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fcastro2

A daring plan to rebuild Syria - no matter who wins the war - Ideas - The Boston Globe - 0 views

www.bostonglobe.com/...story.html

syria plan war politics china russia the west

shared by fcastro2 on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The first year of Syria’s uprising, 2011, largely spared Aleppo, the country’s economic engine, largest city, and home of its most prized heritage sites. Fighting engulfed Aleppo in 2012 and has never let up since, making the city a symbol of the civil war’s grinding destruction
  • Rebels captured the eastern side of the city while the government held the wes
  • , residents say the city is virtually uninhabitable; most who remain have nowhere else to go
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • In terms of sheer devastation, Syria today is worse off than Germany at the end of World War II
  • ven as the fighting continues, a movement is brewing among planners, activists and bureaucrats—some still in Aleppo, others in Damascus, Turkey, and Lebanon—to prepare, right now, for the reconstruction effort that will come whenever peace finally arrives.
  • In a glass tower belonging to the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a project called the National Agenda for the Future of Syria has brought together teams of engineers, architects, water experts, conservationists, and development experts to grapple with seemingly impossible technical problems
  • It is good to do the planning now, because on day one we will be ready,”
  • The team planning the country’s future is a diverse one. Some are employed by the government of Syria, others by the rebels’ rival provisional government. Still others work for the UN, private construction companies, or nongovernmental organizations involved in conservation, like the World Monuments Fund
  • As the group’s members outline a path toward renewal, they’re considering everything from corruption and constitutional reform to power grids, antiquities, and health care systems.
  • Aleppo is split between a regime side with vestiges of basic services, and a mostly depopulated rebel-controlled zone, into which the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front have made inroads over the last year
  • The population exodus has claimed most of the city’s craftsmen, medical personnel, academics, and industrialists
  • It took decades to clear the moonscapes of rubble and to rebuild, in famous targets like Dresden and Hiroshima but in countless other places as well, from Coventry to Nanking. Some places never recovered their vitality.
  • Of course, Syrian planners cannot help but pay attention to the model closest to home: Beirut, a city almost synonymous with civil war and flawed reconstructio
  • We don’t want to end up like Beirut,” one of the Syrian planners says, referring to the physical problems but also to a postwar process in which militia leaders turned to corrupt reconstruction ventures as a new source of funds and power
  • Syria’s national recovery will depend in large part on whether its industrial powerhouse Aleppo can bounce back
  • The city’s workshops, famed above all for their fine textiles, export millions of dollars’ worth of goods every week even now, and the economy has expanded to include modern industry as well.
  • Today, however, the city’s water and power supply are under the control of the Islamic State
  • Across Syria, more than one-third of the population is displaced.
  • A river of rubble marks the no-man’s land separating the two sides. The only way to cross is to leave the city, follow a wide arc, and reenter from the far side.
  • Parts of the old city won’t be inhabitable for years, he told me by Skype, because the ground has literally shifted as a result of bombing and shelling
  • The first and more obvious is creating realistic options to fix the country after the war—in some cases literal plans for building infrastructure systems and positioning construction equipment, in other cases guidelines for shaping governanc
  • They’re familiar with global “best practices,” but also with how things work in Syria, so they’re not going to propose pie-in-the-sky idea
  • If some version of the current regime remains in charge, it will probably direct massive contracts toward patrons in Russia, China, or Iran. The opposition, by contrast, would lean toward firms from the West, Turkey, and the Gulf.
  • At the current level of destruction, the project planners estimate the reconstruction will cost at least $100 billion
  • Recently a panel of architects and heritage experts from Sweden, Bosnia, Syria, and Lebanon convened in Beirut to discuss lessons for Syria’s reconstruction—one of the many distinct initiatives parallel to the Future of Syria project.
  • “You should never rebuild the way it was,” said Arna Mackic, an architect from Mostar. That Bosnian city was divided during the 1990s civil war into Muslim and Catholic sides, destroying the city center and the famous Stari Most bridge over the Neretva River. “The war changes us. You should show that in rebuilding.”
  • Instead, Mackik says, the sectarian communities keep to their own enclaves. Bereft of any common symbols, the city took a poll to figure out what kind of statue to erect in the city center. All the local figures were too polarizing. In the end they settled on a gold-colored statue of the martial arts star Bruce Lee
  • “It belongs to no one,” Mackic says. “What does Bruce Lee mean to me?
  • is that it could offer the city’s people a form of participatory democracy that has so far eluded the Syrian regime and sadly, the opposition as well.
  • “You are being democratic without the consequences of all the hullabaloo of formal democratization
  • A great deal of money has been invested in Syria’s destruction— by the regime, the local parties to the conflict, and many foreign powers. A great deal of money will be made in the aftermath, in a reconstruction project that stands to dwarf anything seen since after World War II.
  • fcastro2 on 23 Feb 15
     
    While it is still unclear as to who will win the Syrian conflict, there are people who are already looking towards the future and a better Syria. Plans are being made but, of course, these plans will entirely depend on who wins the war. 
allieggg

Can Libya Rebuild Itself After 40 Years of Gaddafi? - 0 views

www.newsweek.com/f-after-40-years-gaddafi-68601

Gaddafi libya Arab Nationalism recontruction political tabula rasa Revolution politics middle east

shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • the man has hollowed out the Libyan state, eviscerated all opposition in Libyan society, and, in effect, created a political tabula rasa on which a newly free people will now have to scratch out a future.
  • Jamahiriya, a political system that is run directly by tribesmen without the intermediation of state institutions
  • the problem is, of course, that much like in the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, virtually everyone at one point or another had to deal with the regime to survive.
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  • Libya is truly a case apart.
  • the disastrous Italian legacy in Libya, has been a constant element in Gaddafi’s speeches since he took power
  • inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser, neighboring Egypt’s president, whose ideas of Arab nationalism and of the possibility of restoring glory to the Arab world, would fuel the first decade of Gaddafi’s revolution.
  • he was unimpressed with the niceties of international diplomacy,
  • In a brilliant move that co-opted tribal elders, many of whom were also military commanders, he created the Social Leadership People’s Committee, through which he could simultaneously control the tribes and segments of the country’s military.
  • When it turned out that Libya, which was still a decentralized society in 1969, had little appetite for his centralizing political vision and remained largely indifferent to his proposals, the young idealist quickly turned activist.
  • Green Book, a set of slim volumes published in the mid-1970s that contain Gaddafi’s political philosophy, a blueprint is offered for a dramatic restructuring of Libya’s economy, politics, and society. In principle, Libya would become an experiment in democracy. In reality, it became a police state where every move of its citizens was carefully watched by a growing number of security apparatuses and revolutionary committees that owed loyalty directly to Gaddafi.
  • Having crushed all opposition by the mid-1970s, the regime systematically snuffed out any group that could potentially oppose it—any activity that could be construed as political opposition was punishable by death, which is one reason why a post-Gaddafi Libya, unlike a post-Mubarak Egypt, can have no ready-made opposition in a position to fill the vacuum.
  • The tribes—the Warfalla, the Awlad Busayf, the Magharha, the Zuwaya, the Barasa, and the smallest of them all, the Gadafa, to which he belonged—offered a natural form of political affiliation, a tribal ethos that could be tapped into for support. And perhaps, in the aftermath of Gaddafi, they could serve as a nucleus around which to build a new political system.
  • Gaddafi feared they might coalesce into groups opposing his rule. So, during the first two decades after the 1969 coup, he tried to erase their influence, arguing that they were an archaic element in a modern society.
  • comprehensive reconstruction of everything civic, political, legal, and moral that makes up a society and its government.
  • After systematically destroying local society, after using the tribes to cancel each other out, after aborting methodically the emergence of a younger generation that could take over Libya’s political life—all compounded by the general incoherence of the country’s administrative and bureaucratic institutions—Gaddafi will have left a new Libya with severe and longstanding challenges.
  • the growing isolation of Libya as international sanctions were imposed.
  • Lockerbie was the logical endpoint for a regime that had lost all international legitimacy.
  • while the regime still had the coercive power to put down any uprisings that took place in the 1990s, it became clear to Gaddafi’s closest advisers that the potential for unrest had reached unprecedented levels.
  • way out was to come to an agreement with the West that would end the sanctions, allow Libya to refurbish an aging oil infrastructure, and provide a safety valve by permitting Libyans to travel abroad once more.
  • intent to renounce weapons of mass destruction in December 2003—after a long process of behind-the-scenes diplomacy initially spearheaded by Britain
  • “The Revolution Everlasting” was one of the enduring slogans of his Libya, inscribed everywhere from bridges to water bottles.
  • regime that had, for four decades, mismanaged the country’s economy and humiliated its citizens
  • country was split in half, with eastern Cyrenaica and its main city Benghazi effectively independent—a demonstration of the kind of people’s power Gaddafi had always advocated. Reality, in effect, outgrew the caricature.
  • used a set of divide-and-rule policies that not only kept his opponents sundered from each other, but had also completely enfeebled any social or political institution in the country.
  • Beyond Gaddafi, there exists only a great political emptiness, a void that Libya somehow will need to fill.
  • the creation of a modern state where Libyans become true citizens, with all the rights and duties this entails.
  • the terrorist incidents
  • Regimes can use oil revenues strategically to provide patronage that effectively keeps them in power.
  • allieggg on 12 Nov 14
     
    This article from News Week basically paints a picture of Libyan history and how Gaddafi's reign devastated the state economically, socially, and politically. Author Dirk Vandewalle uses the phrase "a political tabula rasa" which in Latin means a blank slate, to describe the fate of Libya after Gaddafi's rule and convey the extent to which the country has to literally reconstruct every component that makes up a society and its government. He highlights major events that led to the downfall of both the Gaddafi regime and the Libyan state as a whole such as Arab nationalism, Jamahiriya, the Green Book, security apparatuses snuffing all opposition, terrorist incidents, isolation and international sanctions, the Lockerbie bombing, weapons of mass destruction, human right violations, divide and rule policies, and his use of oil revenue to fuel his insurgency. Vandewalle concludes the article with uncertain ideas thoughts towards Libya's future and the way the state is going to literally rebuild themselves from this "blank slate" that Gaddafi left behind. 
kristaf

Muslim Brotherhood: The coup has betrayed Egypt and implemented the Zionist agenda in S... - 0 views

www.middleeastmonitor.com/...ed-the-zionist-agenda-in-sinai

#Zionist #Sinai #Coup #Muslimbrotherhood

shared by kristaf on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt announced its full support of the families residing in Sinai and said
  • hat they will not leave them to face the coup's schemes and state-induced terrorism alone.
  • the group condemned the regime's use of murder, kidnapping and forced displacements of families in Rafah.
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  • assured the people that the perpetrators of these crimes will not evade punishment. The Muslim Brotherhood accused the Egyptian regime of implementing an Israeli-American agenda in Sinai.
  • The statement also pointed out that the country's legitimate president Dr Mohamed Morsi was working to reconstruct Sinai and abort the implementation of a Zionist agenda within the peninsula.
  • The group condemned the regime's forced displacement of Sinai's citizens and its criminality towards the people of Rafah who have been subject to torture, kidnapping and looting
andrea_hoertz

Gaddafi died 3 years ago. Would Libya be better off if he hadn't? - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ibya-be-better-off-if-he-hadnt

libya Qaddafi civil war democracy

shared by andrea_hoertz on 11 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • But the real issue is why the international community, after a seven-month air campaign, neglected post-conflict reconstruction."
    • andrea_hoertz
      andrea_hoertz on 11 Nov 14
       
      Libya lacks the basis for creating a functioning government and society- globalization perspective
  • andrea_hoertz on 11 Nov 14
     
    This article discusses Libya and whether or not it would have been better off if Qaddafi had not been killed. The article says that because libya is a resource rich country, and is close to Europe, it had pretty good chances of making a smooth transition to peace and stability.
mcooka

The conviction of Radovan Karadzic has lessons for Syria's war | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...karadzic-trial-1309000654

Bosnia Yugoslavia Middle East War Prisoner

shared by mcooka on 28 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Thursday saw the closure of a long and drawn out story for the victims of Bosnia’s bloody civil war as the guilty verdict was finally delivered in the trial of Radovan Karadzic.
  • of a 40-year jail sentence for Karadzic for genocide and war crimes.
  • Memory and justice are two themes
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  • So much of the strife afflicting Europe and the Middle East today has its roots in the Bosnian conflict, yet scant attention has been paid to the country in the years following the war.
  • Up to 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnia conflict between 1992 and 1995 when, following a referendum to secede from Yugoslavia, the country was plunged into an inter-ethnic war between Serbs, Croats and Muslims (or Bosniaks).
  • Karadzic and his Serb forces have long been considered the worst perpetrators of the violence - which nevertheless saw atrocities on all sides - and culminated in the brutal Srebrenica massacre in which over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in 1995 in full view of the UN peacekeeping forces. 
  • n forging notions of global Muslim solidarity and identity which has played such a major role in the conflicts of the Middle East.
  • Much as in Syria today, hundreds - potentially thousands - of foreigners travelled to Bosnia to join the mujahideen and protect Bosnian Muslims from the Bosnian Serb forces
  • It's hard not to draw parallels between such language and the language of anti-Muslim demagogues in Europe, India, Myanmar and America today.
  • When the dust settles in Syria, and should the war criminals survive long enough to be put on trial, the long-term work of reconstruction and reconciliation will begin
  • mcooka on 28 Mar 16
     
    This article looks at the trial of the Bosnia war criminal. He was persecuted and given 40 years in prison after 20 years of being chased and waiting for trial. The Bosnia war has roots of strife which still exist in the Middle East today. 
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