Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Saudi Arabia has no civil society of any significance. As a result, online calls to protest—beloved of so many “cyber-utopians”—had no place to take root.
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Boston Review - Madawi Al-Rasheed: No Saudi Spring - 0 views
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KSA Saudi revolutions protests analysis opinion
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The protests reflected a growing sense of disappointment with King Abdullah, who has failed to implement a single political demand from previous petitions. However, in spite of their disappointment, reformers from a wide range of political ideologies—Islamists, nationalists, leftists, and liberals—are being cautious because the future could be worse. Many intellectuals and professionals are haunted by the prospect of losing their positions when Crown Prince Nayif becomes king. Abdullah has developed a quasi-liberal constituency and cultivated its interest in the state, business, and media. Reformers nonetheless loyal to Abdullah fear that Nayif’s iron fist will come down on them: functionaries of the ancien régime to be replaced.
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Another group, the National Coalition and Free Youth Movement, formed on Facebook and Twitter in spite of having no offline organizational presence. Their Web pages would disappear amid government censorship only to reappear at different addresses. Many pages gathered thousands of supporters, but it is difficult to claim that all were authentic. Cyber-warfare pitted activists and non-ideological young men and women against regime security, complicating the headcount.
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There are essentially no non-state institutions in the country. Saudi Arabia has not had trade unions since the 1950s, when the government banned them in the oil-rich province where the then-American oil company ARAMCO was based. Likewise, there are no legal political parties, youth associations, women’s organizations, or independent human rights organizations.
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By intervening, the Saudis hoped not only to protect their Bahraini ally, but to split their internal opposition using sectarian politics. As the protests grew and the GCC deliberated, the Saudi official press peddled the regime’s line: an Iranian-Shia conspiracy was targeting the Sunni heartland. The champions of Sunni Islam would save the Gulf from the Iranian-Shia takeover. The Saudi regime proved not only to its subjects, but also to Western governments, a determination to crush protest and expel Iranian and Shia influence from the peninsula. The message to President Obama was to think twice before supporting democracy and human rights in the Arabian Peninsula. The message to Saudis was that critics would be tarred as traitors to the nation and enemies of the faith.
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Many in the younger generation are critical of the regime’s repressive gender policies, but they support its opposition to the Shia as alien, heretical, and loyal to Iran.
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the “liberal press”—also officially controlled—published articles denouncing sectarianism. Liberal authors attacked sectarian preachers of hate and instead celebrated national unity, wataniyya. Not that these liberal authors favored political protest or close ties with the Shia. Rather, they offered Saudis an alternative discourse that still served the regime’s interests. With society divided between supposedly liberal intellectuals and hateful preachers, the regime confirms in the minds of people that it alone can broker between the fiercely opposed groups.
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Protesters avoid arrest by supporting the king and demanding that bureaucrats respect his royal decrees. Anger is therefore channelled toward low-level civil servants without challenging the regime directly or insisting on royal intervention. As long as protests do not question the policies of senior members of the royal family, they are tolerated, perhaps to some extent welcomed as a means to vent public anger.
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The press has dubbed the wave of small-scale demonstrations “protest fever.” Importantly, women are uniting in pursuit of their interests and rights, suggesting that this is the beginning of a civil rights movement. Saudi women have agitated before—in 1990 some were arrested for violating a driving ban—but the 2011 protests are different. At local and regional levels, women’s demands are more fundamental than before. They want employment, the right to vote in municipal elections, and freedom of speech.
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When protesters agitate for the end of the regime, they are shown no mercy. As of this writing, seven demonstrators have been shot and killed by Saudi security forces. In the virtual world, government agents continue to use propaganda, counterarguments, and rumors against calls for protest.
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should pressure start coming from the West, the Saudi regime knows how to exploit its allies’ weak spots: fear of terrorism and an insatiable appetite for oil and military contracts.
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Digital activism will continue to provide an outlet to a population denied basic freedom. But with popular unrest largely under wraps and the West silent, the regime faces no threat in the short term.
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The economic and social deprivation, political oppression, and corruption that triggered revolutions elsewhere are all present in Saudi Arabia, but these alone are not sufficient to precipitate an uprising. Saudi Arabia does not have trade unions—the majority of its working population is foreign, which has stunted the growth of organized labor—a women’s movement, or an active student population, three factors that helped to make protests in Tunis and Cairo successful. Elsewhere in the Arab world, in the absence of these important factors, revolt stumbled, turned violent, and could not progress without serious foreign intervention. Libya is a case in point.
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where the state is the only institution that matters, effectively bringing people together offline may be impossible
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Rachid Ghannouchi: I Have No Wish of Running for President of Ennahda Again : Tunisia Live - 0 views
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I have no wish to stand for President of Ennahda in the next congress of the party, but the next Congress will have the final word on who will be the leader of Ennahda
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Ghannouchi also told Shems FM that he would welcome Abdelfattah Mourou, a previous leader of Ennahda back into the fold of the party
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L'équation salafi - Tariq Ramadan - 0 views
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Les organisations salafi saoudiennes et qataries sont très actives sur le plan national et international
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Les Etats-Unis ainsi que les pays européens n’ont aucun problème à négocier avec la sorte d’islamisme promue par les salafi littéralistes que l’on trouve dans de nombreuses pétromonarchies : ces régimes peuvent bien s’opposer à la démocratie ainsi qu’au pluralisme, ils n’entravent néanmoins d’aucune manière les intérêts économiques et géostratégiques occidentaux dans la région, ou au niveau international. Ils comptent même sur le soutien de l’Occident pour survivre : cette dépendance utile est suffisante à l’Occident pour justifier une alliance objective - avec ou sans démocratie.
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Pourquoi, se demande-t-on, les pays occidentaux apportent-ils un soutien direct et indirect aux idéologies islamistes qui sont de toute évidence en désaccord avec les leurs ? Après près d’un siècle de présence active au Moyen Orient, et en particulier après la Première Guerre Mondiale, des administrations américaines successives, ainsi que leurs homologues européens, ont mieux compris comment elles peuvent gérer et tirer profit de la relation qu’elles entretiennent à la fois avec les pétromonarchies et avec l’idéologie salafi que ces dernières produisent et propagent
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Authorities Struggle to Take Control in Tunisia - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The security forces at first allowed the demonstrations to build for a few hours. Then military forces fired shots into the air, followed by occasional blasts from a water cannon to disperse the crowd. After the former government’s swift and ruthless attacks on any unauthorized public gathering, however, the crowd seemed to revel in the relatively gentle response. “A shower,” shrugged one man, in French, his suit and overcoat soaking wet. A man in red shoes danced in the puddles in front of the chanting crowd.
راشد الغنوشي يدعو الشباب التونسي للتعبئة للحفاظ على الثورة - بوابة الشروق - 0 views
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Après la Tunisie, quel pays arabe pourrait tomber ? - De Bagdad à Jérusalem :... - 0 views
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Women keep wary eye on Tunisian revolt - 0 views
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It's a fear backed by little substance so far -- except for some talk on chat shows and warnings on Tunisian Facebook pages
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The worry is mainly over any changes to the Personal Status Code -- a law first approved after independence from France in 1956 which bans polygamy and gives equal rights to husbands and wives in a family. It also says divorced women and their children should receive alimony. Women's rights groups are unconvinced by the assurances of the new government, notably with some commentators in recent days using the new freedom of expression on Tunisian television to advocate conservative values.
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An incident in the streets of Tunis illustrated such concerns this weekend when a group of youths shouted crude insults at a female AFP reporter, jeering and mocking her. "Women's rights are over after the revolution!" one shouted
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L'Occident et l'excuse islamiste - LeMonde.fr - 0 views
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How Revolution Turned Sour in the Birthplace of the Arab Spring | Common Dreams - 1 views
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a Western instinct to personalize and, in the process, trivialize the Tunisian revolution – only to ignore it as the focus moved on to later rebellions in countries deemed more important
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"Now they are offering all kinds of help to Libya, which is already a rich country. Here, we get nothing. The economic situation just gets worse, and we wonder why we risked so much in rising up against Ben Ali and his gangsters."
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Faith in the electoral process leading to a better future has also dissipated, with less than half of those eligible to vote in the coming polls having so far registered to do so. While Western observers wonder about the emergence of Islamists as a dominant force in parliament, the crucial issue in places such as Sidi Bouzid is stark. "It is about jobs so we can at least feed our family," said Ziad Ali Karimi. "And if the politicians can't provide that there will be another revolution."
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shared by Ed Webb on 17 Jul 19
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Youth, Waithood, and Protest Movements in Africa - By Alcinda Honwana - African Arguments - 0 views
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youth politics economy Africa Tunisia Senegal generation parties
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young Africans struggling with unemployment, the difficulty of finding sustainable livelihoods, and the absence of civil liberties
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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
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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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a growing number of young men and women must improvise livelihoods and conduct their personal relations outside of dominant economic and familial frameworks
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recent protest movements, led mainly by young people, stem directly from the economic and social pressures they suffer, and from their pervasive political marginalisation
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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
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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)
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there is scepticism among youth that growth alone, without equity, will bring the solution to their problems
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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youth as a socially constructed category defined by societal expectations and responsibilities (Honwana and De Boeck 2005)
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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
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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)
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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
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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)
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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.
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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)
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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).
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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
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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).
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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)
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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
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In the aftermath of street protests, young people appear to be retreating back to the periphery of formal politics, into their “˜non-movements.’
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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.
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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).
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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.”
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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
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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
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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