbaradei-warning

At times ElBaradei has been viewed as an opposition figurehead who occupied the rare position of being able to command respect from revolutionaries, secular liberals and political Islamists. On Friday, though, he spoke out against a catalogue of revolutionary mismanagement on all sides, with his harshest words reserved for the Muslim Brotherhood – whose role in the past year's "transition process" has led many pro-change activists to blame political Islamists for empowering the military and being sucked into an electoral game designed to give the old regime a facade of democratic legitimacy.

curmudgeon, Friday, 15 June 2012 19:19 (eleven years ago) link

I wish Nahguib Mahfouz had lived to see this and write about it

a dense custard of infinity (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 15 June 2012 19:21 (eleven years ago) link

He also argued that revolutionary momentum had been stalled by the failure of young protesters to embrace institutional leadership – wading into a thorny debate over the relative merits of horizontal and "leaderless" political change about which many activists feel strongly.

"The mortal mistake was that from day one the youth never agreed on a unified demand and never agreed to delegate authority to a group of people to speak on their behalf," said ElBaradei.

heh

a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Friday, 15 June 2012 19:29 (eleven years ago) link

i miss mahfouz too.

a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Friday, 15 June 2012 19:29 (eleven years ago) link

ElBaradei drinking too much tea w/ US Democrats

Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 June 2012 19:36 (eleven years ago) link

How about that military

curmudgeon, Monday, 18 June 2012 15:57 (eleven years ago) link

large and in charge

a dense custard of infinity (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 June 2012 15:59 (eleven years ago) link

this is why countries shouldn't have large, standing, professional armies

a dense custard of infinity (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 June 2012 16:00 (eleven years ago) link

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/80/05/3b/dascoot-tours-malta.jpg

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In few words we are the first to introduce the concept of “Scooter Tourism” in Malta. We look forward to have you on one of our DaScoot Tours this Summer!

Our scooter Tours are designed to be fun, thrilling, safe, reliable, space & time consuming, and environmentally friendly.

the late great, Monday, 18 June 2012 17:44 (eleven years ago) link

Their expansion plans to Egypt are surely doomed.

nickn, Monday, 18 June 2012 18:12 (eleven years ago) link

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/18/155134677/and-now-for-the-lighter-side-of-egypts-revolution?ft=1&f=1004

The growing presence of religious conservatives has prompted the owners of this bar to nail boards over the windows so that devout passers-by won't have to see the beer.

...

Zohny recalls a journalist who recently wrote, "The political situation in Egypt has rendered parody news obsolete."

Zohny sees the truth in this. "It is getting really hard to come up with parody news because the news has become a parody," he says.

curmudgeon, Monday, 18 June 2012 19:01 (eleven years ago) link

wrong thread :-(

the late great, Monday, 18 June 2012 19:23 (eleven years ago) link

CAIRO, June 19 (Reuters) - Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years until overthrown by a revolution in the "Arab Spring" last year, was declared clinically dead by his doctors on Tuesday, the state news agency MENA said in a report confirmed by a hospital source.

omar little, Tuesday, 19 June 2012 21:32 (eleven years ago) link

the body is dead but the legend lives on

the late great, Wednesday, 20 June 2012 00:16 (eleven years ago) link

one month passes...

http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/13/lamborghini_morsi

After long weeks of political gridlock and stagnation, Egypt's elected President Mohammed el-Morsi suddenly hit the gas over the weekend. Over the span of a few days, Morsi removed the head of General Intelligence, the head of the Military Police, the top two senior leaders of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and the heads of all the military services. In addition to this SCAF-Quake, Morsi also canceled the controversial Constitutional amendments promulgated by the SCAF just before he took office and issued a new, equally controversial amendment and roadmap of his own. What's more, this all came after he replaced the editors of major state-owned newspapers with people viewed as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and cracked down on several other critical papers. Zero to 180 in three days -- even Usain Bolt would be impressed by that acceleration. Swirv.

not really sure what 'swirv' means in that context tbh

goole, Monday, 13 August 2012 16:40 (eleven years ago) link

oh ha i just figure it out. carry on...

goole, Monday, 13 August 2012 16:42 (eleven years ago) link

The fundamental problem remains one of trust and the absence of legitimate institutions. The political polarization of the last year and a half, fueled by all too many political and rhetorical mistakes on all sides, has left profound scars. The Shafiq voters in the Presidential election have hardly reconciled themselves to Morsi, and most activists and revolutionaries remain as alienated as ever from a political struggle dominated by the military and the Brotherhood. On top of the polarization comes the legal Calvinball, where rules and legal institutions are fundamentally contested and no arbiter has uncontested judicial authority. And then there's the regrettable absence of a Parliament, another casualty of the pre-election institutional warfare. With so much in flux and so much distrust, every move, no matter how minor, becomes deeply laden with potential treachery and disaster. And this was no minor move.

In most cases, I would think that the removal of the SCAF's senior leadership and the assertion of civilian control by an elected government would be celebrated as a major triumph in the push for a transition to a civil, democratic state. But the deeply rooted fears of the Muslim Brotherhood, fueled by recognition of their popular strength and doubts about their democratic convictions, prevents any easy acceptance of that reading in many quarters. That's why the next few weeks will be crucial, as Morsi makes clear what kind of constitutional process he really intends and as the military and the anti-Islamist trends in Egyptian politics weigh their next moves.

goole, Monday, 13 August 2012 16:43 (eleven years ago) link

go morsi!!!

the late great, Monday, 13 August 2012 19:17 (eleven years ago) link

sudan now?

http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/28/sudans_protests

goole, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 16:05 (eleven years ago) link

i thought sudan barely has govt as it is??

the late great, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 16:08 (eleven years ago) link

omar bashir is still around, that's all i know tbh

goole, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 16:12 (eleven years ago) link

one month passes...

exactly how eager for war w/Syria is Turkey...? this whole thing seems to be spiralling into worst-case-scenario territory

stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 11 October 2012 15:48 (eleven years ago) link

eight months pass...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324399404578583932317286550.html wow at the WSJ :

"Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy."

dsb, Monday, 8 July 2013 16:35 (ten years ago) link

rolling middle east 2013 thread

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 04:25 (ten years ago) link

eleven months pass...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/egypt-sentences-3-al-jazeera-reporters

US keeps giving Egypt military aid so that it can have an influence there, says the US gov. This latest "trial" again shows the lack of influence

curmudgeon, Monday, 23 June 2014 15:26 (nine years ago) link

Oops, already discussed over in this other thread:

Rolling MENA 2014

curmudgeon, Monday, 23 June 2014 15:28 (nine years ago) link

three months pass...

Why Obama and Clinton make no secrets of seeking out Kissinger for advice and photo ops. They're his children.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/16/egypts-u-s-backed-military-regime-brutalizing-student-protestors/

this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 October 2014 14:32 (nine years ago) link

I'm with you re this one.

curmudgeon, Friday, 17 October 2014 20:11 (nine years ago) link

we like giving lip service to democracy but what we really want more than anything else is stability and our economic interests secure. that trumps everything.

Οὖτις, Friday, 17 October 2014 20:16 (nine years ago) link

In the world of realpolitik those have always trumped everything. And an oligarchy is more likely to align with our interests than would a democracy atm, because current U.S. government functions as an oligarchy more than a democracy.

Aimless, Friday, 17 October 2014 21:01 (nine years ago) link

i think it's facile to say that an oligarchy will necessarily have the same or similar interests as another oligarchy. that would make geopolitics much simpler than it is.

I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 17 October 2014 21:20 (nine years ago) link

also US foreign policy has never been subject to the sort of "democracy" that domestic politics have

I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 17 October 2014 21:20 (nine years ago) link

but you'll get no argument from me re. our egypt policy being atrocious

I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 17 October 2014 21:21 (nine years ago) link

Q: is "realpolitik" really just a 20th Century term for "the way empire has always functioned"?

my jaw left (Hurting 2), Friday, 17 October 2014 21:23 (nine years ago) link

we don't have an empire, i heard Bill Maher say so.

this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 October 2014 21:31 (nine years ago) link

this is the thread where we self-congratulatorily affirm the fact of an american empire to one another

I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 17 October 2014 21:55 (nine years ago) link

woah lol huge soz

Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Saturday, 18 October 2014 03:19 (nine years ago) link

one year passes...

@sharifkouddous
State Dept official in 2010 email from Egypt to Hillary Clinton about Mubarak government: "They love you here"

https://twitter.com/sharifkouddous/status/711883543601942528

we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 21 March 2016 14:52 (eight years ago) link

seven years pass...

Ergodan below 50%

🔴#SONDAKİKA | Anadolu Ajansı'na göre Tayyip Erdoğan'ın oyu %50'nin altına düştü. (%49.99)

— ibrahim Haskoloğlu (@haskologlu) May 14, 2023

xyzzzz__, Sunday, 14 May 2023 20:10 (eleven months ago) link

*Erdogan

xyzzzz__, Sunday, 14 May 2023 20:13 (eleven months ago) link


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