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Ed Webb

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Egyptian battle lines harden as ultras learn... - 0 views

mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/...le-lines-harden-as-ultras.html

Egypt soccer football revolution

shared by Ed Webb on 20 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • In a statement on their Facebook page that has some 255,000 followers, Ultras Ahlawy said last week that it would defy the spectator ban in the match against Ismaily  to deliver a message to “all remnants of the ousted regime” that they would not obey their “manipulated regime.” In their statement, the ultras said: “The issue is bigger than football. We want to settle the score with remnants of the former regime, under the leadership of Samir Zaher, and their oppression of Egyptian youth.” UWK issued a similar statement saying that “we suffered a lot from injustice and repression in the past, but we stood up to that with pride. We fought with all our might to maintain our principles and freedom. We thought justice and freedom would come after our revolution. We will continue in our defense of freedom even with our blood. Our war with the EFA will continue until we win and see the corrupt people in prison.”
  • As the frontline in the ‘Battle of the Dakhliya (interior ministry)’ or alternatively dubbed the Battle of Mohammed Mahmoud – the epicenter of the confrontation just off Tahrir Square -- moved at times closer to and then further away from the ministry, Chinese-made motorcycles carried the wounded to safety. Shamarikh, the controversial, colored fireworks employed by the ultras during soccer matches lit up the sky at night replacing street lights that had been turned off. Theirs was as much a battle for karama or dignity as it was part of the fight to hold the military to its pledge to lead the country to democracy. Their dignity is vested in their ability to stand up to the dakhliya, the knowledge that they no longer can be abused by security forces without recourse and the fact that they no longer have to pay off each and every policemen to stay out of trouble.
Ed Webb

Event Summary : Second Annual Conference of Insight Turkey - 0 views

newsletter.setav.org/...ference-of-insight-turkey.aspx

Turkey Egypt revolutions constitution

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • the Arab people who were for years stuck between an authoritarian regime and a possible Islamist totalitarianism, proved, with the elections undertaken in the aftermath of the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia that “a third option” was possible
  • only a system in which a constitutions prepared by publicly elected representatives and approved by the public with a referendum, could be valid.
  • the norms of international human rights were superior to the constitutions’ and in the Turkish case, a constitution could not be drafted without being subjected to restrictions. He further emphasized that the Treaty of Lausanne, European Council membership and EU membership processes offered guidelines for constitution drafting that needed to be considered.
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  • Gebril stated that in Egypt constitutions were conventionally drawn by government appointed commissions and approved by the public in a referendum. However, for this to function well today, he argued, it was crucial to inform the public. Gebril purported that Islam did not reconcile with secularism. The moderator, Huveydi, challenged Gebril’s statement and indicated that it was possible to make secularism and Islam congruent as it was the case in Turkey. Gebril argued that the principles needed to accomplish a real democracy were present in the traditions of Egypt and Islamic world.
  • underlining the weaknesses of the characteristics of representative democracy of the 1924 constitution stated that the tutelary approach of 1960s was fortified with the 1982 Constitution. The present constitution could not meet the demands of the society
  • in Egypt and what needed to be discussed today was the role of military, place of religion and especially the balance of powers.
  • since it could not be based on one group’s interests and opinions, it had to be structured in a way that would include and protect minorities in the political mechanism. Stating that secularism did not always bring democracy, it was argued that the important thing was the presence of democracy and that ways to reconcile universal values with local conditions had to be sought without resorting to reactionarism..
  • more towards strengthening the democratization process in Turkey, and he argued that this approach carried the potential to reverse the homogenous nation building process, decrease the power of tutelage regime and widen the political field. Ete concluded his analysis with two observations: 1. Turkey’s history of democracy was full of instances in which the authoritarian regime regenerated itself. 2. Decisive steps must be taken in the struggle for democracy
  • Abd Rabou specifically emphasized four different dimensions of the change in Egypt: democratization; institutionalization and formation of democratic organizations; free elections and the transformation of political culture
  • Demirel, who found the simplification of arguments to to authoritarian regime vs. democratic public problematic, argued that the authoritarian tendencies of the public also had to be heeded. Demirel argued that the advances made in civil-military relations in the recent years were not yet solidified in the political life and a regression back to military rule was still a possibility.
  • Reiterating that the retreat of the military did not necessarily signal the end of the tutelage regime, Demirel argued that it was still probable to regress into complete tutelage especially in the context of the Kurdish problem. He ended his speech by issuing a warning against the threats to civil rights and freedoms from the political powers.
  • this revolution toppled the foundations of the Sykes-Picot order. He objected the perceptions of the revolution as the new Sykes-Picot order. In other words, he opposed the idea the revolution and its aftermath were imposed on the region by external powers. He insisted the post revolution was a period in which the region decided on its own fate in accordance with the changing dynamics. In parallel to other participants, he argued this was the first time an Arab individual claimed his own destiny. He further claimed that in this process, in which the driving force is a quest for dignity, regional politics will be determined by internal dynamics and stated that the region will be changed to the extent the revolution maintains its momentum.
  • Iran and Turkey were the beneficiaries of this new order.
  • in both Turkey and Egypt an approach that perceived the making of the new constitution as an instrument to limit the power of the ruling regime instead of a process that reflected the current distribution of power in the country
  • such a constitutional culture and such a constitutional system that protects human rights by striking a balance between universal and local values will contribute to the resolution of minority problem in Egypt and identity issues in Turkey.
Ed Webb

Youth, Waithood, and Protest Movements in Africa - By Alcinda Honwana - African Arguments - 0 views

africanarguments.org/...s-in-africa-by-alcinda-honwana

youth politics economy Africa Tunisia Senegal generation parties

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Jul 19 - Cached
  • young Africans struggling with unemployment, the difficulty of finding sustainable livelihoods, and the absence of civil liberties
  • Political instability, bad governance, and failed neo-liberal social and economic policies have exacerbated longstanding societal problems and diminished young people’s ability to support themselves and their families
  • Many are unable to attain the prerequisites of full adulthood and take their place as fully-fledged members of society. The recent wave of youth protests can best be understood in the context of this generation’s struggles for economic, social, and political emancipation
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  • young Africans are living in waithood
  • a growing number of young men and women must improvise livelihoods and conduct their personal relations outside of dominant economic and familial frameworks
  • their sense of being “˜trapped’ in a prolonged state of youth
  • recent protest movements, led mainly by young people, stem directly from the economic and social pressures they suffer, and from their pervasive political marginalisation
  • Young activists appear to be struggling to translate the political grievances of the protest movement into a broader political agenda. Clearly, they seem to be more united in defining what they don’t want and fighting it, and much less so in articulating what they collectively want
  • interviews I conducted with young people in Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia, between 2008 and 2012, which resulted in my two most recent books: The Time of Youth: Work Social Change and Politics in Africa (published in August 2012 by Kumarian Press in the USA), and Youth and Revolution in Tunisia (published in June 2013 by Zed Books in the UK)
  • there is scepticism among youth that growth alone, without equity, will bring the solution to their problems
  • While Singerman’s usage of waithood suggests a sense of passivity, my research indicates that young people are not merely waiting, and hoping that their situation will change of its own accord. On the contrary, they are proactively engaged in serious efforts to create new forms of being and interacting with society. Waithood involves a long process of negotiating personal identity and financial independence; it represents the contradictions of a modernity, in which young people’s expectations are simultaneously raised by the new technologies of information and communication that connect them to global cultures, and constrained by the limited prospects and opportunities in their daily lives
  • Young Africans constitute a disenfranchised majority
  • Liggey, which means work in Wolof, the national language of Senegal, is celebrated as an important marker of adulthood. The ability to work and provide for themselves and others defines a person’s self-worth and position in the family and in the community. Yet, the majority of young people in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa are unable to attain the sense of dignity embedded in the notion of liggey.
  • African societies do not offer reliable pathways to adulthood; traditional ways of making this transition have broken down, and new ways of attaining adult status are yet to be developed
  • a liminal space in which they are neither dependent children nor autonomous adults
  • Waithood also evidences the multifaceted realities of young Africans’ difficult transition to adulthood, which goes beyond securing a job and extends to aspects of their social and political life
  • Ibrahim Abdullah (1998) and Abubakar Momoh (2000) have pointed to the use of the vernacular term youthman, in many West African countries, to describe those who are stuck in this liminal position
  • youth as a socially constructed category defined by societal expectations and responsibilities (Honwana and De Boeck 2005)
  • In Dakar in June 2011, rallying around the movement Y’en a Marre! (Enough is enough!), Senegalese youth came out to the streets, clashed with police, and managed to stop the approval of constitutional amendments that would benefit former president Wade. Galvanized by this victory, and using the slogan “Ma Carte d’Electeur, Mon Arme“ (my voting card, my weapon), the young Senegalese helped to remove Abdoulaye Wade from office in February 2012.
  • Although women are becoming better educated and have always engaged in productive labour alongside household chores, marriage and motherhood are still the most important markers of adulthood. While giving birth may provide girls an entry into adulthood, their ability to attain full adult status often depends on men moving beyond waithood (Calví¨s et al. 2007)
  • Although growing numbers of young people are completing secondary school and even attending university, the mismatch between educational systems and the labour markets leaves many unemployed or underemployed; they are pushed into the oversaturated informal economy or become informal workers in the formal sector (Chen 2006
  • Young Senegalese and Tunisians employ the French term débrouillage, making do
  • in the realm of improvisation, or “making it up as you go along,” and entails a conscious effort to assess challenges and possibilities and plot scenarios conducive to the achievement of specific goals (Vigh 2009)
  • young women and men in waithood develop their own spaces where they subvert authority, bypass the encumbrances created by the state, and fashion new ways of functioning on their own. These youth spaces foster possibilities for creativity; and as Henrietta Moore puts it, for self-stylization, “an obstinate search for a style of existence, [and] a way of being” (Moore 2011: 2). The process of self-styling is made easier by cyber social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
  • these new “˜youthscapes’ (Maira and Soep 2005) resemble Michel Maffesoli’s notion of “urban tribes,” understood as groupings that share common interests but whose association is largely informal and marked by greater “fluidity, occasional gatherings and dispersal” (1996: 98)
  • Waithood constitutes a twilight zone, or an interstitial space, where the boundaries between legal and illegal, proper and improper, and right and wrong are often blurred. It is precisely at this juncture that young people are forced to make choices. Their decisions help to define their relationships towards work, family, and intimacy, as well as the type of citizens they will become. Rather than being a short interruption in their transition to adulthood, waithood is gradually replacing conventional adulthood itself (Honwana 2012).
  • growth alone, without equity, will not guarantee social inclusion and better lives for the majority of the population. Indeed, young people rebel against the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the rampant corruption that they observe as elites enrich themselves at others’ expense
  • Young Africans today are generally better educated and more closely connected with the rest of the world than their parents. The young people I interviewed did not seem like a “˜lost generation’ nor did they appear apathetic about what is happening in the societies surrounding them. They are acutely conscious of their marginal structural position, and no longer trust the state’s willingness and ability to find solutions to their problems. In their shared marginalisation, young people develop a sense of common identity and a critical consciousness that leads them to challenge the established order (Honwana 2012, 2013).
  • Asef Bayat calls these dispersed actions “˜non-movements,’ which he describes as “quiet and unassuming daily struggles” outside formal institutional channels in which everyday social activities blend with political activism (2010: 5)
  • Young activists find themselves more divided; the broad unity forged during street protests dissipates as they struggle to articulate a new common purpose and to define a new political role for themselves
  • In the aftermath of street protests, young people appear to be retreating back to the periphery of formal politics, into their “˜non-movements.’
  • Today, the divorce of power from politics is deepening because power is being seized by supranational finance and trade corporations and by transnational organised crime syndicates. Devoid of power, politics remains localised in the nation state and responds to the interests of supranational powers rather than to the will of the people. In this sense, “˜sovereignty is outsourced’ and democracy becomes a charade, as politics has no power but instead serves power.
  • Aditya Nigam points to the current crisis of the “˜political’ and suggests that in the wake of the North African revolutions, these societies are “living in an interregnum when the old forms of politics have become moribund and obsolete but new ones have not yet emerged … Something, clearly, is waiting to be articulated in this relentless refusal of the political” by the younger generation (2012: 175).
  • In Tunisia, young activists are enjoying the freedom of independent civic and political engagement following the revolution, as these were banned under the old regime. But at the same time, their disappointment with party politics makes some young people turn to politicized forms of Islam. For example, the famous rapper of the revolution, “˜El General,’ is today an advocate for the instauration of Sharia law, and the lyrics of his latest song, titled “I Wish,” call for Tunisia to become an Islamic state. Indeed, young Islamists who joined radical Salafist groups believe that Sharia will be the solution to their problems because, as some of them put it: “Sharia is not politics, but a whole way of life, with its laws and its science.”
  • In Senegal, the Y’en a Marre activists pride themselves on being non-partisan and vow to work towards making politicians accountable to those who elected them
  • a “˜New Type of Senegalese’ described as: one that is more socially and politically conscious, assumes her/his responsibilities as a citizen, and fights for the well-being of the Senegalese people
  • my young interlocutors seem to believe that it is possible to achieve fundamental change outside of dominant political structures, even if they have not yet fully articulated how to do so
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