To skip this introduction and go directly to read Alexander Mirescu’s In-Depth Analysis “Civil Society in Tunisia: The Arab Spring Comes Home to Roost,” click here.

The Arab Spring is now commonly understood as a tragedy, if not a colossal failure. Those who “knew” that Islam and democracy are fundamentally incompatible feel vindicated. Those critical of American foreign policy find their criticisms confirmed, whether the object of their criticism is that of realpolik – the U.S. should have never supported the purported democratic uprising – or more idealistic – the U.S. should have supported such forces sooner and more thoroughly. I believe these common understandings and criticisms are fundamentally mistaken, based as they are on lazy comparative analysis, not paying attention to the details of political and cultural struggles, and by ethnocentric obsessions and superpower fantasy, not realizing how much the fate of nations is based on local and not global struggles.

In today’s post on Tunisia, a very different understanding is suggested, as I as the author of The Politics of Small Things, see it. The uprising in the Middle East of 2011, sparked by protests in Tunisia, opened up possibilities for fundamental transformation. The possibilities were opened by ordinary people, when they spoke to each other, in their differences, about their common concerns, and developed a capacity to act upon their concerns. In most countries in the region, one way or another, the power these people created together faced other powers and has been overwhelmed. But the game isn’t over, as this report on civic associations in Tunisia shows. The report suggests a corollary to the old adage: those who live by the sword, die by the sword. The persistence of civic action in Tunisia suggests a continued opening: those who manage to speak and act in the presence of others, in their differences, with common principled commitment to their public interaction, open the possibility of an alternative to tragedy.

The promise of the Arab Spring may yet live in the country of its birth. I think we should pay close to this, as we are overwhelmed by the tragic reports and images coming out of Syria and Egypt.

To go directly to read Alexander Mirescu’s In-Depth Analysis “Civil Society in Tunisia: The Arab Spring Comes Home to Roost,” click here.

Goin’ Fishing? Not quite, but things here at Deliberately Considered are slowing down for the summer, as I go to teach in the Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, and then to take part in a research project on Regime and Society in Eastern Europe (1956 – 1989) in Sofia, Bulgaria. After three years of regular, often daily, publishing, posts will be less frequent until September. At that time, we will be presenting Deliberately Considered in a new form.

Here some quick thoughts on topics I would like to write about now, but don’t have the time or energy to do so thoroughly.

On Egypt: I am fascinated by the grayness of it all: the unbearable grayness of being? I don’t see heroic figures or villains. Rather I see mortals, tragic figures, facing huge challenges, beyond their capacity to address.

Most objective observers are labeling the latest turn of events as a coup, but that seems to me to be too simple. Equally simplistic is the view of those who see the events as a clear political advance. A democratically elected leader, President Morsi, was overthrown by the military, not a good thing. But there was a significant popular movement, perhaps representing more than fifty per cent of the public, demanding the resignation of Morsi and new elections, and a resetting of the political order, which didn’t include them and their opinions, and didn’t provide the mechanisms for recalling the President. Yet, a legitimate President, from the point of view of many of the over fifty percent that voted for him, has been removed by the military. While I am no fan of military interventions in politics, I know that there is a real danger when a party confuses its particular interests with the common good. Yet, while lack of inclusion was a key problem in the Muslim Brotherhood led regime, it continues to be a problem as reports today indicate a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

On Obama, the NSA and Snowden: I am disappointed, dismayed and irritated. National security is the one arena in which I have been least satisfied with Obama’s Presidency. I had wanted a clear line to be drawn between the policies of Bush and Cheney, and Obama’s. The compromised civil liberties and the continued escalation of surveillance revealed by Snowden’s leaks, alas, indicate continuity rather than change. I think the leaks serve good purpose. I also think the arguments Obama presented in his national security speech provide reasonable grounds for the criticism of the administrations surveillance policies. There is, indeed, a need for a consequential national conversation on the continued ways the war on terror has compromised civil liberties in the United States and beyond. Obama seems to recognize this, but he has not facilitated the discussion, to say the least. On the other hand, I can’t stand the self-righteous, self-serving arguments of Snowden and his chief supporters, Glenn Greenwald and WikiLeaks. The demonization of the U.S. and Obama, the absolute certainty that all surveillance is about the projection of oppressive power – is not serious. As I felt after the attacks of 9/11, I find the critics of official policy as dismaying as the official policy itself. And the melodrama of Snowden’s search for asylum makes matters worse. Why didn’t he stand his ground on principle in the U.S.? Seeking asylum in countries with regimes with questionable human rights records is irritating and confuses important issues, as does the 24/7 news treatment of Snowden’s latest whereabouts and likely endpoint.

Politics and the social condition: I think the NSA revelations and the events in Egypt underscore the reasons for studying social dilemmas as they are knitted into the fabric of social and political life. Iddo Tavory and I are working hard on this over the “summer vacation.” I am leaning heavily on Hannah Arendt, he on Jean Paul Sartre. We believe that there is something missing in social science. It oversimplifies. Today I am thinking about the political significance of our project. If Obama and his critics would recognize, discuss and act upon complexity, perhaps the line between then and now, between Bush and Obama, would be drawn. Perhaps, if all parties recognized the problems of inclusion, democracy and social justice could be constituted in Egypt. I know this may sound naïve, another example of my easy hopefulness. But consider the alternative: without the recognition and understanding of dilemmas, the political challenges in Egypt and between Obama and his critics can’t be resolved.

The Ironies of Consequence: Daniel Dayan and I are talking about analyzing the interaction of what I call “the politics of small things” and what he calls “monstration.” We have had many discussions on this, public and private, in classrooms, at conferences, and in very pleasant meetings in our favorite cafes, and at our homes in New York and Paris. In our last meeting, in the spring, we agreed that our focus would be on what we are calling “the ironies of consequence.” Apparently trivial things sometimes have major consequences, while what appears to be of major significance, has little consequence. And there is also much in between. Take the recent surveillance revelations: it is striking how popular and elite European responses were strong, while the American public and political leadership responded quite weakly. The Americans responded as cynical world-weary cosmopolitans, apparently understanding the ways of the world and power, while the Europeans at least feigned outrage, appalled that a security apparatus uses state of the art methods to gather information on foreign and domestic citizens, and other states, both friend and foe. Media reporting, I believe, shapes this. I wish I had time to show it. I think as I did, I would also be showing how unstable these responses are.

This will have to wait for a couple of months. We will continue to publish pieces occasionally, deliberately, but less frequently, responding to the events of the day. In the pipeline: Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer’s “Reflections on Al Qaeda in Mali and Other Radicals at the Gates,” and Susan Pearce’s update on the cultural shutdown in Bosnia and Herzegovina and her report on the LGBT pride parade in Istanbul.

The weather has been absolutely spectacular this week in Paris. Clear, sunny skies, low humidity, moderate temperatures. Yesterday, Naomi and I enjoyed having lunch at the Palais-Royal and walking through the city with our friend Daniel Dayan. Each day, we have been spending time in a park with our grandson, Ludovic. Especially nice was a family excursion to the Arab Institute, where we had wonderful pastries and panoramic views of of the city from its rooftop café. Being in Paris, thinking with a European perspective about the Arab world has been my theme of the week, as I, with the help of the editorial team at Deliberately Considered, have been keeping the magazine going.

I observed in my first letter from Paris that the common action of Coptic Christians and Muslims at Tahrir Square created a new pluralistic reality in Egypt. These days, this new reality is challenged, to say the least. There are great fears that sectarian conflict will rule the day in Egypt and in the region, as was reported in Tuesday’s New York Times. According to this report, a clause in the constitution formally identifying Egypt as a Muslim country deriving its laws from Islam, passed during the era of Anwar Sadat, and laws dating back to the late colonial era that stipulate specific restrictions on and privileges for the Coptic church have inflamed tensions. There is a marked increase in sectarian violence, with wild stories about abduction of Muslims, even reported in a historically liberal newspaper. These are very serious matters.

Formal political measures to address these issues are urgently needed. An idea floating that a Bill of Rights ought to be established as a precondition of electoral politics, as advocated by Mohamed El Barade, makes considerable sense. But just as important are indications that the power of definition, what I call the politics of small things, is being marshaled to combat dangerous anti-democratic developments.

A Copt (left) and a Salafi Muslim (right) debate politics and the revolution in Tahrir Square during a break from cleanup efforts, Feb 12, 2011 © Sherif9282 | Wikimedia Commons

There was also a minor subplot in the Times story. As the new political configuration is emerging, competing political parties are acting in interesting “opportunistic” ways. The Muslim Brotherhood is proving to be the powerful political force and is working to consolidate its power. Yet, it continues to be self-limiting. (Poland’s great democratic transformation was often referred to as a self-limiting revolution). Not only is it indicating that it will not present a Presidential candidate, it is contesting only a half of the Parliamentary seats. It purposively couches its Islamic project in terms that are supportive of liberal democracy. A prominent leader of the Party, Essam el-Erian maintains: “We are calling for a civil state,” promoting elements of Islamic law that are common to other world religions, including, “freedom of worship and faith, equality between people, and human rights and human dignity.” Further, the Brotherhood named a Christian a deputy leader of its political party.

Meanwhile, Christian and secular liberal parties are not directly seeking changes to the article in the constitution that recognizes Egypt as a Muslim nation with laws based on Islam. While individuals may privately dislike the article, they recognize its popularity among Muslims and the parties minimally propose only minor changes.

“Our position is that it should stay, but a clause should be added so that in personal issues non-Muslims are subject to the rules of their own religion,’ Naguib Sawiris, a secularly oriented, wealthy, Christian businessman who has established a liberal party. He would prefer the separation between religion and state in accord with Western customs, but realizes that this is now impossible given Egyptian realities.

The Brotherhood’s gestures to liberal democratic values, and the liberal and Christian gestures recognizing Egypt as a Muslim nation, may be simply a matter of cynical political calculation, meant to convince the naïve that the Brotherhood does not pose the threat about which skeptics are most concerned, concealing the Brotherhood’s potential long term complicity in the disturbing anti-Christian actions and attitudes that are on the rise in Egypt, very much a part of the sectarian strife of the region. And the Christian and liberal acceptance of the idea of Egypt as a Muslim nation may simply be a rather desperate necessary, political calculation to maintain viability against an Islamist tide. I am sure such concerns are warranted.

But, I believe something more important is going on, as well, that is supporting the prospects for democracy in Egypt, with clear parallels to the development of democracy in Poland. Real pro-democratic Christians, liberals and Muslims together are muddling through a common definition of their society as one with pluralism and with majority and minority rights. There is a struggle against powerful currents of hatred, fears and suspicions, and major political actors are presenting themselves as moving in this direction. They may not succeed, but it is important to notice that this movement is happening. Given the nature of belief in Egypt, there could be no democracy without the inclusion of Islam in its politics (think of the Turkish experience). Given the richness of the Islamic tradition, there is reason to think that this move is possible, even if not likely.

Democrats of all sorts have skin in this game, as Michael Corey would put it. He suggests, in his latest post, that when I put it this way we should ask: What is being asked by whom, and for what purposes? I think the purposes are pretty clear. A liberal democratic peaceful North Africa and the Middle East would be safer, more prosperous and more just place, and this would contribute to greater safety, prosperity and justice beyond the region. The people asking are those who are most clearly dedicated to human rights, liberal democracy and an open society. And what is being asked is generally minimal, perhaps some economic aid, but mostly a commitment to discontinue the support of repressive force. Minimal support, getting out of the way, engaging in serious dialogue on the basis of shared principles.

One final note about his week on Chris Eberhardt’s post on China: It also reminded me of Poland past. His notion of China as a kind of “Truman Show” resembles the “Poland Show” in which I used to live and visit, although I think the “China Show” is a much more subtle game. Key to the unreality aspect of these real reality shows, i.e. Communist Party directed and controlled societies, is the distance between the official language, which was necessary to get on with public responsibilities, and the language of everyday experience.  More about this when I get back home.

I feel as if I am following President Obama’s itinerary through Europe. For me, it started with a quick stopover in Dublin on my way to Paris. My wife and I will spend more time in Dublin next week, where she will explore her father’s hometown for the first time. Naomi is one of a rare breed, an Irish Jew. Her family spent a generation there between Latvia and Canada. We are even going to be looking for a long lost elderly cousin. Later this summer, I will be off to Poland, on my annual teaching stint in The New School’s summer Democracy and Diversity Institute. These coincidences (I was also in London a few months ago) and returns come to mind because, as with Obama, my stay in Europe this time is stimulating me to think not only about European matters, but also about North Africa and the Middle East from the point of view of European experience.

During his stay in Poland, the President met with former leaders of the democratic opposition and Solidarity movement, and noted that what Poland went through twenty-five years ago proves that the move from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one is quite possible, though also quite difficult. He spoke as a political leader wanting to position America and its allies together in support of the Arab Spring. He emphasized institution building, the rights of minorities and a free press. I don’t disagree with him, and I should add as an old Polish hand, it warms my heart to see my friends being used as an example of political success.

Yet, democratic consolidation is not completely achieved in Poland and among its neighbors, and there is always a threat, as has been observed here in Andras Bozoki’s report on the situation in Hungary, that a transition to democracy may be followed by a transition from democracy. This depends upon attitudes and shared beliefs of the citizenry.

Mourners in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw after Smolensk plane crash. Sign says "What a President. What a Patriot." © Sebk | Wikimedia Commons

In Poland, the demonstrators who were outside President Obama’s appearances represent an anti-democratic threat. They are sure that the Russians are complicit in the murder of the former President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, who died in airplane crash, and many of them are pretty sure that the present President, Bronislaw Komorowski, is somehow involved. Such conspiracy theories, in which political opponents are perceived as murderous enemies, undermine democratic life. These demonstrators resemble the more outrageous members of the Tea Party and are kissing cousins of the birthers.  Such agents are more dangerous in new democracies than old, more dangerous still in the nations of the Middle East and North Africa trying to form democracies. Even in well-established countries such as the US, people who approach politics in this way present serious problems. No big deal, if they remain on the margins, but when they enter or even define the mainstream, they pose a significant threat.

Thus, when I think about Poland, Egypt, Tunisia and their neighbors, I am concerned not only about democracy as a political system, with a democratic constitution and institutions. It seems to me that just as important is democracy as a matter of ongoing political practice and beliefs. This is one of the great achievements in Poland, which changed its political culture in the course of the making of a democratic opposition, the Solidarity movement, and a democratic state, helping it weather anti-democratic currents. This suggests possibilities among the perils now present in the Middle East and North Africa.

In Poland, during the Solidarity period (and even before), the oppositionists acted as if they lived in a free society, and in the process, freedom actually became a part of the life of the people involved. They showed how the sociological theorem of the definition of a situation, as first developed by W. I. Thomas, constitutes a crucial dimension of political power. “If men [and women] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

The demonstrators in Tahrir Square revealed this power as well. When Muslims and Coptics openly supported each other during the transformational events, they constituted Egyptian democratic pluralism. Their common action created a political reality, which I will analyze in my next post.

I am thinking about such things, as I follow the path of Obama. The world looks differently from the summit and from the ground. A major end of his trip here this time was to help galvanize support for his approach to the great potentially democratic transformations in North Africa and the Middle East, while also attempting to get the European powers to support the U.S. in its opposition to the UN resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood. In his words and actions in Poland, he attempted to underline the possibility of fundamental democratic change and its persistence. From my point of view, looking at democracy in everyday practice, I see that his high-flown rhetoric can and has been sustained, but also that it depends on the definition and redefinition of democratic realities as social practices. Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, and in Central Europe, confirms fundamental insights of Tocqueville, as he was looking at democracy in America.

President Barack Obama gave a powerful speech today, one of his best. The president was again eloquent, but there is concern here in the U.S. and also abroad in the Arab world, that eloquence is not enough, that it may in fact be more of the problem than the solution. The fine words don’t seem to have substance in Egypt, according to a report in The Washington Post. There appears to be a global concern that Obama’s talk is cheap. Obama’s “Cairo Speech” all over again, one Egyptian declared. Now is the time for decisive action. Now is the time for the President of the United States to put up or shut up. (Of course, what exactly is to be put up is another matter.)

This reminds me of another powerful writer-speaker, President Vaclav Havel. Havel is the other president in my lifetime that I have deeply admired. Both he and Obama are wonderful writers and principled politicians, both have been criticized for the distance between their rhetorical talents and their effectiveness in realizing their principles.

Agreeing with the criticisms of Havel, I sometimes joke about my developing assessment of him. I first knew about Vaclav Havel as a bohemian, as a very interesting absurdist playwright. I wrote my dissertation about Polish theater when this was still his primary occupation, and I avidly read his work then as I tried to understand why theater played such an important role in the opposition to Communism in Central Europe.

I then came to know him as one of the greatest political essayists and dissidents of the twentieth century. At the theoretical core of two of my books, Beyond Glasnost: The Post Totalitarian Mind and The Politics of Small Things: The Power of the Powerless in Dark Times are the ideas to be found in Havel’s greatest essay, “The Power of the Powerless.”

However, as president, Havel was not so accomplished. He presided over the breakup of Czechoslovakia, a development he opposed passionately, but ineffectually. He sometimes seemed to think that he could right a political problem by writing a telling essay, often translated and published in The New York Review of Books. He expressed a moral high ground in these essays, but he did not address the tough and messy side of politics. This is a real weakness of the intellectual as politician, the temptation to think if one can put a solution into words, one has solved a problem.

Does this problem apply to Obama, specifically to his speech today? Many on both the left and the right have heard enough of his speeches. They want action.

I watched a PBS News Hour discussion last night in anticipation of the speech today, and this was the consensus of the expert observers. Therefore, I think it is significant how much of this speech pointed in the direction of specific policy developments. Yet, they were placed in a broader historical and moral context. And the words were important. They did politics. They acted. They were speech acts in Austin’s sense.

I was particularly moved by the way the president told the story of the Arab Spring. He gave it great significance. He alluded to the killing of bin Laden, but didn’t dwell on it. He started with the politics of small things and pointed to civilizational transformation.

“On December 17th, a young vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi was devastated when a police officer confiscated his cart. This was not unique. It’s the same kind of humiliation that takes place every day in many parts of the world -– the relentless tyranny of governments that deny their citizens dignity. Only this time, something different happened. After local officials refused to hear his complaints, this young man, who had never been particularly active in politics, went to the headquarters of the provincial government, doused himself in fuel, and lit himself on fire.

There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in Tunisia, as that vendor’s act of desperation tapped into the frustration felt throughout the country. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets, then thousands. And in the face of batons and sometimes bullets, they refused to go home –- day after day, week after week — until a dictator of more than two decades finally left power.

The story of this revolution, and the ones that followed, should not have come as a surprise. The nations of the Middle East and North Africa won their independence long ago, but in too many places their people did not. In too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of a few. In too many countries, a citizen like that young vendor had nowhere to turn -– no honest judiciary to hear his case; no independent media to give him voice; no credible political party to represent his views; no free and fair election where he could choose his leader.”

The president maintained that this power as it spread throughout the Arab world can no longer be easily repressed, and he expressed a conviction that given the media world we now live in the protestors’ “voices tell us that change cannot be denied.”

But that was it for the moving rhetoric. Obama then turned sober and practical. “The question before us is what role America will play as this story unfolds.” And he described what might very well become known as the Obama Doctrine.

“The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region. (Applause.)

The U.S. supports a set of universal rights. These rights include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders – whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran.

And we support political and economic reform in the Middle East and North Africa that can meet the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people throughout the region.”

This all sounds quite good, but perhaps empty, as some have maintained. However, the substance of the matter is in the details. It is noteworthy that when the president referred to the importance of universal rights he mentioned not only easy targets, but also Sanaa, increasing the pressure on Ali Abdullah Saleh, our ally in “the war on terrorism” to resign. And later when he criticized regimes that violently repress their citizenry for engaging in peaceful protests, he included not only Libya, Syria and Iran, but also the important American ally Bahrain.

“Bahrain is a longstanding partner, and we are committed to its security. We recognize that Iran has tried to take advantage of the turmoil there, and that the Bahraini government has a legitimate interest in the rule of law.

Nevertheless, we have insisted both publicly and privately that mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain’s citizens, and we will – and such steps will not make legitimate calls for reform go away. The only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”

He spoke to the people and not only to the rulers of the region. He understood that the problem was not only political, but also economic, offering assistance and engagement in economic development as it addresses the needs of ordinary people. Moreover, he promised to listen to diverse voices coming from the region.

“We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo – to build networks of entrepreneurs and expand exchanges in education, to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the region, we intend to provide assistance to civil society, including those that may not be officially sanctioned, and who speak uncomfortable truths. And we will use the technology to connect with – and listen to – the voices of the people.”

He gave a forceful commitment to support religious minorities and strong support to the centrality of women’s rights.

“History shows that countries are more prosperous and more peaceful when women are empowered. And that’s why we will continue to insist that universal rights apply to women as well as men – by focusing assistance on child and maternal health; by helping women to teach, or start a business; by standing up for the right of women to have their voices heard, and to run for office. The region will never reach its full potential when more than half of its population is prevented from achieving their full potential.”

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama was careful but took a strong position. There was a little to warm the heart of those on both sides, but also much that would concern both.

Obama made news and earned the wrath of his domestic opposition by declaring, “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.” This earned him an immediate protest by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But he also expressed concerns about the recent Hamas – Fatah agreement and about “symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state.” Thus, the Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri denounced the speech completely.

To my mind, Obama was not tough enough on Netanyahu, but he did move forward. Clearly, something other than complete support for the Israeli right’s position is necessary, contrary to Obama’s hysterical Republican critics. Obama advanced the U.S. position a bit. He said the obvious. The future border between Palestine and Israel will be based on the ’67 borders with negotiated adjustments. That has been the implicit assumption of the peace process for decades. Saying it bluntly, as President Obama did, provides some grounds for progress, suggesting a real response to the Arab Spring.

In his speech this morning, the president gave an account of a rapidly changing political landscape, showing an appreciation of the dynamics driving it and presenting a role for the U.S. to play. It was a broad and impressive depiction of our changing political world. He revealed an understanding of the role of the U.S. in this changing world, and he started playing the role when he turned to the all-important details. He staked out a position.

We will get a sense of how full or empty his rhetoric was today, when he meets Prime Minister Netanyahu tomorrow.

Unlike recent posts that have analyzed media performances, today I want to present some direct political criticism. Rather than “perform” our distinguished art of analysis, as we have recently been doing on this blog, I want to underscore the notion that powerful media set our agenda and our performing analyses are determined by what is given to us by media as bones to chew, often with quite negative results. Nothing original, but the topic and the circumstances are.

There is a fundamental difference between the way news is produced and read in the United States and Europe. Here, we have one or two authoritative print sources. Thus, much of the reflection presented at Deliberately Considered draws on reports from The New York Times. This is in sharp contrast to European practice. I miss my daily reading of at least two or three newspapers to tap into contrasting opinions or sources of information. The near monopoly in America is troublesome. Perhaps I exaggerate, but I worry that there can develop an unquestioned prevailing commonsense, with the media reiterating the obvious, instead of challenging dominant points of view and generating new areas of debate.

This struck me in the reports and commentary concerning the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal, announced two weeks ago. All of what has been written in the Times columns since the surprise reconciliation announcement in Cairo has re-hashed the usual storyline: Hamas is not a peace partner. Israel has good reason to feel threatened by a national unity government, and Congress should use aid as a threat to push moderates not to accept a deal with the Islamists. This Monday, an editorial summed up the argument.

The only good thing in this editorial was its subtitle, “Continued stalemate with Israel will only strengthen extremists,” but, ironically, this disappeared in the online version. Indeed, the remainder of the piece is just a series of peremptory remarks (“we have many concerns,” “the answer, to us, is clear…”) and hollow statements. Yet, intriguingly, the top ten most recommended replies to the online version were all critical of Israel, showing how people can resist the newspaper’s views.

Nonetheless, I am deeply concerned: first, because this commentary illustrates how the media tend to have short memories when it comes to the Middle East. It is strikingly odd to say, “Fatah was committed to peace” when, at the peak of the second intifada or twenty years ago, Fatah was as much the enemy of peace (Arafat the arch-terrorist) as Hamas. As striking is the apparent obliviousness to the fact that Israel actively favored the emergence of Hamas back in the 1970s and 1980s in order to undermine the influence of the P.L.O.

Second, the usual argument about pre-conditions to return to negotiation is seriously flawed. Hamas, it is well known, should recognize the Quartet’s three principles announced in January 2006, namely renouncement of violence, accepting previous agreements and recognition of Israel. But, as other experts have underlined in a report analyzing the problematic western policies vis a vis Hamas:

“With the exception of the conditionality on violence, these political conditions are legally dubious, a fact whose seriousness is magnified by the participation of the U.N., in the Quartet. The conditionality on Israel’s recognition has no legal grounding in so far as only states (and at most the PLO as the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people, of which Hamas is not yet part), and not political parties, can recognize other states. Furthermore, as Palestinians promptly note, the peace process between Israel and other Arab states has never been made conditional upon the Arab world’s recognition of Israel or its right to exist.” (Report by Nathalie Tocci What Went Wrong? The Impact of Western Policies towards Hamas and Hizbollah. CEPS Policy Brief No. 135, 16 July 2007).

Third, the western chancelleries’ idée fixe that current West Bank Prime Minister Salam Fayaad must remain in this position in a national unity government is also an insult to most of the Palestinians. Remember, his party won only 2.4% of the national votes in the last legislative election in 2006, so there are legitimate reasons for many Palestinians to ask for a change.

Fourth, the aid argument is used again in this Times editorial, as elsewhere in Yemen, or earlier in Egypt, in relation to negative conditionality (“If you don’t do this, we will cut our aid.”). It is sad to see aid, in this dominant line of reasoning, being used as a stick, rather than as a carrot promoting actors towards pluralism, effective cross-partisan collaboration or much-needed reforms in the field of education or justice.

Finally, there has been little critical reflection as to why the transition government in Egypt, busy with so many important changes at home, would focus such effort on the moribund reconciliation process that failed under Hosni Mubarak and Omar Suleiman since 2007. Why did Egypt recently declare its willingness to keep Rafah’s crossing continuously open, and even worse (ultimate crise de lèse-majesté) to state that it would welcome the recognition of a Palestinian State in September by the General UN Assembly (the body that voted for the creation of Israel back in 1948)? Maybe one should reflect on these questions and realize that the past stalemate around Gaza was simply not viable. One way for the current government in Egypt to ease the pressure exerted by its population and the Islamists was to take effective measures to bring the Gaza situation closer to normalcy. What Egypt has been doing in the last weeks in relation to the Palestinian issue is sound politics, and the fact that Turkey has also supported these changes gives more regional credibility to this initiative.

Yes, continued stalemates will only strengthen extremists.

In a post submitted before Osama Bin Laden was eliminated, Gary Alan Fine poses a question that is especially pressing after this latest development in the ongoing global wars. –Jeff

Coming out of a bar late one night, a patron finds his friend on his hands and knees searching desperately beneath a streetlamp. “I lost my keys under my car and I must find them,” moans his friend. “But why, if the keys are under a car, are you searching under this lamp?” “Well, the light is much better here.”

This is an old chestnut, none too clever, but one that has powerful political resonance, helping to explain flawed policy decisions. Why, if we worry about the menace of Al Qaeda, have we gone to war against two states – Iraq and Libya – that have distant, even hostile, relations with our terrorist foes. The light is better there.

A student of mine, Michaela DeSoucey, currently at Princeton, wrote her doctoral dissertation about the battles to ban foie gras. She asked the question why is it that animal rights activists chose to make the banning of foie gras a central issue, despite the small amount of foie gras consumed by Americans, as opposed to veal, much more common on American tables – or chicken. Neither baby cows nor poultry sleep under 300-thread count sheets. Her argument is that battling foie gras producers is a far easier task than the cattle or poultry industry. Yet, each battle provides a rich vein of publicity. Foie gras is what DeSoucey labels an easy target: it is, if one can pardon the culinary-mixed metaphor “low-hanging fruit.” Activists hope, but do not expect, that such targets can provide a wedge for other bigger enemies. Not yet.

But my concern is not with the pantry, but with the atlas. Here we are battling in Libya, while Syria falls into chaos. Americans and our NATO allies have determined that it is crucial that we overthrow the Qaddafi regime, even though that regime is opposed to Al Qaeda as are we. And, frankly, it is becoming a vexing pattern. We are only slowly retracing our steps from the mess that we made in Iraq, another Arab state, largely secular, that had little truck with our enemies.

It is surely true that few Americans have any love for either Saddam Hussein or Muammar Qaddafi; even The Donald could trump them in a free and fair election in our blue precincts. But this does not explain our involvement. Why do we give those Islamic leaders who are sympathetic to our enemies a pass, while we go all in to destroy secular Arab dictators? Why are we passive – even at times generous – toward governments in Syria and Pakistan?

The answer is that we feel the need to do something, and some somethings are easier than others. The brutality that we are seeing daily from Damascus and throughout the Syrian countryside reveals this clearly. It is true that Qaddafi bluffed that he would kill his opponents, but Assad has shown that actions talk louder than words. Following Teddy Roosevelt, the Syrian regime, supported by the Iranians, speaks softly and carries rapid-fire machine guns.

The danger is that by going after easy targets we undercut our policy goals, no matter how many “mission accomplished” banners we produce or how few allied military are killed. Can anyone claim that the invasion of Iraq benefited American interests in the Middle East? Can anyone claim that the NATO attacks on Libya, while ignoring Syria, will make the Middle East more stable? The outcome in Egypt and the plausible outcome in Libya seems most of all to provide a foothold for a kind of radical Islam that we despise. Perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood will not come to power in either Egypt or in Libya, but it is easy to understand the anxiety in Jerusalem.

Perhaps we are wise to be very cautious in selecting hard targets, but that doesn’t mean that we should be any less diligent in our choice of easy targets. Sometimes those easy targets have unintended consequences that make them very difficult after all.

It is not that American diplomats are blind when it comes to our self-interest; it is simply that they search for the key to global politics where the mission appears effortless, and not where that key might actually be found.

I am convinced that the success or failure of historic political transformation has less to do with moments of violent confrontation, more to do with the politics that precede and follow violence, or are non violent from beginning to end. If the repressive forces back down before a society is torn asunder, success is more likely. This provides the grounds for political creativity that actually make what seemed to be impossible one day, likely the next. Two pieces by informed scholars I’ve read recently notably still think that this is the case in Tunisia and Egypt. Indeed, I just read a piece in today’s New York Times that seems to confirm their optimism.

Alfred Stepan, a long time student of democratic transitions, reports in a post on the Social Science Research Council blog, The Immanent Frame:  “Tunisia’s chances of becoming a democracy before the year ends are surprisingly good.” And that “Democratization in Egypt in the long term is probable, but it does not share the especially favorable conditions that we find in Tunisia.”

Deliberately Considered contributor, Hazem Kandil, gives a precise overview of the historical developments and background of the fall of the Egyptian old regime in an interview he gave to The New Left Review. He paints a vivid picture of the interactive forces that made up the old order and of the forces that are going into the making of the new. He also is realistically hopeful. He concludes:

“So the outcome will really depend on how strong the revolutionary tide is in Egypt. If the movement remains as it is now, moderate and pragmatic, we will have a much better Egypt than existed before, not a perfect democracy. If the movement gains strength and momentum, there is no telling what might happen. For, there is no revolutionary movement with the capacity to take over control of all the institutions that need to be purged. Nasser had the army—he could send soldiers out to enforce his agrarian reform, or to run factories, or to become undersecretaries in the bureaucracy. In Russia or China, there were political cadres to carry out these tasks. But so long as there is no revolutionary movement to fill the void, cornering opponents without possessing an organization to take them out freezes the revolt into a position of simply demanding, and then hoping for the best.”

Being a veteran participant observer of the opposition movement in Poland and Central Europe of the 70s and 80s, and an analyst of the Communist and post-Communist systems, I am rooting for a “not perfect democracy” and believe it is good for the Egyptians that “there is no revolutionary movement with the capacity to take over control of all the institutions that need to be purged.”

I suspect that Kandil and I may disagree on this, but that is an alternative political judgment, not to be decided theoretically, in my opinion, but politically. More important are the facts and analysis he provides that can inform such judgments. For his careful account of the Egyptian political terrain and its historical background, I highly recommend Kandil’s piece.

Responding to the disaster in Japan, Elzbieta Matynia reminded us that our politics and our conflicts all are overshadowed by our need for human solidarity in supporting our common world, which crucially includes our natural environment. Yet, this doesn’t mean turning away from politics. It’s through politics that such solidarity, rather than enforced unity, is constituted. It is through deliberate discussion, informed intelligent talk, that such politics becomes successful. Difficult issues must be discussed and acted upon. Action without discussion results in tyranny, with or without good intentions. DC is dedicated to informed discussion about exactly this issue, which we have considered from a number of different concerns and viewpoints this week.

Andrew Arato’s analysis of the democratic prospects in Egypt involved careful examination of the prospects for revolutionary change. His is a sober account, drawing upon years of research and political experience. When he notes that under dictatorship “revolutions rarely can bring about a democratic transformation,” yielding either mere coups or new forms of authoritarian rule, he is underscoring the dangers of monologic action. When he argues that “it is negotiated transitions based on compromise among many actors” that most likely will yield a constitutional democratic government, pointing to the successful endings of dictatorships of our recent past, he is showing how central deliberate discussion is. “It is very important that in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the East Germany and South Africa oppositions demanded not the fall of a government, but comprehensive negotiations concerning regime change: its timing, rules, procedures, and guarantees.”

As he did last week, Gary Alan Fine again provoked an interesting discussion, showing how humor can be a very serious matter. Drawing upon the insights of Pope Benedict XVI and Lenny Bruce, considering the cases of the Jewish complicity of the murder of Christ, Jared Lee Loughner, James Earl Ray and this week’s House investigation of American Muslim radicalization, he examines the relationship between collective guilt and individual responsibility, showing that this is not an easy issue. I found his argument both interesting and disturbing. He explains the complicated field but he doesn’t take a stand, makes it almost seem that a stand cannot, perhaps even should not, be taken by the sociologist.

Indeed it is absurd and depressing that Jewish responsibility for the killing of Christ is still being discussed as a serious matter by the leader of the Catholic Church. But, as Fine points out, it is a mistake to think that only James Earl Ray was responsible for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The constituted racist order of the United States, especially of the former Confederacy, which is still being celebrated, surely helped to create and motivate the gunman and that should be critically examined. And following this logic, Fine seems to support the present House investigation, which I think or at least judge to be nothing more than a witch hunt.

Fine’s sociological eye sees the dilemma and his pen illuminates it. But the sociological dilemma points to the necessity of making a judgment and discussing it. When does the link between the community and individual action require a forceful criticism not only of the responsible individual but also for the community at large? When is the assertion of such responsibility a sign of xenophobia or some other hatred, the sort that Matynia thinks we should cast aside when we take responsibility for our common world? This requires commitment. Something that Fine shies away from, at least in this post.

The responses of Felipe Pait, countering Fine’s humor with his own, and of Scott, thinking about his anti-war anarchist friend in Spain being accused of responsibility for Bush’s War in Iraq, point to the need to take some responsibility, drawing upon sociological insights such as Fine’s.  As Michael Corey notes quoting Peter Berger, “Unlike puppets, we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first step towards freedom. And in this act we find the conclusive justification of sociology as a humanistic discipline … ” This is something that needs to inform public discussion, something we need to talk about.

Informed public discussion, more informed criticism of a repressive religious tyranny, is a deep concern for Ahmad Sadri. He illuminated in his post a problem in the Iranian opposition that is not often seen abroad. Sadri worries about a unitary dogmatic secularism replacing a dogmatic Islamism. He presents a window into an exciting debate that will have significant consequences. It is not surprising that in the face of theocracy, there are critics in Iran who are demanding secular purity. But Sadri recognizes that this purity may be just as dangerous as the present tyranny. I am reminded of a key intellectual intervention in the developing democratic opposition in Poland, Adam Michnik’s The Church, The Left and Dialogue. Sadri, like Michnik, knows that it is necessary for democrats of the world to engage in dialogue, even if they don’t unite. They should seek solidarity around shared democratic principles.

Close to home, on International Women’s day, Esther Kreider-Verhalle, thought about the problems of childcare in her community. Hers was a reflection on the problems of everyday life that point to a more significant issue: how does American society support the ideal of gender equality? When women are actively involved in the work force, do we have reasonable and affordable ways in place to take care of our children? Her reflections are funny: “Some schools ask parents in all seriousness for essays and letters of recommendation. In the essay, one must describe the child’s academic, social and personal strengths and challenges. Strength: knows his alphabet and can count way beyond ten; weaknesses: has a limited attention span and has an occasional tantrum during which both numbers and letters are thrown around.” But the situation is very serious, and for the poor tragic, particularly in an era when various public community centers are facing severe cutbacks, something I will post on next week.

Solidarity through dialogue was the theme of the week.

Benoit Challand, the author of Palestinian Civil Society: Foreign Donors and the Power to Promote and Exclude (2009), is currently Visiting Associate Professor at the New School for Social Research.  He is affiliated with the University of Bologna where he has been teaching Middle Eastern politics since 2008. He has been Research Fellow at the Graduate Institute at the Center on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding in Geneva, working on its Religions & Politics project. -Jeff

We are witnessing the emergence of the counter-power of civil society in the wave of revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.  It is embedded in nationalist revolts in which youth and trade unions have played and very well may continue to play important roles. I choose the phrase ‘counter-power of civil society’ to describe the ongoing developments in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya, and also the little covered protests in the Palestinian territories, because I believe that there is more to civil society than its organized form.  There is more to civil society than NGOs and the developmental approach which imagines that the key to progress is when donors, the UN or rich countries, give aid to boost non-state actors, in particular NGOs, in the “developing south.”  In fact, overlooking this, leads to a complete misunderstanding  of present transformations.

In western social theory, civil society is described by Hegel and Tocqueville (among others) as opposition to the State, or as an intermediary layer of associations between family and the State.  This has been the counter – power in the Middle East and North Africa.  Thus, when we read in this Sunday’s New York Times that “Libya has no civil society,” it is not only a conceptual error.  It makes it impossible to understand what is happening in the region.  It’s one thing to say that Libya does not have a national chapter of Human Rights Watch, or a cohort of service-providing NGOs. It is quite another matter to say that Libyan or Tunisian people cannot organize themselves on their own to cover their needs and express their autonomy, as they have done in the last weeks.

To escape western-centrism and avoid thinking of it as a residual category, I define civil society by saying that it is the source for collective autonomy. The rendering of autonomy in Arabic illustrates my point as the term is translated as tasayyir daati – that is the “self-impulse,”  or “self-drive.”

Cairo graffiti, translation from Arabic "ash-sha’b yourid isqat al-nithaam” the people want the fall of the regime © Unknown | occupiedlondon.org/cairo

And indeed, once the initial spark was lit, it was as if the Tunisian people moved as a whole, into spontaneous protests. Egyptian, Libyan, and Yemeni people called for the fall of their respective regime. The slogan “ash-sha’b yourid isqat al-nithaam” [the people want the fall of the regime], appearing across the region, captures this social cohesion (the people) and the unity in the project.  The BBC also had a picture of a similar slogan on some governmental building in Libya last week.

These protests entail a radical break with the fragmented social structures existing in many Arab countries. Are these revolts or revolutions? Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997), the Greek libertarian Marxist exiled in France tried to answer a similar question in the case of the Hungarian 1956 revolt. To paraphrase his seminal “The Hungarian Source“ (published in 1976 by Telos), one could say that this moment of self-organization in Egypt was coupled with a moment of radical re-imagination, by placing the nation itself at the heart of all these protests. Make no mistake: we are talking about the secular notion of territory, homeland (in Arabic ‘watan’) as opposed to the religiously tainted notion of an Islamic ummah.

Protesters camping out on the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain, March 4, 2011 © Stepnout | Flickr

This secular re-imagining of the people as a united nation against its leaders is true for all of the ongoing revolts. Thus, sectarian, religious or class divisions are transcended into a call for national unity. This trait is valid for all ongoing protests:

– Think of the Egyptian Copts and Muslims protecting one another on Tahrir square while praying,

– Bahrainis chanting that it is not about being Sunni or Shiite, but about the defense of the watan (“Sunni and Shiite Brethren! This country / nation (watan) is not for sale!”)

– Ibn Thabit, a Libyan rapper, invoking past resistance of Omar Mukhtar to Italian fascism as an example for the nation and for youth to take the street against Col. Qaddafi,

– or Palestinians youth calling (on a Facebook page called in Arabic “National Unity”) for a national protest on 03/15 to end their own political divisions.

This idea of spontaneity which translated here with the idea and practice of self-organization of the people on the street, can be seen both as the strength of these regional protests, and as their weaknesses. Revolution is, we are told by Castoriadis, the explicit self-institution of society, the expression of the capacity to choose the content and the form of the protests. While in Tunisia, it appears that there has been a real split inside the army, which enabled a fully-fledged expression of such a capacity, this soon was threatened in Egypt, where the armed forces own so much of the economic sector. By entrusting the army with managing the post-Mubarak transition, the people in Egypt have probably lost to another group its capacity to decide what to do and how to do it.

After decades of Orientalist depiction of the Middle East as essentially anti-democratic, it is with a great sense of elation that one witnesses the surge of spontaneous civil societies. Middle Easterners are no exception in their desire for equality and freedom. Yet, one needs to be cautious about the chance of their success, because there are too many counter-powers to civil society itself.  To which I will return in future posts.