Was The Massacre At Rabaa A Surprise?

Was the massacre at Rabaa a surprise? Could the outcome  have been different?

Short answer is no!

This conclusion results from a basic understanding of the fundamental structure of Egyptian Police and the Egyptian Ministry of Interior (MOI).  A structure that was designed to protect the state from the citizens rather than protecting the citizens as its core mandate. Following are some thoughts I have on the topic

1. Use of conscripts: The vast majority of the the central security “soldiers” are conscripts. I was once told that at conscription intake times, all university graduates automatically get assigned into the army, then  the remainders are asked, who is literate and who is illiterate and the ones who can’t answer the question are the ones that taken for Central Security. I am not trying to mock them, but simply state that it is often, the poorest, least educated, and probably least intellectually capable are the ones that do wind up at the MOI and its Central Security apparatus.

2. Training of soldiers and indeed officers at Egyptian militaristic institution is all based on compliance and the use of humiliation to gain this compliance. The recruits are frequently beaten, imprisoned, tortured  to ensure their compliance. The compliance could be over cleaning an officer’s car, shining his shoes or picking his groceries, could even be for their staff officers who are often the nastiest. 

3. Egyptian police structure is fully like that of an army, national structure, four year college officers, including extensive study of law accompanied by beating and abuse of those who don’t comply with instructions, not exactly the best of times, to let topics like human rights sink in. Officers graduate and move up the ranks, Captain, Colonel, Brigadiers, all the way to Generals. Most leave traditional policing, for extended periods, to engage in other functions within the MOI: ID cards, car registrations, drivers license,  permits, prisons and countless other administrative tasks that make up the huge MOI Empire. A police general may be some twenty years removed from any traditional policing work. Contrast this with simple city based policing, where police officers receive qualify within 6 to 12 months and remain fully focused on policing in their own communities, with this huge cadre of police officers and hundred of thousands of illiterate police foot soldiers.

4. Egypt MOI and Policing in Egypt operates on a national level, so an officer from Alexandria is assigned to Aswan, then Mansoura then Port Said etc. and is almost never allowed to work within his own immediate community in actual policing work. A throw back to the days of the colonialists, when the British and French Administrations rotated their people lest they went native on them and became too attached to the communities they were there to control. This also offers the MOI a tool of reward and punishment, so an officer from Cairo who may take human rights a bit too seriously gets despatched to the Gaza border until he cools down.

The above factors and doubtless, many others are what lead me to conclude that, until fully re-engineered from the grounds up, it will be hard to expect different results from the MOI than what we have witnessed over the last few years. If the protest is armed, partially armed or even lightly armed as the Muslim Brotherhood defendants claim Rabaa was, then the blood letting would indeed be worse. We should not forget that hundreds of protesters died in the early days of Jan25 revolution and, there was no dispute that, those were indeed peaceful unarmed protestors.

Until the Police and MOI structures are fundamentally altered to resemble that of a modern police force, expect more mass needless killings, more torture and more brutality. Sadly President Morsi had the mandate to do just that; to reform the MOI, but he failed to get serious reform even on the agenda. Indeed Morsi praised the role of the police during Jan25 and pursued a policy of appeasement and coaptation with the MOI. 

AA

August 23, 2013

Egypt’s Duck Problem

I love the American saying “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and it looks like a duck it’s got to be a duck” for those that don’t get it, perhaps a briefing on the duck test may help. The Egyptian Government and many Egyptians continue to be baffled as to why most of the world outside continues to view the dismissal of Mohamed Morsi from his role as the president of Egypt on July 3, 2013 as a military coup.

Morsi did not want to leave office, he was adamant on staying on as president of Egypt, against the will of the masses and his obvious loss of any mandate. The Egyptian Military gave Morsi a week’s notice and then another 48-hour last chance, but Morsi wouldn’t willingly step down, or call an early election, or a referendum on his remaining in office. Finally, Egypt top generals informed Morsi that he was no longer president and that he was to be taken by the military for safekeeping. It is very hard for any objective person to name the manner of deposing Morsi as anything other than a military coup.

The Egyptian Military and the virtually all Egyptian politicians argued that deposing Morsi should not be considered a coup, because the military only acted to prevent a civil war and that unprecedented numbers of Egyptians were rising against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. There was considerable debate over how many millions of Egyptians actually hit the streets on June 30, 2013 to call for the removal of Morsi from power. Estimates of the size of demonstrations ranged from six millions to over thirty million Egyptians on the streets demanding Morsi’s ouster. Many argued that the mass Cairo demonstration exceeded the previously largest known gathering of protest in human history, the demonstrations in Rome on February 15, 2003 against the Italian participation in the Iraq War.

To western liberal ears, the size of the demonstrations is largely immaterial, in a democracy, the masses get a chance to vote and turf out their leaders. Indeed those mass demonstrations in Rome failed to halt Italy’s participation in George W Bush’s Coalition of The Willing! So while Egyptians kept on saying, it is not a military coup and we have massive support to remove Morsi from power, devout democrats kept hearing military coup to remove an democratically elected president, anger and recriminations ensued. The western liberals accused the Egyptian liberals of being no democrats, sore losers, who are fundamentally ignorant of democracy. On the other hand, most Egyptians defaulted into conspiracy theories and played the jingoistic card to suggest alignment of interests between The West and the Muslim Brotherhood.

As a supporter of the June 30 protest and a participant in the Tamrrod campaign to impeach Morsi, I am baffled by this inability of the Egyptian Government and Egypt’s liberals to communicate their case more effectively. Yes, I do support the military coup that removed Morsi from power! And yes, I do call it a military coup! The removal of Morsi was ultimately a result of his own coup on legitimacy and assuming dictatorial powers to force an Islamist Constitution down the throat of the Egyptian people. The mass protests started against Morsi following his dictatorial and illegal assumption of judicial and legislative powers in November 2012, Morsi had many months to fulfill his promise of compromise and amending the constitution, but failed to do so, failed to commence any serious dialogue and was proceeding deeper down a path of gaining more control of various institutions of the state. Despairing of Morsi moving to return to legitimacy and reversing his own coup, we Egyptians had no choice but to stage our own coup to return the country to democracy. Did the military and various institutions of the state facilitate and aid the campaign against Morsi? Yes, but they only did so, after sensing the deep anger and hatred we, ordinary Egyptians, who had earlier looked at Morsi with hope, ultimately turned against him. 

There is serious risk that the militant struggle between Islamist forces and the state would help usher in a new military dictatorship and Egypt’s War on Terror would wind up being the excuse to suppress freedoms, in the name of security. The anti Morsi coalition that took to the streets on June 30, 2013 encompassed a broad spectrum of views, from those who long to the return to the Mubarak era, to true and genuine advocates of democracy, equality and justice. It helps to call things by their true names to minimize chances of entering an 1984 like era, and hence let’s start out by saying why we support our military coup. Let's all say, I know it's a only coup but I like it! 

AA

August 23, 2013

Yes it was coup!

In the days before Egyptians went to the polls for the second round run off of the first freely contested presidential ballots, the People’s Assembly or parliament was dissolved and the authority for the legislation of new laws was assumed by the then ruling military Junta, known as SCAF. Some Egyptians felt more comfortable voting for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi, knowing that his authority as head of the executive branch would be limited.

While the parliamentary elections were generally seen to be free, their rules, most definitely were not.  SCAF had imposed a strange and highly unusual set of rules designed to tilt the elections towards the two organized forces in the country; the Islamists and the party of the former president Mubarak, the National Democratic Party. The election rules were designed to make it very expensive for any candidate who is not part of an established large national organization to win. A strange mix of district level proportional representation and quota for laborers resulted in very larger districts, coupled with runoffs for those receiving less than 50% of the vote and a system of staggered ballots over a six week period allowing national organizations to campaign in different regions around the country sequentially. Dissolving such a gerrymandered parliament was indeed a good thing, its composition failed to be even remotely representative of the people of Egypt, as could be seen from the sheer size of the ensuing protests.

The coup process started shortly after the election of President Morsi, when he decreed the return of the dissolved parliament, the courts opposed him and he could not impose his will. Few weeks later, the first part of the coup took place; Morsi kicked SCAF out of the legislative role, a move that was widely welcomed by most Egyptians who believed Morsi and wanted to give him a chance, his approval rating was close to 70%. Few voices warned of the concentration of the executive and legislative powers, but Morsi reassured the nation, by promising that he would, only, make minimal use of his newly acquired legislative powers.

Two additional bodies were yet to be dissolved by the slow courts of Egypt, the so called Shura Council or upper house of the parliament, whose election was made by identical rules to those of the dissolved parliament, but with less than 7% of Egyptians actually bothering to cast a ballot, as it had no defined duties or powers at the time of its election. The second body that was also threatened by the courts was the Constituent Assembly, whose membership was based on that of the dissolved parliament. The likelihood of dissolving these two bodies was very high indeed. President Morsi allowed his supporters to lay siege to the Egyptian Supreme Court and its members were unable to enter the court, let alone hold any sessions for nearly a month. A strange way for a democracy to function!

The siege of the court could not continue indefinitely; fearing the eventual rulings by the Supreme Court, President Morsi moved to perfect his coup, he unilaterally assumed super judicial powers in addition to the legislative powers he had assumed in August.  In late November Morsi declared both the Constituent Assembly and Shura Council immune from dissolution by the courts, and he assigned full legislative powers to the Shura Council, which he was yet to name some additional ninety appointed members and he also declared these decisions to be immune from future legal challenge.

At this point it became clear to many Egyptians that the elected president has engineered and executed an unprecedented coup.  This was Egypt’s big coup, a theft of the January 25, 2011 revolution that was most certainly not Islamist, by the Islamists. It was, at that time, that the seeds of the Egypt’s second revolution were sown by no other than the acts of President Morsi himself.  President Morsi was eventually deposed, following the massive demonstration of June 30, 2013 by millions of Egyptians against him and his Muslim Brotherhood.

Considerable debate has taken place on the legal justification of deposing Morsi, was this a military coup or not? Clear as day, it was military coup, but it was carried out at the will of the vast majority of Egyptians who wanted Morsi out because of his own coup against legitimacy and democracy.

AA

July 6, 2013

Dear Western Liberals! ..mind your business or read a bit more first!

Lord Cromer was a founding member of the Society Against Women Suffrage and at the same time, he was also advocating that, British rule over Egypt was justified to help liberate its women. A lot of British women at the time, supported British colonial activity because they bought into his argument! Needless to say, under British occupation (1882 – 1922) education in Egypt declined severely and numbers of graduates fell. I am reminded of these contradictions as I read and hear of those western liberals who are decrying the removal of Morsi and speaking out against the will of the Egyptian people forcing the removal of the Fascist regime of Morsi and his gang. So, while they happily push forward the boundaries of freedom in the west, Egypt receives its most restrictive constitution ever with less than 20% of the voters approving it.

Please take sometime to look through the web pages of Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood to see their own pride in their history of discrimination  violence, assassinations and oppression. Educate yourselves a bit before you opine on something that you know little about and understand its subtleties even less. 

Finally remember this, normally sedentary Egyptians, who almost all smoke and hate exercise (I'm Egyptian, so I am allowed to stereotype!) do not march several kilometers for no good reason, we are normally as apathetic as they come, but we watched what happened in Iran since 1979 and we watched Europe in 1930's and 1940's; we learnt a thing or two about where fascism leads. So support the will of the people of Egypt or mind your own business and spare us the lectures about how democracy work, you couldn't get more direct democracy than what is happening in Egypt! Just while we are at it, remember what happened to the Prime Minster of Egypt who declared war on NAZI Germany and Fascist Italy? He was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood ..bet you never knew that!

AA

July 4 (Independence Day)

On Eve of Morsi's departure, what's going on in Egypt!

OK people ..Obama and US Administration want to be seen standing with Morsi to the last minute, the US does not want to be seen as an enemy of Islamists again, you want Caliphate again, have it, but don't bomb New York. Obama knows Egyptian Seculars and liberals are angry, but he knows those don't bomb buildings in America, they just have the same hate/love/envy thing with America as the European left does.

Morsi does not want to resign and admit mistakes, because Muslim Brotherhood makes no mistakes and prefer to have his kids, his followers, all believe that only a small minority of the people of Egypt was against Ikhwan and that the Army and the Americans forced him out, so he can then be a victim and start rebuilding Islamist popularity and credibility again as victims of American Zionism and army etc. etc. 

The army in Egypt just wants to have peaceful life and make money, they don't care too much about US Aid, which is only $1Billion and all of it gets spent on US arms, much more important for them is their budgets in Egypt, the amazing control they have over land, industry, trade, etc. etc. The army does NOT want to run the country, does not want wars or trouble, they just want to get on with free entreprise, make money. 

Islamist masses mainly want to keep their womenfolk under their control and away from any possible dishonor and of course they enjoy seeing Christians and minorities suffer a bit, other than that, they want cars, iPads and sex in that order!

AA
July 2, 2013

Zionism .... Nuances and .... Mr. Morsi

Zionism means different things to different people. To most Egyptians, Arabs, Muslims and certainly Palestinians. Zionism is all about dispossession of the Palestinians, about the expulsions of the natives, about occupation, about the settlements and the cruel  eradication of Palestinian villages and history. For the vast majority of Jews, Zionism is about a national identity, of pride in their Jewishness. Jews can't understand how others can view Zionism as racist, when Zionism welcomes Jews of all colors, origins and converts too. The pro Palestinian camps see Zionism as the ultimate form of racism and bigotry, an ideology that usurps the rights the Palestinians to their homes, to their land, to their history based on a superior claim of the Jews, just by virtue of their Jewishness, their "race".

My attempt at making sense of this huge gulf, between the interpretations, leads me to see Zionism as a nationalist movement, with some religious wrappings. Zionism allows an atheist "Jew" to  belong to the Jewish people; so clearly an alternate non-religious identity. This, very point, causes stress in Israel itself, the secularists see Judaism and Jewishishness  more of an overarching identity that accept people of Jewish origins regardless of their religious beliefs or adherence. Whereas, many religious Jews clearly see it differently, for them, faith and the Jewish Law are at the center of their lives.  Other religious Jews accept religion in a fashion that accomodate secular Zionism.

It may be helpful to look at Zionism in three parts, first being the rise of the Jewish people and their identification as a nation, second is the desire for a homeland, third is the choice of Palestine for a homeland. 

With the oppression, the Jews suffered throughout their history, at the hands of whichever majority they lived under, it is hard to stand against their desire to be considered as a nation. The way I see it, what right do I have telling the majority of Kurds or South Sudanese people, they are not a distinct nation? If the majority of Corsican or Basques people wanted to be a separate nation, then that is ultimately, their right. The Jews have plenty of reason to want to proclaim their own identity even before the Holocaust.

Second is the claim to a homeland, where never again Jews can become a minority living under the whims of another majority, at times accommodating and friendly, and at times oppressive but almost always suspicious and watchful. That too is understandable and again if the majority of Jews want it, I am all for it. Even if a minority wants it and don't wish to impose it on others then power to them.

The third, and most troubling aspect is really in what I term "applied Zionism" rather than in Zionism itself, is the choice of Palestine for the homeland. Zionism, a secular nationalist movement, needed to capture the imagination of the non secular, religious Jews and hence the introduction of Palestine rather than East Africa, Tasmania or other relatively unpopulated piece of real estate. In doing so, applied Zionism undermined some of the basic foundations of Zionism, itself.

So today’s' applied Zionism has to wrestle with a sad contradiction, of being a liberation movement and a colonial movement; of being a movement that is race blind towards Jews yet racist towards non Jews!

The Secular advocates of Zionism betrayed their liberal principles to attract more Jews, to protect more Jews, and to liberate more Jews; they mixed their secular vision with biblical history and focused on Palestine and thus gained a great deal of success, that would probably never been possible, had they opted for any other piece of real estate apart from Palestine. The price of this success has to be either giving up the vision of never again facing the possibility of becoming minority, or giving up Zionism as a moral liberation movement and turning it, into a colonial supremacist movement that aims to subjugate the natives forever. This is a moral battle, the Israelis, the Jews, the Zionists must fight, an internal struggle that will forever remain a weight on their conscience. The history of the suffering of the Jews does not actually waive that moral responsibility as some have suggested.

Naturally, the evolution of the meaning of Zionism, both, to Jews and non Jews, does not occur in a vacum, was and continues to be, influenced by events. It is instructive to see, what Zionism mean to a critical player such as Egypt's new democratically elected president  Mr. Mohammad Morsi. Mr. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood have a long history of both animosity to Israel and support for Palestine, but has vowed to respect and protect Egypt's peace agreement with Israel.

Mr. Morsi appears to make little distinction between Israelis, Jews or Zionists when he talked of the need to instill "hate of Jews and Zionists" into "our" children. Reflecting on the choice of words "Jews and Zionists", does this come from the tendency to use multiple repetitive words to describe the same thing in Arabic or did Mr. Morsi view Jews as a distinct category from Zionists? My guess is that Mr. Morsi agrees with the first aspect of Zionism, that the Jews are an indeed a nation, regardless of of their beliefs and practices, in a way, he is re-affirming a central aspects of Zionism by projecting his feelings against Jews, all Jews, as distinct identity and as a nation! Mr. Morsi's call for hatred did not leave room for the exclusions of pro Palestine Jewish advocates or even the small fringe of religious Jews who are passionately anti Zionism and anti Israel, so the call clearly shows an all encompassing hate for Jews beyond just support for Palestine.

It may surprise Mr. Morsi to learn that, his own country had several Zionist associations from late in the 19th century and Zionist newspapers operated freely, whereas the lone anti Zionist publication was shut down by the Egyptian Government in the early 1930's as anti Jewish Palestinian propaganda. The president of Egypt may also wish to re-examine how his rhetoric and that of his Muslim Brothers organization and its Palestinian counterparts may have played a role in strengthening the hands of the "Revisionist" Zionists who worked for an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine. A study of the roots, of topics never discussed in Egypt, such as the massacres of Hebron or Safed may help him understand how hate begets hate. The massacres of Jews and anti Jewish hate may explain how the course of history may have changed but offer no excuse of brutality by of Jewish gangs and Israel, since its founding.

Finally, I wish more Egyptians, Palestinians,  Muslims,  Jews, Israelis, Americans etc. stop using this highly confusing and emotive word "Zionism" as it is shorthand for many contradictory meanings that leads to more confusion and misunderstandings, not clarity. Show, if you must, your hate for Jews directly, like Mr. Morsi did, without having to hide behind the word Zionist, it certainly said more about him than it did about the Jews. Perhaps better still if you are pro Palestinians, express your support and convictions, without falling into racist hate that fuels, yet more hate and fire. For Jews, perhaps, time to re-examine the use of the word Zionism and come to terms with how, what may have started as a nobel vision, operates as violent, oppressive, racist and bigoted reality on the ground.

AA
January 18, 2013
(updated from earlier work)

Morsi's Confessions

I could only think of Captain Louis Renault, of the French Vichy controlled Morocco, saying "Round up the usual suspects" as to what, could have possibly, inspired President Morsi ideas of what "the rule of law" as a concept, stood for. Usually, I find myself a consumer of news and analysis during eventful periods, holding back on much writing until news reports slow down. Only then, do I feel, that I can look back at events, with a level of objectivity and clarity. This has become a tall order, with Egypt revolution and post revolution phases, as events never seem to cease. Egypt, where nothing much happened for decades, has gone to the extreme in news generation and endless ensuing commentaries, professional and voluntary journalism alike, the ultimate happening place!

A fascinating aspect of the post Jan25, or the January 25, 2011 Egyptian Revolution, is that, the huge amount of news reports, live news feeds often render radically differing versions of reality. A particular event that occurred on December 5, 2012, commonly referred to as the "Events of Ittahadiya Palace"' where massive clashes between pro and anti President Morsi protesters erupted leaving some 8 people dead and hundreds injured. What is clear is that peaceful anti Morsi protesters were violently attacked by Muslim Brothers, destroying their tents and other belongings. Few have argued that the events started with violence from Muslim Brotherhood supporters against the peaceful encamped protesters. What transpired afterwords, with scenes of urban civil war including use of tear gas, Molotov cocktails and live ammunition is subject to two radically different accounts; how many people were shot dead? Whose side they belonged to? Which side was armed with guns? These questions have conflicting answers. There also appear to be little doubt that the Brotherhood supporters operated some sort of detention center with clear evidence of torture, of their prisoners. I have not seen reports of a similar detention or torture by the anti Morsi protesters. So much has been written on the events of Ittahadiya Palace and staggering amounts of evidence has been assembled. 

Perhaps, for me, most shocking and troubling were the words of President Morsi commenting on Ittahadiya Palace events. The president stated that "hired thugs" were part of the protests, some "80 people have been arrested" and "we have their confessions". President Morsi was speaking of events that occurred merely 24 hours earlier, when he referenced incriminating confessions and conspiracies.

The word "confession" or admission of one's guilt is remarkable coming from a man, who himself, has been on the receiving end of injustice and suppression of freedom of thought and association.  There is little doubt that President Morsi came across numerous stories of the use of coerced confessions as a tool of the totalitarian police state, which Egypt actually revolted against. The fact that he referred to incriminating confessions, of people arrested only few hours earlier, to say the least, was outrageous. 

Totalitarian regimes are highly effective in extracting confessions. They rarely have unsolved crimes, or long running investigations, a criminal is easily found, a confession is forthcoming and thus, the machinery of injustice operate speedily and efficiently. In the case of President Morsi's alleged confessions, the machine did not cooperate. Indeed all 49 people arrested by the Egyptian Police, were in actual fact victims of the Muslim Brotherhood torture, who were released by the prosecutors within two days following President Morsi's remarks.  

Confessions have a relatively weak standing in most democracies and indeed, in some countries, are hardly admitted as evidence except in narrowly defined circumstances. President Morsi's words were, in fact, an indictment, not only to the president himself, but also to his capacity to reform Egypt justice and police systems, one of the clear undertakings of his campaign and post election speeches. Regardless of what President Morsi was told and what information he may not have had access to, how could Egypt first elected post revolution president utter such words. Morsi's words, even if if prosecutors would have cooperated in indicting the victims, betray a total ignorance of the rule of law and the most basic understanding of justice be it civil or Islamic. 

Sadly, the Muslim Brothers and their Freedom and Justice Party played up the Captain Renault understanding of the "rule of law", in practically every single statement or position they have taken, since the Ittahadiya Palace events and upped President Morsi's comments. The Brotherhood never repudiated the original act of destruction of the tents of the anti Morsi protesters, never admitted to the illegal torture and detention by their supporters of the opposition and never accepted the culpability of the Islamists in the death of opposition protesters.

Jan25 revolution, was specifically held on Egypt's Police Day. The 25th of January was chosen Egypt's Police Day in honor of the bravery of an Egyptian police station battling a unit of the the British Army during the struggle for independence. A trigger for Jan25 was the brutal torture and death of a young activist, Khaled Said, at the hands of Egypt's police. The police fabricated drug charges against Khaled Said, with the complicity of the prosecutor and the coroner. Later reexamination of the case proved the guilt and complicity of Egypt's Ministry of Interior. So for President Morsi and the Muslim Brothers to fail to address reform of the police is serious enough, but to engage in the language of "hired thugs" and talk of confessions of conspiracy is simply treacherous to the basic principles of Jan25.  

The following extracts of statement published by  Human Rights Watch and by UNHCR summarizes what many, the world over, are waiting on President Morsi to explain his "confessions":

"A speech by Morsy on December 6 in which he referred to “confessions” of detained protesters as evidence that they were “hired thugs” raises concerns for their due process rights and suggests that the authorities were aware of the illegal detentions outside the presidential palace. The secretary of the president on foreign affairs, Eng. Khaled Al Qazzaz, told Human Rights Watch that the president was not aware of the detention of the 49 individuals at the time and that this was currently being investigated along with reported deaths and injuries.

“Instead of condemning illegal detentions and abuse right outside the presidential palace, President Morsy spoke out against the victims,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The prosecutor’s response in this high-profile case, namely his willingness to investigate violence by both sides and the role of state officials, is crucial for upholding the rule of law during this tense time."

AA

December 25, 2012