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Arabica Robusta

The Arabs in Africa - 0 views

www.jadaliyya.com/...the-arabs-in-africa

social movements arab egypt multinational corporations mncs mubarak intervention telecom africa

shared by Arabica Robusta on 06 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Although just one aspect of the current situation in Libya, I suggest that it should give us pause to consider the stakes of this conceptualization of a basic Arab-African or Arab-black antagonism—one that not only formulates these as mutually exclusive categories but also pins them against one another in the context of the Libyan revolution.
  • Just a handful of commentators have questioned the veracity of the “African mercenaries” charge while maintaining their support for the uprising.
  • there is scant evidence that these people are, first of all, participating in state-sponsored violence against the popular uprising, and, second, were brought into Libya for this explicit purpose. On the contrary, we know that Libya was already home to a significant number of foreign workers—including some two million black African migrant workers. We should also note Libya’s documented history of racial discrimination. Almost one year to the day before the February 17 Day of Anger that jumpstarted the revolution, UN Watch, an independent organization monitoring the UN, issued a statement entitled, “Libya Must End Racism Against Black African Migrants and Others.”
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  • In light of this recent history, the videos and photographs of “African mercenaries” raise disturbing questions. Are the men we see pictured here perpetrators of state-sponsored violence, are they victims of racism, or is it possible that both of these things may be true at the same time?
  • What we can learn from the framing of violence in Darfur is that Arabs are not considered “Africans” by policymakers, journalists, and organizations, and that Arabs and Africans may be seen by these same groups as fundamentally different, and consequently face fundamentally different kinds of problems—suffering differently, inflicting harm differently, and handling politics differently—in a manner that hinders “our” own consideration of them together.
  • The area that is considered vulnerable to this regional unrest stretches at least from Algeria to Iran and has been called the Arab world or the Middle East, despite the fact that Iranians are not Arab and most of Algeria lies west of France. This geography does not, however, appear to reach far south of the Mediterranean, at least where Africa is concerned. Although the two successful revolutions thus far lay on the African continent, there has been an overall failure to consider their effect in terms of sub-Saharan African politics and places such as Gabon, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Uganda.
  • politics of geopolitics. First, what we should recognize is that terms such as “Africa” and “the Middle East” function not only on the basis of geography or actual political ties, but as stand-ins for racial signifiers. Despite a shared history of European colonialism in its different manifestations, Africa and the Middle East nonetheless bear extremely different histories of representation or historical imaginaries within the European continent (which is, I would point out, also not a continent, but something like a subcontinent).
  • If Qaddafi has brought in foreign mercenaries--and I'm not saying he hasn't--this doesn't change the way the discourse around these mercenaries is tied up in broader race relations.
Arabica Robusta

Egypt During the Reign of the Lunatics » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...ring-the-reign-of-the-lunatics

social movements arab multinational mncs corporations intervention egypt

shared by Arabica Robusta on 22 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Mohandseen would have been one of the zones where the army had an overwhelming majority, because many of those that benefit most from the patronage system that is the Egyptian state live there, whilst the army lies at the apex of this food chain.
  • It is rather unfortunate that many reports call our demonstrations ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ protests, because when we last did a count at al-Nahda square of the proportion of Muslim Brothers there, they came to about 20-25%. This is in fact a representative proportion across all protesters at the moment.
  • The Front for National Conscience is headed by ex-diplomat Ibrahim Yusri, who was ambassador for Egypt in Algeria during the political crisis of 1991-2 over the role of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) in political, and talks here to al-Jazeera Arabic of his experience at that time and his strong opposition to the removal of Morsi as duly elected president and to the annulment of the legally binding constitution.
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  • What Morsi has done will go down in history as one of the major turning points in Middle-Eastern history. Political Islam, which has traditionally been a one-dimensional creedal culture, has now been repositioned in the wider consciousness in terms of democratic legitimacy. This is entirely against the interests of a military régime that has, since 1973, built its power and reputation, not on fighting wars to protect its people, but on running a protection racket.
Arabica Robusta

The Great Arab Revolt | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...great-arab-revolt

egypt mubarak arab movements social multinational mncs corporations telecom intervention yemen algeria bahrain tunisia jordan

shared by Arabica Robusta on 20 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Under European colonialism the Middle East had a few decades of classic liberal rule in the first half of the twentieth century. Egypt, Iraq and Iran had elected parliaments, prime ministers and popular parties. However, liberal rule was eventually discredited insofar as it proved to be largely a game played by big landlords overly open to the influence and bribery of grasping Western powers.
  • These governments took steps in recent decades toward neoliberal policies of privatization and a smaller public sector under pressure from Washington and allied institutions—and the process was often corrupt. The ruling families used their prior knowledge of important economic policy initiatives to engage in a kind of insider trading, advantaging their relatives and buddies.
  • The policies of these one-party states created widespread anxiety among workers, the unemployed and even entrepreneurs outside the charmed circle, seeming to create an insuperable obstacle to the advancement of the ordinary person.
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  • They put tremendous sums into universities and higher education but inexplicably neglected K–12 education for the rural and urban poor.
  • Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said he would not seek another term; his opponents have charged him with operating secret torture cells and a private army, and aspiring to become another corrupt strongman.
  • Because the generals won the civil war, and the army stands behind the regime, it is harder for the urban crowds to gain traction.
  • Many among the demonstrators, whether union organizers, villagers or college graduates, seem to believe that once the lead log in the logjam is removed, the economy will return to normal and opportunities for advancement will open up to all. Somewhat touchingly, they have put their hopes in free and fair parliamentary elections, so that the Middle East may be swinging back to a new liberal period, formally resembling that of the 1930s and ’40s. If these aspirations for open politics and economic opportunity are blocked again, as they were by the hacienda owners and Western proconsuls of the mid-twentieth century, the Arab masses may turn to more desperate, and dangerous, alternatives.
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