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Ed Webb

3quarksdaily - 0 views

www.3quarksdaily.com/...-nascent-arab-revolutions.html

opinion analysis #jan25 protests Tunisia Egypt Libya Bahrain US

shared by Ed Webb on 21 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • in a post-9/11 world, any non-state actor caught throwing a stone, be it the first stone or the thousandth, risks total warfare under the guise of counterinsurgency
  • The coming constitutional showdown between human law and divine law in the revolutionary Arab states may turn on the question of gay rights and sexual freedom generally
  • Mass, sustained civil disobedience at the corporate headquarters of insurance 'providers' and banks and petrol companies remains a long way off. Instead, Koch-funded campaigns continue to succeed at electing Republican governors who then refuse federal money to build high-speed rail networks . (See Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and more to come. Special shoutout to New Jersey.) When Americans begin to thirst for health care, re-pedestrianised cities, and the return of usury laws with the same fervor that Egyptians have shown in clamouring for democracy and the rule of law, only then will we know the revolution is here.
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  • may all the peoples of the world live free with leaders of their own choosing and with easy access to medical care as every human being deserves. Let's hope that something close to that awaits us all in this life
Ed Webb

Tunisian Islamists show strength at chief's return - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...us_tunisia

Tunisia Islam Islamists secularism sidibouzid

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • The reception for Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennahda party, at Tunis airport was the biggest showing by the Islamists in two decades, during which thousands of them were jailed or exiled by president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali
  • The Islamists were Tunisia's strongest opposition force at the time Ben Ali cracked down on them in 1989 but are thought not to have played a leading role in the popular revolt.
  • A group of men performed prayers on a grass verge, a scene unthinkable in Tunisia just a few weeks ago
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  • Ennahda likens its ideology to that of Turkey's ruling AK Party, saying it is committed to democracy. Experts on political Islam say its ideas are some of the most moderate among Islamist groups
  • Asked how they had managed to organize so quickly, one activist said: "Our activities were stopped, but you can't disperse an ideology."
  • A handful of secularists turned up at the airport to demonstrate against the party, holding up a placard reading: "No Islamism, no theocracy, no Sharia and no stupidity!" Ennahda and its supporters say they do not seek an Islamic state and want only the right to participate in politics. "We want a democratic state," said Mohammed Habasi, an Ennahda supporter who said he had been jailed four times since 1991 for "belonging to a banned group." "We suffered the most from a lack of democracy," he said
Ed Webb

Acknowledging political Islam - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...20111294810405799.html

Islamism Egypt MENA religion politics radicalism analysis opinion Tunisia

shared by Ed Webb on 24 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Whatever their pro-democratic rhetoric, when faced with a choice between the ascension of religiously conservative Arab nationalists overtly opposed to US policy in the region on the one hand, and repression on the other, the West was prepared to support repression. My friend from WINEP, no doubt, approved.
  • it seemed to me that the Arab masses, if denied the opportunity for political recourse through democratic means, would turn instead to revolutionary forces who embraced a far more radical and violent conception of Islam.
  • when push comes to shove, the US and other western governments, to the extent they can influence events at all, will opt, in Mr. ElBaradei's words, for the elusive promise of stability.
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  • It is easy to criticise an unlovely regime like that of Hosni Mubarak, and both public and private figures in the US rise enthusiastically to the task. But just let them glimpse a realistic prospect for the Egyptian Muslim Brothers to gain a significant share of power, and their enthusiasm will rapidly wane. I and others who believe as I do remain convinced that this is a significant mistake, and that the prominent current of thinking in the US which refuses to make a significant distinction between groups like the Muslim brothers and the violent Islamists who embrace the banner of Al Qaeda is wrong-headed. Our problem is that we simply cannot find compelling evidence to make our case. Absent new facts, which only the people of the region can provide, we are destined to lose the debate.
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