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Lebanon's Most Outspoken Politician Wants To Talk To You On Twitter - 0 views

www.buzzfeed.com/...cian-wants-to-talk-to-you-on-t Lebanon politics socialmedia twitter
shared by Ed Webb on 21 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Joumblatt joined Twitter just three weeks ago and already has more than 25,000 followers, many of whom he answers directly with the same candor and wit that has helped make the 65-year-old an unlikely giant in Lebanese politics
  • Lebanon, a small, religiously diverse country, is home to a tense alignment of Christians, Sunnis, Shia Muslims, and Druze — communities mostly represented by an old guard of politicians who keep the majority of political discourse behind closed doors. On social media, used broadly by Lebanese across the country, the political rhetoric is open and fierce, albeit rarely constructive. While most of the country’s political elite hold social media accounts, few directly engage.
  • That’s what sets Joumblatt apart. His political flexibility gives him the unique ability as a politician to voice unpopular criticism. Following clashes in Lebanon’s second-largest city of Tripoli last month, Joumblatt called out former Prime Minister Najib Mikati, now a parliamentarian representing the city of Tripoli
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  • when pressed, Joumblatt admitted one thing he refuses to tweet about are his pessimistic thoughts on the future of the Middle East. “Everything is crumbling, the old Arab world that I used to know is crumbling, but I can’t tweet that,” he said between sighs. “It would be a crime to tell people that, ‘Well, things are more difficult than you think,’ because after all, they have hopes, they have aspirations.” Instead, he says he tweets quotes that address suffering but still offer hope, even if he himself doesn’t fully buy it.
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Don't Let Politicians Normalize the Dehumanization of Palestinians - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/dehumanization-of-palestinians opinion Palestine israelpalestine Israel conflict rhetoric politics US USA UK Britain
shared by Ed Webb on 27 Oct 23 - No Cached
  • British and American politicians consistently disregard the supremacy of international humanitarian law with regards to the targeting of civilians, and redirect to Israel’s right to defend itself, so Palestinian civilians are no longer really civilians—and inevitably, dehumanized.
  • in the U.K. and the U.S., anti-semitism has been more or less stamped out of acceptable discourse from our nation’s politicians and opinion. But anti-Arab bigotry and Islamophobia does not attract the same kind of vehement opposition
  • There is a clear connection between the rhetoric we see, and the policies we uphold. International humanitarian law applies to human beings; when such human beings are dehumanized, as Israeli and Palestinian civilians have been, it is a precursor to their being treated inhumanely. Collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza is thus seen as legitimate, including the cutting off of electricity, food, and fuel into Gaza.
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  • President Joe Biden condemned the Islamophobic attack that led to the death of the Palestinian child earlier this weekend, as he should have: but he, and all of us, have to go after the background music that gives fuel to that kind of atrocity, and worse.
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Jadaliyya - 0 views

www.jadaliyya.com/45214 Egypt Sisi military politics parliament propaganda censorship parties analysis
shared by Ed Webb on 08 Jan 24 - No Cached
  • At the heart of the regime’s responses to these pressures is the “National Dialogue.” The Dialogue, which kicked off last May, is a vaguely conceived multi-track forum in which a host of carefully selected political figures and experts convene periodically to discuss public policy reforms. The political leadership has marketed this initiative to its international and domestic detractors as a testament to its readiness to engage opponents and alternative viewpoints. In reality, the Dialogue is the regime’s attempt at gaslighting critics
  • the spectacle (as opposed to the outcome) of deliberation is the clear driver of this initiative
  • by early 2023, the regime had decimated the resources it now needed to erect a convincing façade of participatory politics to mitigate the concerns of its international partners and to absorb popular discontent
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  • The very existence of the Dialogue underscores the extent to which Sisi has managed to lock himself in a corner after spending much of the past decade destroying all forms of managed dissent and limited pluralism, once a staple of the previous authoritarian order.
  • the July 2013 coup proceeded on the ruins of the “civilian punching bag” model of 2012-13. The latter describes a tacit arrangement in which the military was poised to pursue its interests from behind a civilian interlocutor (or, a “punching bag”), the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party—an arrangement that ended in utter failure. By 2013, therefore, the military’s appetite for working in collaboration with civilian parties had run its course.
  • the reinvention of Mubarak-style dominant party rule was not an appealing option for Sisi in 2014.
  • “the New Youth Project” or NYP for short. The NYP describes a host of formal and informal initiatives and programs that, collectively, seek to cultivate a new cadre of youth politicians and public servants socialized around military-centric nationalism
  • a broader effort the political leadership is undertaking to inject into public institutions a broad-based ideological commitment to the military-dominated political order
  • a pervading discourse senior officials and pro-regime figures have propagated in the past few years under the banner of “the battle of consciousness” (معركة الوعي). Behind this rather eerie term is a narrative claiming that Egypt’s most pressing national security concern is the spread of misinformation and ideational attacks against society’s so-called core values. The implication of course is that any expression of dissent, criticism of government performance, or questioning of state-provided information is a suspected attempt to foment instability and undermine Egypt’s social peace. The solution, the story goes, is countering such “false consciousness” by promoting public awareness of these threats and by enlisting more patriots in the “battle of consciousness.”
  • the Sisi regime has been pursuing a broad-scoped project to ideologically militarize civilian spheres and to inculcate all sectors of Egyptian society with ideas rationalizing blind support for the military-sponsored regime
  • the politicians who have been coached to impress the crowd by their confident demeanor, their captivating TED Talk public speaking style, and their superficial use of catchy phrases that borrow (albeit superficially) from the language of scientific research. Most importantly, they have been socialized to accept the supremacy of the military such that they would never question the men in uniform, as was the case with the contentious youth activists who often denigrated officers in public forums and protests between 2011 and 2013
  • a consistent strategy Sisi has adopted whenever frustrated with the ineffectiveness or the bureaucratic resistance of state institutions: the creation of parallel structures to bypass these institutions altogether. Thus, today one finds a host of bodies and offices Sisi formed over the years and that seemingly replicate the roles of existing government ministries. Examples include the Supreme Council for Investment, the Supreme Council for Combatting Terrorism, the Supreme Council for the Automotive Industry, and, currently under study, the Supreme Council for Education. Whereas the office of the minister of health still exists officially, a presidential advisor for health affairs (a former minister of health himself), appointed by Sisi in 2020, has taken a visible role in explaining and defending state health policies, just like a minister of health would.
  • Mustaqbal Watan Party (MWP). MWP was once the embodiment of Sisi’s dream of a new generation of pro-military youth politicians who could lead Egypt’s post-2013 political scene. After several wake-up calls, the regime was forced to restructure the party so that “Sisi’s youth” could step aside to accommodate a larger role for the older and more seasoned networks and affiliates of the Mubarak regime—the same actors the president once sought to sideline. These transformations underscore the inherent limitations of the NYP and the idea that Sisi, despite all the power and resources he possessed, had to forge compromises with the once-dreaded traditional political classes, even if at the expense of his own coveted project.
  • observers were aware that MWP was among the political parties the intelligence establishment created and funded to promote the Sisi presidency. Nevertheless, Sisi kept an official distance from the party, avoiding any insinuation that Mustaqbal Watan represents the wielders of power in any formal sense. This policy was partly shaped by Sisi’s aforementioned skepticism of political parties and his interest in engineering the political field from a distance
  • there was more to Sisi’s apprehension toward the Mubarakists than appeasing the January 25thers or deflecting criticism. On a more fundamental level, Sisi was keeping a watchful eye on presidential hopeful Ahmed Shafik, former Air Force general and Mubarak’s last prime minister, who ran for president in 2012 and lost to Morsi in a tight runoff. Even though Shafik opted (rather grudgingly) not to run for president in 2014 after it became clear Sisi was the state’s chosen candidate and trying to challenge him was pointless, his supporters did not relent.
  • The idea of former Mubarakists banding together outside the state’s purview[3] was (and remains) an alarming prospect for Sisi for multiple reasons. They are proficient in mobilizing supporters in elections and have a long experience in the business of setting up vote-buying machines. More than any other civilian player, they can work collaboratively with security agencies. Most significantly, if organized sufficiently, they have what it takes to offer Sisi’s international allies and domestic constituents the same deal he offers them: a stable authoritarian project accommodating the various geostrategic, political, and economic imperatives the Sisi regime claims to protect
  • In early 2021, over half of MWP’s Central Secretariat members had ties to the NDP (compared to a quarter in 2016), and so did two thirds of its provincial leaders. This reality stood in stark contrast to the state of affairs inside Mustaqbal Watan during its founding years, when a younger group of political outsiders were running the show. Interestingly, by 2021, only two of Mustaqbal Watan’s 2014 founding signatories enjoyed posts in the party’s Central Secretariat, which now featured a completely different cadre of politicians.
  • lawmakers voted down by a wide margin the president’s highly coveted civil service bill, among the reforms reportedly “encouraged” by the International Monetary Fund at the time
  • in the fall of 2019, the president decided to put an end to this disarray, ordering a freeze on parliament’s operations, nearly a year before the next legislative elections were due.
  • The lead-up to the 2018 vote confirmed in many ways Sisi’s intolerance of any political competition, even to the most limited degree. He went to great lengths to eliminate all presidential contenders by any means possible: imprisonment, intimidation, violence, and dubious legal measures. Left to his own devices, Sisi would have run unchallenged. Pressured by Washington, however, he ultimately agreed to let one of his own political cheerleaders, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, run against him in what proved to be an unconvincing (even if lighthearted) episode of political theater, with Sisi winning 97 percent of the votes.
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Jadaliyya - 0 views

www.jadaliyya.com/45215 Egypt Sisi military politics parliament propaganda censorship parties
shared by Ed Webb on 08 Jan 24 - No Cached
  • MAM was a concrete effort to prepare and groom regime-sponsored municipal election candidates. Mandhour and other MAM leaders did not hide it and were openly proclaiming the mission of building a “politically aware” and “responsible” community of young leaders qualified to serve on municipal councils.
  • the regime padded MAM with the special recipe MWP lacked: the experience and political networks of the former NDP. In other words, for the first time in his reign, Sisi was seriously reckoning with the traditional political classes he once dismissed. The president realized that for the NYP to survive outside of its traditional domains of scripted conventions and invitation-only conferences and to assert influence in formal political life, it would need to work and compromise with the very political notables and insiders he had long shunned
  • The slogan, Min Agl Masr, riffed off the phrase “‘ashan Masr,”عشان مصر colloquial for MAM, which Sisi frequently invoked whenever pleading with the public to show sacrifice or patience (or both) for the country’s greater good. It was catchy and it caught on until it became the regime’s de facto brand. And as the election season neared, MAM launched a campaign in support of Sisi’s presidential bid under the banner “Kolena Ma‘ak Min Agl Masr” كلنا معاك من اجل مصر (“We Are All with You for the Sake of Egypt) or All-MAM for short. Two years later, as it prepared for parliamentary elections, the regime ended up naming its own sponsored list “The National List-MAM.” The slogan was everywhere, so much so that it even became the title of multiple songs, including ones by Shaaban Abdel Rahim, Mohamed ‘Adawiyya, and Mohamed Fouad.
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  • MAM’s deference to expertise and social capital was also evident in its reliance on individuals with prior NDP credentials; that is, people who had the knowledge and connections to run a political machine. While some of the cofounders of MAM fit that bill, All-MAM was in some ways an NDP reunion.
  • Nothing symbolized Sisi’s embrace of Mubarak’s political machine more than All-MAM’s pick for secretary general, Mohamed Heiba, the former NDP Secretary of Youth. Under the leadership of Gamal Mubarak, Heiba was once at the forefront of the NDP’s youth mobilization efforts
  • Besides leaning on the seasoned political organizers of the NDP, All-MAM was also relying on the former ruling party’s big business politicians who brought to the table not only experience, but also money. The most emblematic example was mogul and former NDP lawmaker Mohamed Aboul Enein, an icon of the business clique that dominated politics during Mubarak’s final decade. Up until that point, the Sisi regime kept a largely cordial orientation toward the likes of Aboul Enein. Certainly, Sisi may have worked to politically disempower such oligarchs, but he steered clear of expropriating their assets, as Amr Adly notes. Thus, high-profile business NDPers such as Aboul Enein survived, and may have even thrived to some degree, but they were not encouraged to play politics.[4] For Aboul Enein specifically, the tide began to turn in 2018 in the lead-up to the presidential election, as he became a visible figure in the marketing of the Sisi campaign. The regime was not simply tolerating the former NDPer, as was previously the case. It was awarding him a political role, while proudly showcasing his support for the president. On a deeper level, Sisi was essentially indulging the NDP’s deep pockets, hoping they could bankroll the big campaigns the regime was about to embark upon. Sisi may hold a grudge or two against the Mubarakists, but he will always hold a place for those who pay.
  • MAM proved to be a useful instrument for coopting NDPers and deploying their resources and expertise on behalf of Sisi. Also, it kept these Mubarakists loyal to the president and away from the likes of Shafik and other presidential hopefuls eyeing the Mubarakist networks.
  • by early 2021, MWP looked much less like the youth-led party of 2014 and much more like MAM, with many of the association’s founders, including Mandhour, holding senior posts inside the party. Likewise, the NDPers made themselves quite comfortable inside MWP, as exemplified by Mohamed Aboul Enein, who became vice president of the party, not to mention deputy speaker of the House of Representatives following his return to parliament after the 2020 election.
  • Today, MWP controls parliament and serves as a vehicle for advancing Sisi’s political agenda. Yet, the president holds no affiliation with it and neither do most senior members of the government and the state apparatus. There has been no clear effort to encourage officials to affiliate with the party either. In other words, the president has kept MWP in this ambiguous space akin to a political “friendzone.”
  • the NYP (or, at least, the “wisdom” behind it) was essential in facilitating Sisi’s accommodation with NDP-tied families. Many such families capitalized on the president’s NYP discourse, prodding their own younger members to enter the political stage under the guise of youth empowerment. It may be hard to believe, but longtime political families managed to gaslight Sisi right back: “You want youth? We’ll give you youth.” This strategy was evident in MWP to the extent that it featured young affiliates of NDP families. But it was more than just MWP. By the time the 2020 elections were over, the phenomenon of relatives of former lawmakers entering parliament became more visible across parties and regions, as Amr Hashem Rabee noted. Outside legislative chambers and Mustaqbal Watan, other parties jumped on the same bandwagon, recruiting and showing off young figures from politically prominent families. In other words, every establishment party is now cutting two carrots with one knife: get on Sisi’s good graces by checking off the youth empowerment box, and, at the same time, solidify alliances with politically distinguished families
  • Whereas between 2014 and 2018, the regime’s principal aim was keeping civilian politics weak, fragmented, and inconducive to collective action, its approach became more interventionist beginning 2018. This is because the president now had a clearer vision for political outcomes he needed to generate, majorities he wanted to manufacture, and allies he needed to coopt and reward.
  • the regime’s aggression had surpassed those rejecting the post-2013 political order and that the security apparatus was just as predatory in targeting opposition actors who have accepted the political system and agreed to work from within it
  • as Sisi began reorganizing his own political apparatus and putting his own ducks in a row, he embarked on an effort to sabotage his competitors and wreak havoc on their organizations and networks at an unusually broad scale
  • In contrast to 2015 when it sought to engineer a fragmented parliament, this time around, the regime wanted a majority for its own political arm and was adamant to stack the cards in favor of that outcome. Not only that, but the regime was also keen on dictating the candidate rosters of other independent parties participating on its own list, “The National List for the Sake of Egypt.” Indeed, Sisi was that determined not to leave anything to chance.
  • the 2020 election marked the reintroduction of parliament’s upper chamber. As a body devoid of any meaningful legislative powers, the Senate provided Sisi with a low-cost method of rewarding political allies with “certificates of prestige.” Certainly, this was not unique to Sisi’s reign. This same tradition was prevalent under previous rulers. But that Sisi is now conforming to this same template shows that he has finally succumbed into resurrecting his predecessors’ cooptation and clientelistic practices after years of eschewing them in his dealing with civilian politics. The details might differ, but the overall story is a familiar one: the initially timid officers instinctively avoid getting their hands dirty by civilian politics, until the imperative for survival draws them into the same “swamp” they once swore to drain
  • their entry into MWP captures Sisi’s post-2018 rapprochement with the interests and clientelistic networks that once occupied the Mubarak regime, as distinct from the cadre of younger politicians Sisi had been trying to cultivate through the NYP
  • Sisi’s refusal to grant MWP (or any party for that matter) the status (and privileges) of a ruling party arguably speaks to the persistence of his populist instincts and his own belief that he is in fact capable of ruling without the mediation of any political class.
  • for Sisi, turning MWP into an actual ruling party would be ceding power and access to the very political forces he has been trying to contain. If the NDP (along with all its missteps) was the reason for Mubarak’s demise, why give its descendants the chance to grow and gain more influence through MWP? Therein lies the source of the paradox: Sisi needs the NDPers’ expertise and resources, but he is aware their support cannot take for granted. Thus, despite Sisi’s accommodation with the Mubarak regime’s networks and their presence in MWP, the president’s propaganda machine remains discursively hostile to NDP remnants, especially more recently with growing chatter about a Gamal Mubarak presidential bid.
  • The president may believe that his investment in this project will someday bear fruit, contributing to a new reality actualizing his vision for the ideal civilian politician—that is, the politician who will blindly defer to the men in the uniform, accept their supremacy, and respect their economic privileges (with all the corrupt practices they entail).
  • The regime’s continued inability to assert its hegemony over the formal political sphere, its dependency on political intermediaries it does not trust, and the shutting out of credible competitors from politics, have all limited Sisi’s political options for managing the ongoing economic crisis
  • the realm of formal politics has become so discredited that the regime itself is aware that it will not provide its international audiences a sufficiently persuasive façade of democratic politics
  • Sisi’s long struggle to invent the politics he dreams of through his political grooming projects, while evading the politics he actually faces by gaslighting his allies and critics, alike
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Why Breaking the Silence is prime target for Israeli right - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of t... - 1 views

www.al-monitor.com/...-yesh-din-punch-bag-right.html Israel Palestine israelpalestine NGOs IDF military media propaganda censorship politics settlers
shared by Ed Webb on 27 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • only the activists of one organization, Breaking the Silence, have the dubious honor of being labeled “traitors.” That organization, which has documented and published testimony by military veterans about human rights violations in the territories since 2004, draws more fire than all the other organizations put together.
  • There are those who explain that the reason this group of former soldiers has become the punching bag of the country stems from the fact that it is no longer limiting itself to activity within Israel’s borders. Not only does it publish reports in Hebrew, it translates them into English, gets funding from foreign organizations and individuals, and appears before foreign parliaments. To put it bluntly, many believe that dirty laundry should be washed at home. Not in the foreign media, not in the offices of the European Union in Brussels and not in testimony before an investigative panel of the UN Human Rights Committee. By the same logic, even if the average Israeli concedes that the occupation is a pollutant, he must put up with the smell. A good Israeli must shut the windows and keep the stench at home.
  • Unlike Netanyahu, Breaking the Silence is careful to publish information only after clearing it with military censors. Details that the censor bans from publication or those that are not verified do not see the light of day. The organization made it clear that the censor’s office had approved the publication of most of the testimony recorded by Ad Kan activists and aired on a Channel 2 television investigative report. It was this report that initially claimed that Breaking the Silence was gathering classified operational information unrelated to soldiers’ testimony about human rights violations.
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  • Breaking the Silence is being picked on for cynical political reasons. For Israeli Jews, there is no cow more sacred than the IDF. A clear majority, including this writer, served, are serving or will serve in the armed forces, just like their parents, children and even their grandchildren. When Defense Minister Lt. Gen.  (res.) Moshe Ya'alon declares that the members of Breaking the Silence are traitors, he means that they betrayed all Israelis. This is not an argument about occupation, ethics or Israel’s international standing. It's about our lives. Ya'alon was the commander-in-chief of the military, a respected authority on the matter.
  • The tacit conventional wisdom since the start of the so-called “knife intifada” is based on Talmudic teachings: “If a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.” Or in common parlance, neutralize him first. Israeli politicians have called for people to do just this when confronted with a possible terrorist. There are even Jews who have already ascribed a broad interpretation to this order. Anyone coming to kill you, in their interpretation, may be a Jew willing to hand over territory to non-Jews. Assassin Yigal Amir, for instance, shot Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after rabbis and politicians incited against him and his peace policy. Netanyahu himself took part in a demonstration at which a Rabin cutout dressed in a Nazi SS uniform was held aloft. Today, in his dressing down of the organization, he is dressing Breaking the Silence in the uniform of a kapo.
  • “Patriots” who beat up Palestinians for kicks on city streets and set a bilingual school on fire have already started sending threats to Breaking the Silence activists and their families, including their elderly grandparents. If, God forbid, anyone is hurt, Netanyahu, Ya'alon and Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid will rush to issue “sharp condemnations” of the criminals. They will surely not forget to attack those spreading incitement, but they might forget or ignore their own past contributions.
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Iraq | Press Freedom - 0 views

www.globalpost.com/...press-freedom-iraq media censorship Iraq
shared by Ed Webb on 07 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • media watchdogs said the action was more likely taken in response to the station’s programming, which had at times been critical, or satirical, of the Iraqi government. The move by security forces is an ominous sign for the country’s press, which, for the first time in decades had been enjoying relative freedom.
  • Ziad al Jillily, head of Iraq’s Journalistic Freedom Observatory, said that freedom of speech and journalism were the sole benefit of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
  • The media here is now freer than Syria’s or Iran’s and less partisan than, say, Lebanon, where most of the media outlets are owned or controlled by politicians of various stripes. Basking in this freedom, both news and entertainment programs regularly push the boundaries. In an Iraqi version of "Punk’d," for example, which aired on Baghdadiya, actors played pranks on celebrities that often involved fake car bombs, checkpoint harassment and live bullets. As the celebrities screamed and fainted on screen, and readers complained, Punk’d Baghdad-style might not have been a good idea. But it did come from a lively, growing culture of media freedom.
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  • Militia groups who ruled Iraq during the worst years of sectarian violence saw a free press as a Western imposition and targeted both Iraqi and foreign journalists
  • Reporters without Borders revealed that at least 230 media workers had been killed in Iraq since the American invasion
  • One Iraqi journalist, one among hundreds that worked with Western news agencies in Baghdad, has worked in media for years, but tells no one in his neighborhood about it. “If they knew, I would be a target for militias, for Al Qaeda, and even for Iraqi security forces,”
  • Jillily said that journalists have increasingly found their access curtailed by Saddam-era laws that remain on the books. A journalist was arrested in the southern city of Kut earlier this year, he said, for publishing an article criticizing the judicial system, and was only released after he denied that he had written it. “There are many people trying to bring back the times of dictatorship to Iraq,” he said, “…you can’t expect a government that has politicians who are deeply corrupted to give freedom for journalists.”
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How a nuanced president uses exaggeration. - By John Dickerson - Slate Magazine - 0 views

www.slate.com/...2215631
shared by Ed Webb on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Compared with the black-and-white approach of his predecessor, Obama's technique is practically grisaille.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 08 Apr 09
       
      Word of the day: grisaille
  • Obama exaggerates to free himself from the demands of the news cycle
  • What Obama hopes to do though this exaggerated description is make all criticism seem like an irrational rush to judgment.
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  • Obama is not alone. He probably exaggerates no more than a typical politician. Republicans haul out the specter of socialism on the hour, and on the half hour they say Obama wants to turn America into Europe. But Obama prides himself on considered speech, and few politicians have talked and written about improving political dialogue as much as he has. "I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or … oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose," he wrote in his second book, The Audacity of Hope.He might be wrong about that one. According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, Obama is as popular as ever. And his Republican opponents in Congress received their lowest approval rating in the entire span of history in which that question has been asked. No exaggeration.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 08 Apr 09
       
      In the political science literature, this rhetorical technique is sometimes described as 'framing' or 'heresthetic': one owns the debate by defining its terms, establishing it on terrain favorable to one's own position. Obama can present the choice as one between action and inaction. Republicans can present it as between socialism and liberty. Whichever narrative becomes more broadly accepted will ultimately determine voter reaction to events and policies as they unfold.
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The Dashed Hopes of the Tunisian Revolution: Complicity between Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda - 0 views

www.jadaliyya.com/...the-tunisian-revolution_compli Tunisia ennahda politics analysis opinion media civil_society economy corruption
shared by Ed Webb on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • While Tunisians are often told that theirs is the only revolution that remains from the "Arab Spring," they know full well that its goals have not been achieved.
  • Béji Caïd Essebsi has always rejected a democratic process within the party he founded in 2012--the party that carried him to the highest office. At the end of the party's congress held in Sousse on 9 and 10 January, the party appointed Caïd Essebsi's son to succeed him as party leader
  • Béji Caïd Essebsi has always rejected a democratic process within the party he founded in 2012--the party that carried him to the highest office. At the end of the party's congress held in Sousse on 9 and 10 January, the party appointed Caïd Essebsi's son to succeed him as party leader,
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  • after co-opting the leaders of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's Democratic Constitutional Rally (DCR) into his party, Caïd Essebi revived all the methods of the previous regime
  • after co-opting the leaders of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's Democratic Constitutional Rally (DCR) into his party, Caïd Essebi revived all the methods of the previous regime
  • Not content with confusing past and present, in the name of national unity, the old statesman chose to make Ennahda's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, the guest of honor at the congress. Yet, Nidaa Tounes was founded precisely in opposition to the Islamist party, and Nidaa Tounes voters have not forgotten the insults heaped upon their rivals during the 2014 election campaign
  • Not content with confusing past and present, in the name of national unity, the old statesman chose to make Ennahda's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, the guest of honor at the congress. Yet, Nidaa Tounes was founded precisely in opposition to the Islamist party, and Nidaa Tounes voters have not forgotten the insults heaped upon their rivals during the 2014 election campaign.
  • The politicians who have taken turns governing the country all seem to have forgotten that it was economic demands that sparked the initial uprising
  • Beji Caïd Essebsi came up with a law meant to promote economic reconciliation. Ostensibly, the idea was to favor investments by restoring confidence. In fact, it was meant to suspend the prosecution of business executives for fraudulent activities under the Ben Ali regime
  • Politically, the country is witnessing a massive return to conservatism. The two biggest parties--Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda--have commandeered the multi-party system, which was accepted after the revolution. This takeover recreates the pre-revolutionary political landscape, except that Ennahda is no longer underground. And this conservatism goes hand in hand with measures at odds with article 2 of the Constitution, which guarantees individual freedom. New laws against homosexuality and the use of cannabis allow police to humiliate youngsters before jailing them.
  • eo-authoritarianism, societal conservatism, and a general moralizing mood all seem much to the liking of Ennahda, which is now a full-fledged partner of the party that outstripped it in the 2014 elections
  • While the president's party has become the main instrument for “recycling” politicians ousted in 2011, the phenomenon has become so banal that the press, and particularly television, is happy to do their share. And a number of high-ranking figures from the old regime are regularly invited to debate on television. In the name of freedom of speech, they give sober accounts of their participation in the governing bodies, speak of Ben Ali's timid personality, and claim that he loved his people so much that he can scarcely be called a dictator
  • civil society is showing signs of fatigue
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Upcoming elections could make or break Tunisia's fledgling free press - Committee to Pr... - 0 views

cpj.org/...-press-freedom-arab-spring.php Tunisia media democracy civil_society
shared by Ed Webb on 27 Jun 19 - Cached
  • Tunisia has secured greater press freedom than many of the Arab Spring countries, but local journalists told CPJ that with elections slated for this year, challenges including funding, transparency, and government pressure remain
  • Despite a ban on foreign funding, many of the independent journalists who spoke with CPJ said they believe Gulf money is secretly pouring in to campaigns, although they often lack the means to expose it. Businessmen and politicians are also using privately owned media companies and the government is harnessing public broadcasters to further their political agendas.
  • Broadcast regulator HAICA (the Independent High Authority of Audiovisual Communication) pulled the license of privately owned TV channel Nesma in July 2018, for pushing the political agenda of its owner Nabil Karoui, who planned to run for president. Police raided the station in April, but the channel is still on the air, only without a license
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  • Journalists speak privately of money from the United Arab Emirates flowing to establishment politicians and funds from Qatar to Islamists but there is little published evidence of this.
  • Money still talks loudly in Tunisia where unemployment is officially above 15 percent and many journalists are paid badly.
  • Reporters are hampered in their watchdog role by the government too, especially if they cover national security or police beats. In January last year, Interior Minister Lotfi Brahem admitted during a parliamentary hearing that Tunisian journalists were monitored and that he had even authorized the wiretapping of a French journalist covering unrest.
  • Tunisia has a world class right to information law on the books but Mekki said her attempts to get the Interior Ministry to disclose details of travel bans imposed on hundreds of young Tunisians have been stonewalled
  • a lack of transparency around media ownership, undisclosed campaign contributions to candidates and the use of public resources and public media by the current government to promote partisan agendas are challenges to independent media coverage.
  • "In Tunisia we have a unique situation where we have a weak government, weak political parties but strong civil society, which can work to guarantee the democratic transition overall and with that, press freedom gains,"
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Israel, Mired in Ideological Battles, Fights on Cultural Fronts - The New York Times - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...fights-on-cultural-fronts.html Israel culture identity identities ideology politics Zionism censorship propaganda education media
shared by Ed Webb on 30 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Miri Regev, the divisive and conservative minister of culture and sport, who wants to deny state money to institutions that do not express “loyalty” to the state, including those that show disrespect for the flag, incite racism or violence, or subvert Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.
  • For one well-known poet, Meir Wieseltier, the law “brings us closer to the rise of fascism and exposes its true face.” But Isi Leibler argued in The Jerusalem Post that the government is “not obliged to subsidize the demonization of the nation” and should instead support “the inculcation of love of Israel.”
  • such conflicts, over what cultural works the state should promote for schoolchildren to read or for citizens to see and hear, is part of a political drama in which the politicians of a new generation are jockeying for position as leader of the so-called nationalist camp
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  • The Israel they represent is more religious and less beholden to the values and inheritances of the old, Europeanized elite and its dwindling left
  • This month, the left-leaning daily Haaretz highlighted internal discussions in the ministry about what artistic works might be considered “politically undesirable” for high-school students. Among the criteria, the newspaper said, were whether artists would perform in West Bank settlements and declare loyalty to the state and to the national anthem, something that is particularly problematic for Israel’s Arab citizens.Internal discussions are not policy, but even this report drew stinging responses, with Oded Kotler, a prominent Israeli actor and director, comparing Israel to the Soviet Union and telling Israel Radio, “There’s a real culture war underway here, but the war from that side of the political map is a harbinger of zealotry, darkness and coercion.”Mr. Kotler infuriated the government and the political right last summer when he compared its supporters to “cud-chewing cattle.” That was in response to Ms. Regev’s effort to freeze state funding for an Arab theater in Haifa because of a play about a Palestinian prisoner who murders an Israeli soldier. The production, “Parallel Time,” had enraged the right and Mr. Bennett banned school trips to see it.
  • Mr. Bennett, for his part, overruled ministry experts to ban from high-school reading lists a novel about a romance between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man, apparently out of fear that it promotes assimilation. The romance takes place abroad; the pair splits up when they return home, to Israel and the West Bank. Mr. Bennett said the novel, “Borderlife,” by Dorit Rabinyan, disparaged the Israeli military, and the head of his ministerial committee said it “could incite hatred and cause emotional storms” in classrooms.The debate about the book actually increased its sales, something Ms. Rabinyan credited in an interview to “the strength of Israeli democracy.”
  • The novel begins with the Israeli woman, who is Sephardic, coming under suspicion of terrorism in New York over her “Arab” appearance and because she writes from right to left. “This is the bond that connects her to the Palestinian,” Ms. Rabinyan explained. “I don’t consider my Israeliness to be hegemonic.”
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Egyptian Chronicles: Another Bad Day for Media in #Egypt : #YouTube , Offensive cartoon... - 2 views

egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/...ad-day-for-media-in-egypt.html Egypt media censorship judiciary law MB ikhwan TV television
shared by Ed Webb on 10 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Speaking about Religion and media censorship. Al Masry Al Youm has officially apologized  for the daring cover of Assyasy Magazine "The Politician magazine" latest issue. Here is the daring cover which is the product of famous revolutionary cartoonist Ahmed Nady. The controversial cover by Ahmed Nady The cover shows those who signed Al Azhar document to denounce violence completely naked and in their hands wine glasses and in the back Mohamed Morsi tells a strong and enormous CSF officer to act as he wants as there is no more political cover for the protesters
  • Many activists criticized the political activists and parties participated in the document accusing them of dumping the protesters alone facing the police violence. This is the first time the Sheikh of Al Azhar and the Church representative are  being shown naked like that. According to Ahmed Nady , the cartoonist he got a tip that Al Masry Al Youm administration has decided to pull the issue from the market after it got an objection from the Church on how a church man would appear like that in a cartoon on cover of a magazine.
  • it seems that administration of Al Masry Al Youm does not want to break any taboos anymore
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  • TV hosts Dina Abdel Fatah and Wael Al Abrashi will be interrogate at the public prosecution office as they are accused of promoting Black Bloc culture in Egypt !! Wael Al Abrashi claimed that he spoke to Black Bloc members on Dream TV2 while Dina Abdel Fatah hosted alleged Black Bloc Members in her show on Tahrir TV. Of course the alleged and self proclaimed Black Bloc Facebook pages and twitter accounts denied that these were members in the Black Block.
  • there is a long list of TV hosts and journalists like Mahmoud Saad , Lamis El Hadidy and Mona Shazly as well their producers. These TV hosts are accused of letting their guests insult the judges and judiciary in Egypt !!
  • Abdel Fatah is being summoned after his live TV confrontation with minister of justice Ahmed Mekki last Saturday during the Ultras trial on CBC channel's morning show
  • Former MP Mostafa Al Naggar was summoned to appear in front of the magistrate for the same charge : Insulting judiciary !!!
  • to be accused of promoting Black Bloc in Egypt !! For God sake what kind of charge this is !?
  • a tip I got from a dear friend that the judges who reported that long list to the ministry of justice are the Muslim brotherhood's Judges for Egypt group !!! You have to know that the number of "Insulting the president" lawsuits in time of Morsi's rule "6 months"  exceeded all the lawsuits filed isnce 1892 when that stupid charged entered our legal system !! I have got nothing to say more. This is not the Egypt we want.
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Watching Egypt (but not on Al Jazeera) | Marc Lynch - 4 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...ypt_and_lebanon_and_the_pa_and Egypt internet politics twitter socialmedia Tunisia al-jazeera television Arab Lynch
shared by Ed Webb on 25 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • One key factor was missing, though, at least early on. Al Jazeera has played a vital, instrumental role in framing this popular narrative by its intense, innovative coverage of Tunisia and its explicit broadening of that experience to the region. Its coverage today has been frankly baffling, though. During the key period when the protests were picking up steam, Al Jazeera aired a documentary cultural program on a very nice seeming Egyptian novelist and musical groups, and then to sports. Now (10:30am EST) it is finally covering the protests in depth, but its early lack of coverage may hurt its credibility. I can't remember another case of Al Jazeera simply punting on a major story in a political space which it has owned.
  • More broadly, it's astonishing how much is now in motion in Arab politics after such a long period of seeming stagnation. There's a vivid sense of an era coming to a close and an uncertain new vista opening. Even if Al Jazeera's release of the so-called "Palestine Papers" doesn't bring down Abu Mazen's negotiating team or the PA it feels like the autopsy of a long-dead peace process. Hezbollah's Parliamentary maneuver to bring down the Hariri government and replace him with veteran politician and businessman Najib Miqati, a response to the Special Tribunal's reported indictments which has sparked violent protests by Hariri backers, may mean an end to the era of U.S. alliance with a March 14-led Lebanon. It's hard to know where to focus --- but in fact I continue to see these seemingly unrelated events as part of a broader story of the crumbling of an Arab status quo which has long seemed unsustainable.
  • 3pm:  Al-Jazeera's lack of coverage of the protests has become a major story.   It doesn't seem to have gotten any better since this morning --- since getting back on line I've seen an episode of a talk show, more Palestine Papers, and only short snippets of breaking news on Egypt.  Al-Arabiya apparently hasn't done any better.  My Twitter feed and email are full of comments like "AJ Arabic is covering childrens gymnastics programs in Indonesia right now. Good call." (@mwhanna1) and "Exposed. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya's failure in covering #Jan25" (@SultanAlQassemi).   Egyptian activists are complaining bitterly, and most seem to think that Mubarak cut a deal with the Qatari and Saudi governments. 
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Turkey: Democracy or State of Fear? | Al Akhbar English - 1 views

english.al-akhbar.com/...turkey-democracy-or-state-fear Turkey censorship journalists state law rights
shared by Ed Webb on 27 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • When I visited them in prison, both were speechless about the allegations, which were, according to them, too absurd to make a defense case against. Like other recently arrested journalists, politicians and students, Şık and Şener were desperate in front of the new upside down logic of the Turkish judiciary system.
  • Dink's case has been the last incident that caused outrage among the supporters of the government. As Dink's family lawyer Fethiye Çetin stated after the verdict: “The government seems to be on good terms with the ‘deep state.’”
  • In all the courtrooms in Turkey, a writing on the wall behind the judge reads: "Justice is the foundation of the state.” That foundation has been shaken seriously in today's Turkey. Not only because of those thousands of political arrests but also because of the severe contradiction between the verdicts. University student Cihan Kırmızıgül can spend months in prison because he passed by a demonstration wearing a kafiyya whereas several rapers of the 13 year old (aka N.Ç) are free. A 16 year old girl can be ordered by court not to talk to her grandmother because the latter happened to join a demonstrations against the hydroelectric centrals while the Islamist writer Hüseyin Üzmez can be freed after his sexual assault on a minor.
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  • one of my colleagues told me that he is too afraid to go to the court because he knew that his attendance would be recorded by the police
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Arab Media & Society - 1 views

www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=924 Egypt press media journalism journalist ahram history
shared by Ed Webb on 01 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • A prolific writer, Heikal penned dozens of books, chronicling events as a witness to history, his legacy linked with his association with Nasser. He was not just a journalist, newspaper editor, and later historian. Heikal was Nasser’s emissary with Western diplomats, a champion of Nasser’s brand of socialism and pan-Arab nationalism. He composed his speeches and ghost wrote Nasser’s political manifesto, The Philosophy of the Revolution. As the president’s alter ego, Heikal’s writings were read for clues to Nasser’s thinking. His influence derived from his proximity to power.
  • Heikal blurred the line between the role of a journalist and that of a politician. “He introduced a model in Egypt and the Arab world about what your ambitions should be as a journalist. In the West or Europe, you gain your reputation from your independence as a journalist,” explained Dawoud. “When I am the president’s consultant and I attend his close meetings and I write his speeches, there is definitely a lot of information that I would have to keep secret. That goes contrary to my job as a journalist, which is to find as much information as I can.”
  • The state media wholeheartedly embraced socialism and pan-Arabism, becoming a filter of information and propaganda, instead of the promised transformation of the institution into one that supposedly guides the public and builds society. Critical voices were muted, the military junta was sacrosanct, and Nasser was fortified as a national hero. The failings of the regime were not attributed to the president, but to the reactionary and destructive forces of capitalism and feudalism. Nasser’s personal confidant Muhammad Hassanein Heikal was appointed chairman of the board of al-Ahram, then later of Dar al-Hilal and Akhbar al-Youm publishing houses.
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  • Long committed to a free media, Mustafa Amin was imprisoned for six months in 1939 for an article in Akher sa‘a (Last Hour) magazine deemed critical of King Faruq. An advocate of democracy and Western liberalism, he was arrested in 1965, tried secretly in 1966, and convicted of being a spy for America and smuggling funds. Sentenced to a life sentence, he spent nine years in prison before being pardoned by Nasser’s successor, President Anwar Sadat. Ali Amin, accused by Heikal of working for British and Saudi intelligence, went into exile in 1965.
  • Room for expression existed mainly in the literary pages of al-Ahram, where writers under Heikal’s wings, like Naguib Mahfouz, could publish works of fiction that could be read as challenges to the status quo.[5] As far as the press was concerned, censorship was directed at politically oriented news and commentary rather than the literary sections
  • During the conflict, as the Egyptian army, under Field Marshal Abd al-Hakim Amer’s command, was hastily retreating from Sinai, broadcast outlets aired invented reports of fabulous victories against the Zionist foe. At no other moment did the state media prove so woefully deficient, contributing to a deep sense of public betrayal.
  • The speech was written for him by prominent journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal and tactfully framed a romp of Arab armies as a “setback,” displaying Heikal’s knack for being both a propagandist and political powerbroker.   It was a moment that brilliantly served to shore up Nasser’s support. Egyptians took to the streets demanding that their leader stay in power. “The People Say ‘No,’” declared Akhbar al-youm (News of the Day) in large red writing. In smaller black lettering the headline read, “The Leader Discloses the Whole Truth to the People.” It is difficult to say how populist and genuine the appeal was and how much of the public display of support for Nasser was behind-the-scenes political machinations of the regime and its media. While Nasser did stay in power, it was only later that Egyptians could comprehend the true extent of the defeat—especially in light of official propaganda—and the institutional failures that placed the whole of Sinai under Israeli control.
  • Student periodicals posted on the walls of the campuses emerged as the freest press in Egypt. Nasser for the first time became the object of direct criticism in the public space. A campaign against student unrest was waged in the state-owned media, which labeled the activists as provocateurs and counter-revolutionaries goaded by foreign elements
  • slogans shouted and scrawled on building walls that demanded: “Stop the Rule of the Intelligence,” “Down with the Police State,” and “Down with Heikal’s Lying Press.”
  • “A centralized editorial secretariat, called the Desk, was founded, as well as the Center for Strategic Studies and the Information Division. To his detractors, these innovations appeared to be spying sessions of an extensive empire dedicated to intelligence gathering
  • Nasser appointed Heikal to the post of minister of information and national guidance, a role he assumed for six months in 1970 until Nasser’s death. Yet the self-described journalist confided his frustration of being assigned a ministerial post, perhaps intended to distance him from the publishing empire he built, to a colleague, the leftist writer Lutfi al-Khouli, at his home. The encounter was surreptitiously recorded by the secret police, leading to the arrest and brief imprisonment of al-Khouli, and Heikal’s secretary and her husband, who were also present. “Now, Nasser’s regime had two aspects: it had great achievements to its credit but also it had a repressive side. I do not myself believe that the achievements . . . could have been carried out without some degree of enforcement,” Heikal wrote in The Road to Ramadan. “But after the 1967 defeat the positive achievements came to an end, because all resources were geared to the coming battle, while repression became more obvious. When Nasser died the executants of repression took it on themselves to be the ideologues of the new regime as well. They held almost all the key posts in the country. The people resented this and came to hate what they saw as their oppressors.”
  • after his increasing criticism of Sadat’s handling of the October 1973 War and appeals to the United States to address the impasse, Heikal was removed from al-Ahram in 1974. He remained a prolific author. In May 1978, Heikal was one of dozens of writers accused by the state prosecutor of defaming Egypt and weakening social peace and was subject to an interrogation that extended three months
  • Sadat attempted to bring the dissident cacophony into line through the mass arrest in September 1981 of more than 1,500 intellectuals, writers, journalists, and opposition elements of every stripe. Among those arrested were leading members of the Journalists’ Syndicate and prominent figures like the political writer Muhammad Hassanein Heikal and novelist Nawal El Saadawi. Sadat’s crackdown against his opponents culminated in his assassination by Islamic militants on October 6, 1981 during a military parade to commemorate the start of the 1973 War. Soon after Hosni Mubarak assumed power, Heikal was released from prison
  • When Dream aired the lecture Heikal gave at the American University in Cairo, direct pressure was placed on the owner’s business interests, and the veteran journalist found a new forum on pan-Arab satellite broadcasting. The influential writer has made opposition to Gamal Mubarak’s succession a staple of his newspaper columns.
  • With the rise of satellite television, Qatar’s Al Jazeera commanded audiences not only with news but with popular discussion programmed, like Ma‘ Heikal (With Heikal), a program by Heikal that began the year after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and which was watched by the Arab public with eager interest. Seated behind a desk and looking into the camera, Heikal gave his narrative of historical events and commentary on Middle Eastern and world affairs, exposing the intrigues of regional and global powers from his perch, having privileged access to leaders, diplomats, and decision makers. He has been a critic of Saudi diplomacy, its ballooning regional influence given the power of petrodollars, and its confrontation with Iran. Saudi pundits have consistently taken potshots at Heikal.
  • A couple of months before Morsi’s ouster on July 3, 2013, Heikal was contacted by Morsi’s defense minister Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi for a meeting, which had led to speculation that the Heikal devised the behind-the-scenes scenarios for an elected president’s removal as the dominant political player, the Muslim Brotherhood, was sinking in popularity. After Morsi was expelled from office, Heikal suggested to the military leader that he seek a popular mandate to lead the country, mirroring Nasser-style populism. Attired in full military regalia, al-Sisi at a July 24, 2013 graduation ceremony of the naval and air defence academies, broadcast live, warned that national security was in peril and summoned nationwide rallies two days later. Heikal supported al-Sisi’s bid for the presidency viewing him as the candidate born of necessity.
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Monsters of Our Own Imaginings | Foreign Policy - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...russels-bombings-islamic-state terror terrorism foreignpolicy IR analysis opinion GWOT walt Belgium ISIS Qaeda
shared by Ed Webb on 03 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Terrorist attacks have occurred in Europe, America, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and many other places, and no level of surveillance, police presence, border controls, drone strikes, targeted killings, or enhanced interrogation is going to prevent every one of them. Even if we could provide absolutely air-tight protection around one type of target, others targets would remain exposed
  • the belief that we could eliminate the danger entirely is no more realistic than thinking better health care will grant you eternal life. For this reason, condemning politicians for failing to prevent every single attack is counterproductive — and possibly dangerous — because it encourages leaders to go overboard in the pursuit of perfect security and to waste time and money that could be better spent on other things. Even worse, the fear of being blamed for “not doing enough” will lead some leaders to take steps that make the problem worse — like bombing distant countries — merely to look and sound tough and resolute.
  • there is no magic key to stopping terrorism because the motivations for it are so varied. Sometimes it stems from anger and opposition to foreign occupation or perceived foreign interference — as with the Tamil Tigers, Irish Republican Army, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, or Hamas. In other cases, it arises from opposition to a corrupt and despised ruling elite. Or it could be both: Osama bin Laden was equally angry at “crusader” nations for interfering in the Muslim world and at the Arab governments he believed were in cahoots with them. In the West, homegrown terrorists such as Anders Breivik or Timothy McVeigh are driven to mass murder by misguided anger at political systems they (falsely) believe are betraying their nation’s core values. Sometimes terrorism arises from perverted religious beliefs; at other times the motivating ideology is wholly secular. Because so many different grievances can lead individuals or groups to employ terrorist methods, there is no single policy response that could make the problem disappear forever.
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  • Compared with other risks to human life and well-being, contemporary international terrorism remains a minor problem
  • The Islamic State killed 31 people in Brussels on Tuesday, but more than half a billion people in Europe were just fine on that day. So when the British government raised the “threat level” and told its citizens to avoid “all but essential travel” to Belgium following Tuesday’s attacks, it is demonstrating a decidedly non-Churchillian panic. Needless to say, that is precisely what groups like the Islamic State want to provoke.
  • the same toxic blend of media and politics that brought us Donald Trump’s candidacy makes it nearly impossible to have a rational assessment of terrorism
  • Newspapers, radio, cable news channels, and assorted websites all live for events like this, and they know that hyping the danger will keep people reading, listening, and watching. The Islamic State and its partners really couldn’t ask for a better ally, because overheated media coverage makes weak groups seem more powerful than they really are and helps convince the public they are at greater risk than is in fact the case. As long as media coverage continues to provide the Islamic State et al. with such free and effective publicity, why should these groups ever abandon such tactics?
  • The Islamic State wouldn’t have to use terrorism if it were strong enough to advance its cause through normal means or if its message were attractive enough to command the loyalty of more than a miniscule fraction of the world’s population (or the world’s Muslims, for that matter). Because it lacks abundant resources and its message is toxic to most people, the Islamic State has to rely on suicide attacks, beheadings, and violent videos to try to scare us into doing something stupid. The Islamic State cannot conquer Europe and impose its weird version of Islam on the more than 500 million people who live there; the most it can hope for is to get European countries to do self-destructive things to themselves in response. Similarly, neither al Qaeda, the Islamic State, nor other extremists could destroy the U.S. economy, undermine the U.S. military, or weaken American resolve directly; but they did achieve some of their goals when they provoked us into invading Iraq and when they convinced two presidents to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the bottomless pit in Afghanistan.
  • Terrorism is not really the problem; the problem is how we respond to it
  • At the moment, the challenge of contemporary terrorism seems to be bringing out not the best in the West — but the worst. Instead of resolution and grit, we get bluster and hyperbole. Instead of measured threat assessments, patient and careful strategizing, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be achieved, we get symbolic gestures, the abandonment of our own principles, and political posturing.
  • how would a grown-up like Marshall or Dwight D. Eisenhower respond to this danger? No doubt they’d see it as a serious problem, but anyone who had witnessed the carnage of a world war would not be cowed by intermittent acts of extremist violence, no matter how shocking they are to our sensibilities. They’d use the bully pulpit to shame the fearmongers on Fox and CNN, and they’d never miss an opportunity to remind us that the danger is not, in fact, that great and that we should not, and cannot, live our lives in fear of every shadow and in thrall to monsters of our own imaginings. They would encourage us to live our daily lives as we always have, confident that our societies possess a strength and resilience that will easily outlast the weak and timorous groups that are trying to disrupt us. And then, this summer, they’d take a European vacation.
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Morsi Meter - مرسي ميتر - 0 views

www.morsimeter.com Egypt politics presidency MB ikhwan media socialmedia
shared by Ed Webb on 25 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 25 Jun 12
     
    Web used to hold politician to account.
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The Dutch media monopoly kills journalism in the Netherlands: internet doesn't help | o... - 0 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...rlands-internet-doesn%E2%80%99 media journalism Netherlands journalists democracy
shared by Ed Webb on 10 Jan 14 - Cached
  • We all grew up with the standard formula: journalism plays a crucial role in making western democracies work by providing citizens with the information that enables them to make informed judgments about urgent issues of general interest. Therefore, the fundamental question for those who study the western new media is: Do they in fact do what they are supposed, and claim, to do?
  • The crucial western capitalist context in which the news media operate in Dutch society and which they fundamentally reflect, is the same as that of British and American societies. Economic and foreign policies in the three countries are much more alike than different. The Netherlands too avowedly promotes ‘free trade’ and ‘the spread of democracy’ to less fortunate countries. In the Netherlands too, neoliberal thinking dominates politics. Journalism in the three countries is also very much alike. The ruling professional ideology is ‘objectivity.’ The media are mostly privately-owned and depend on advertising revenue. In the name of ‘freedom of the press’, the government exercises restraint, taking the position that, as much as possible, the market should decide which publications live and die. But journalists and politicians are caught in a symbiotic relationship and the PR industry exerts a lot of covert influence on journalism. It was American journalist Ben Bagdikian, who claimed in his popular The Media Monopoly , now in its sixth edition, that continuing concentration in the American media industry amounts to a de facto news monopoly. As a result, American news reflects the interests of political and economic elites. Just like in the Netherlands, where media markets are dominated by a few big corporations.
  • The official version of Dutch media history maintains that the partisan journalism which was prevalent until the 1970s fell far short, because it was intimately tied to political parties. In the 1970s, journalism professionalized and since then it has done more or less what it is supposed to do. But this is a very partial account. Indeed, the partisan media hardly practiced journalism as we like to see it done: acting as the watchdog of democracy. But when journalism shrugged off its political ties, the market filled the vacuum, and far from the market functioning as an ‘engine of freedom,’ to use British scholar James Curran’s words - the market in reality amounted to yet another ‘system of control,’ to cite Curran once again. The commercial media’s primary task is not to provide the population with relevant, independently-gathered information. Their primary task is to deliver readers, viewers and listeners to advertisers. As a consequence, the media in the Netherlands are owned by rich corporations and persons who have a stake in maintaining friendly ties with other corporations and also the government, for access to powerful political sources needs to be kept at all costs. No wonder that the journalistic product reflects the interests of elites. The media are the elite, also in the Netherlands, its reputation of a progressive country regarding ‘cultural’ issues like abortion and the death penalty notwithstanding. Dutch journalism thus remains far from independent, at least, if we take Jurgen Habermas’ definition seriously, whereby a public sphere ‘can only approach autonomy if it is independent from both the state and commercial interests’. 
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  • The commercialization of the Dutch media has taken giant steps since the 1970s. Making as much money as quickly as possible soon became the guiding adage in the newspaper industry. Since its introduction in the late 1980s commercial television has conquered the Dutch market to the extent that the public broadcaster now holds a market share of ‘only’ about a third. Moreover, the last decade especially has seen the dismantling of public broadcasting in the Netherlands. As Habermas once remarked, we should not succomb to too many illusions about a media system in which a public broadcaster is present but in which commercial media set the tone.
  • For Dutch journalism the introduction of the internet has turned out to be a disaster. Dramatically lower advertising and subscription incomes have aggravated the already existing, structural problems of commercial journalism. Now there is even less money for investigative journalism. Articles are often put on the web as quickly as possible, without taking the time to check facts or come up with original story ideas or angles. In short, lack of money and manpower have made Dutch journalism even more vulnerable to the nefarious influence of the burgeoning pr-industry.
  • Much research performed by Dutch media studies scholars over the last decades does indeed show the lack of journalistic independence and the frequent pro-elite biases in the reporting. Yet scholars are typically reluctant to draw the ultimate conclusions as to the true extent to which journalism has failed the Dutch population. One cause, in my opinion, is that many researchers too hold to elitist notions of democracy.
  • The government-installed but independent commission that examined Dutch involvement in the Iraq-war concluded in 2010 that the government supported Washington primarily in order to maintain the intimate partnership established after WWII. One can expect the Dutch state to prioritize the political and economic interests of elites over human life, especially when the victims are ‘mere’ Iraqis. The problem is: Dutch journalism does the same.
  • Ed Webb on 10 Jan 14
     
    Interesting comparative case for the (often frustrated) hopes that citizens and experts have for the role of journalism in democracies.
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