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allieggg

The U.S. Is Giving Up on Middle East Democracy-and That's a Mistake - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...282890

middle east democracy institutions Bush Obama Congress

shared by allieggg on 29 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • democracy assistance to the region, which will drop from $459.2 million to $298.3 million
  • Today’s Middle East is a product, at least in part, of failed democratization, and one of the reasons it failed was the timid, half-hearted support of the Obama administration.
  • the significant impact Western leverage and “linkage” can have on democratic transitions.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “it was an externally driven shift in the cost of suppression, not changes in domestic conditions, that contributed most centrally to the demise of authoritarianism in the 1980s and 1990s.” They find that “states’ vulnerability to Western democratization pressure… was often decisive.”
  • it is also worth noting that President Bush acknowledged the existence of a “tyranny-terror” link—the notion that the root causes of extremism and terrorism can be found in the region’s enduring lack of democracy.
  • What is needed are more systematic reforms focused on fundamental institutions. These include things like constraining the military’s role in civilian domains of governance, deep reform in the security and justice sectors including law enforcement and policing, and comprehensive “renovation” of the civil service sector. These are large-scale, long-term, and expensive undertakings that far transcend the modest parameters of most U.S. democracy promotion programs.
  • We argue that the U.S. and its partners now need to consider a very different approach to Middle East democracy assistance.
  • Conventional democracy promotion activities tend to focus on the process and “retail” aspects of democratic politics—things like elections, political party training, get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns, and civil society enhancement. While these are undoubtedly important, they are insufficient to deliver lasting reforms. Authoritarianism in the Arab world has proven time and time again—even in supposedly post-revolutionary settings such as Egypt today—that it can weather the annoyances of elections and civil society.
  • the administration’s approach to the region is characterized almost entirely by ad-hoc crisis management and traditional counterterrorism approaches. Its one larger-scale reform initiative—a half-hearted proposal for a
  • we make the case for a new Multilateral Endowment for Reform (MER) that would tie significant levels of financial assistance—in the billions of dollars—to reform commitments and benchmarked implementation performance by partner nations.
  • provide a real incentive for countries to embark down a path to deeper and more enduring political reforms while retaining the ability to pull back funding if they do not deliver.
  • allieggg on 29 Sep 14
     
    This article begins by illuminating the regional democracy assistance cuts that are dropping from $459.2 million to $298.3 million It explains that the Bush Administration began the quest for democracy in the Middle East, and the Obama administration has only continued in his footsteps. The author presents the viewpoint that the U.S. approach to Arab democratization has been in the form of "ad-hoc crisis management" rather than "large scale reform initiatives." Promoting democracy in the form of democratic politics are insufficient, elections and political parties have consistently proved to weather away and fester further civil strife. Consequently, the article proposes a new approach to the region conflict. This approach calls for "systematic reforms" focusing on basic institutions such as the civil service sector, justice and law enforcement, and the military's role in governance. The idea is that addressing these lacking departments in the arab world will eventually pave the way to a smoother democratic transition. 
kristaf

What's Next For Egypt After Sisi's Win? : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...next-for-egypt-after-sisis-win

#EgyptElections #MuslimBrotherhood #PoliticalPrisoners #Sisi

shared by kristaf on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • une 01, 2014
  • Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi
  • 2012 brought the Muslim brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi to power.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Muslim Brotherhood
    • kristaf
      kristaf on 22 Sep 14
       
      Muslim Brotherhood- "in Egypt is a Sunni Islamist religious, political, and social movement."
  • in 2011, the revolution hatched in Tahrir Square helped bring down Egypt's long-time dictator, Hosni Mubarak
  • Egyptians went to the polls once again and they elected former Field Marshal Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi
  • How can be genuinely democratic when certain portions of society are basically banned, not allowed to participate in that way, if they're members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • And also all voices of dissent being suppressed. Thousands of people characterized as political prisoners are languishing in jail here in Egypt.
    • kristaf
      kristaf on 22 Sep 14
       
      comment on how there are still injustices within Egypt as some people have been jailed for voicing their opinions
  • his is a country that has a difficult economy, power outages, a huge gap between the rich and poor. So this is a president that's going to have to deal with all the issues that Egyptian's are trying to deal with along with security.
    • kristaf
      kristaf on 22 Sep 14
       
      Question's regarding the economy, power outages, and the gap between the rich and poor. All issues to be considered and researched
  • kristaf on 22 Sep 14
     
    The story discusses the election of Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi following the forced removal of Morsi whom was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the election in an effort to make their presence known as well as their strong belief in having Morsi return to office. The Muslim Brotherhood still banned from being recognized as an organization establishes the contradiction of the elections being "genuinely democratic."
  • kristaf on 22 Sep 14
     
    The story discusses the election of Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi following the forced removal of Morsi whom was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the election in an effort to make their presence known as well as their strong belief in having Morsi return to office. The Muslim Brotherhood still banned from being recognized as an organization establishes the contradiction of the elections being "genuinely democratic."
klweber2

"Media Freedom: Closed Until Further Notice" A... - Oum Cartoon أم كرتون - 0 views

oumcartoon.tumblr.com/...-closed-until-further-notice-a

egypt cartoon satire

shared by klweber2 on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
    • klweber2
      klweber2 on 10 Nov 14
       
      A cartoon depicting the current censorship debate in Egypt. Seems to emphasize how the current lack of freedom of speech is suppressing the people of Egypt and how this is goes against what they want. 
nicolet1189

Twitter, terror and free speech: Should Twitter block Islamic snuff videos? | The Econo... - 0 views

www.economist.com/...twitter-terror-and-free-speech

ISIS free speech Social Media twitter censorship

shared by nicolet1189 on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • YouTube removed one version of the video, citing a violation of their policy on violent content. On Tuesday, Twitter announced a new policy that it would remove images and video of the deceased at the request of family member
  • g #ISISMediaBlackout
  • The logical incoherence of this statement aside, is disseminating offensive material the same thing as promoting it? It is conceivable that the video could incite potential terrorists and others harboring anti-American sentiments to copycat acts of violence. But it is equally true that content of this kind wakes people up t
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Should platforms like YouTube and Twitter really have the power to censor what content we can or cannot see? At least in America, the suppression of disturbing or offensive content, if it does not incite violence, is a direct violation of our principles of free speech. Especially in this instance, it seems deeply inappropriate to respond to authoritarianism with authoritarian action.
  • Others have argued that the video shouldn’t be shared because that’s what ISIS wants.
  • Does it matter what ISIS wants?
  • Part of ISIS’s aim is presumably to terrorise us remotely, but most people are just getting angry.
  • intentionality does not factor into censorship decisions anyway. 
  • Twitter is not television. No one is being forced to view the footage.
  • It’s completely understandable that family members don’t want footage of a loved one’s death to spread, but it’s not clear that that’s their decision to make.
  • It’s really not Twitter’s decision either—unless we want to grant tech giants the power to control public knowledge and discourse, a dangerous precedent indeed.
  • Its democratic power derives from the fact that it’s unedited; for better or for worse,
  • nicolet1189 on 10 Nov 14
     
    The author of this article strongly opposes Social Media companies, specifically Twitter censoring ISIS related materials on their website. The author argues it violates free speech and the democratic principles associated with the website, arguing censoring a beheading video would be a slippery slope for future content.
alarsso

Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...281989

syria understanding history causes war revolution transition

shared by alarsso on 08 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • xtreme temperatures
  • drought from 2006 to 2011
  • 2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 “significant” dust storms.
  • ...70 more annotations...
  • lessening of rainfall
  • as of the last year before the civil war, only about 13,500 square kilometers could be irrigated
  • agriculture
  • 20 percent of national income
  • employed about 17 percent
  • Syria’s oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine
  • densely populated
  • less than 0.25 hectares (just over a third of an acre) of agricultural land per person
  • population/resource ratio is out of balance.
  • So it is important to understand how their “social contract”—their view of their relationship with one another and with the government—evolved and then shattered.
  • threw the country into the arms of
  • Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser
  • or three and a half years
  • part of the United Arab Republic
  • A fundamental problem they faced was what it meant to be a Syrian.
  • 1961 Syrians were thrown back on their own resources
  • The majority of those who became Syrians were Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims
  • seven and eight in 10 Syrians saw themselves as Muslim Arab
  • being a Muslim Arab as the very definition of Syrian identity.
  • Nationalists took this diversity as a primary cause of weakness and adopted as their primary task integrating the population into a single political and social structure.
  • Israel
  • Looming over Syrian politics and heightening the tensions
  • A ceasefire, negotiated in 1974, has held, but today the two states are still legally at war.
  • or Hafez al-Assad, the secular, nationalist Baath Party was a natural choice: it offered, or seemed to offer, the means to overcome his origins in a minority community and to point toward a solution to the disunity of Syrian politics
  • bridge the gaps between rich and poor
  • socialism
  • Muslims and minorities
  • Islam
  • society
  • hould be modern
  • secular
  • defined by a culture of “Arabism”
  • the very antithesis of
  • Muslim Brotherhood
  • military, which seemed
  • o embody the nation.
  • help the Syrian people to live better provided only that they not challenge his rule
  • his stern and often-brutal monopoly of power
  • foreign troublemakers
  • Hafez al-Assad sided with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war
  • During the rule of the two Assads, Syria made considerable progress.
  • locked into the cities and towns
  • they f
  • had to compete
  • Palestinians
  • Iraqis
  • Syria was already a refuge
  • March 15, 2011
  • small group gathered in the southwestern town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them
  • government saw them as subversives.
  • He ordered a crackdown
  • And the army,
  • responded violently.
  • Riots broke out
  • attempted to quell them with military
  • what had begun as a food and water issue gradually turned into a political and religious cause.
  • interpretation of Islam
  • the Syrian government is charged with using illegal chemical weapons
  • All observers agree that the foreign-controlled and foreign-constituted insurgent groups are the most coherent, organized, and effective
  • astonishing as they share no common language and come from a wide variety of cultures
  • slam has at least so far failed to provide an effective unifying force
  • all the rebels regard the conflict in Syria as fundamentally a religious issue
  • pwards of $150 billion
  • a whole generation of Syrians have been subjected to either or both the loss of their homes and their trust in fellow human beings.
  • How the victims and the perpetrators can be returned to a “normal life”
  • First, the war might continue.
  • Second, if the Syrian government continues or even prevails, there is no assurance that,
  • t will be able to suppress the insurgency.
  • Third,
  • Syria will remain effectively “balkanized”
  • alarsso on 08 Feb 15
     
    This article captures Syria's geography, history, and all events leading up to the state Syria is in today.
ccfuentez

Arab governments are failing on human trafficking | Brian Whitaker | Opinion | The Guar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-governments-human-trafficking

human trafficking Saudi Arabia prostitution abuse

shared by ccfuentez on 22 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • "Trafficking in persons" covers various forms of exploitation including, in the words of the international Palermo protocol, "sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs".
  • A large part of the problem in the wealthier Arab countries is the extensive use of foreign labour
  • ccfuentez on 22 Feb 16
     
    In Saudi Arabia if workers file a complaint against their employers about abuse they are usually returned to their employers or pressured to drop the charges. Typically, the employers will file a false counter-argument against the workers for theft, witchcraft, and adultery in retaliation. This country is also accused of failing to take action to reduce the demand of prostitution or child sex tourism. 
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