Libya Standoff as Saudi Quivers and Iran, Iraq under Pressure
by Juan Cole
Informed Consent
...
Saudi Arabia, the world’s major swing producer, is afraid of unrest itself and attempting to buy off its own population, so needs the extra money for this purpose. Saudi Arabia had traditionally attempted to hold prices down, because its vast reserves meant it could always make its money in the future, and its relatively small population (22 mn. citizens) left it with limitations on its economic absorptive capacity, i.e., it couldn’t put a lot of oil profits to work in its own domestic economy.
So the Saudi government is handing out $37 billion, all of a sudden, to its people for housing and unemployment relief.
Saudi authorities on Tuesday detained a Shiite clergyman in the Eastern Province who preached a sermon calling for a constitutional monarchy. Shiites are probably about 12 percent of Saudis and are culturally and politically repressed by the Wahhabi establishment, which typically views them as idolaters. Had the call for constitutional monarchy come from other quarters, it would be more significant, since it is hard to imagine Wahhabi-Shiite political unity. Unrest among Saudi Shiites might affect the oil-rich Eastern Province where they mostly reside, but the Saudi state has significant repressive capacities in that area.
To Read the Entire Report
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Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Guardian: Middle East protests - live updates (2/16/11)
Middle East protests - live updates
Guardian (United Kingdom)
• Bahrain: Thousands of protesters have continued to demonstrate at Pearl roundabout in the capital Manama. Our reporter there says there are signs of growing anger at King Hadad, who is seen as responsible for propping up the Sunni-based establishment. Thousands of people took part in a funeral for Fadhel Al-Matrook, a protester shot dead at funeral of another protester yesterday. The US, Britain and the UN have expressed concern about the violence. A government minister reportedly acknowledged that the two killings were "catastrophic."
• Yemen: A sixth day of protests against Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president, was broken up by pro-government supporters bussed in to the capital Sana'a. Up to four protesters were injured, and 2,000 police deployed to break up the clashes. There have also been protests in other cities such as Aden and Taiz. Saleh responded by saying "chaos, wrong mobilisation and irresponsible utterance via media" was not the way to "reach the power."
• Iran: Students and academics have been arrested in a raid at a university in Tehran. A state news agency reported clashes between government supporters and protesters after the funeral of Saane (or Sanee) Zhaleh, who was killed in protests on Monday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, said the protests were doomed to fail.
• Egypt: Protesters are planning to gather in Tahrir Square on Friday to mark a week since Hosni Mubarak, the president, stood down. A coalition of activists have released a list of candidates they would like to see in the transitional government. Both moves are intended to put pressure on the army, which took control after Mubarak's fall.
• Libya: Up to 38 people have been injured in the city of Benghazi after protests about the arrest of a civil rights campaigner and critic of Muammar Gaddafi. There are reports that critics of Gaddafi have been arrested.
• Morocco: Protests are planned for Sunday
To Read more detailed reports and to access live stream
Guardian (United Kingdom)
• Bahrain: Thousands of protesters have continued to demonstrate at Pearl roundabout in the capital Manama. Our reporter there says there are signs of growing anger at King Hadad, who is seen as responsible for propping up the Sunni-based establishment. Thousands of people took part in a funeral for Fadhel Al-Matrook, a protester shot dead at funeral of another protester yesterday. The US, Britain and the UN have expressed concern about the violence. A government minister reportedly acknowledged that the two killings were "catastrophic."
• Yemen: A sixth day of protests against Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president, was broken up by pro-government supporters bussed in to the capital Sana'a. Up to four protesters were injured, and 2,000 police deployed to break up the clashes. There have also been protests in other cities such as Aden and Taiz. Saleh responded by saying "chaos, wrong mobilisation and irresponsible utterance via media" was not the way to "reach the power."
• Iran: Students and academics have been arrested in a raid at a university in Tehran. A state news agency reported clashes between government supporters and protesters after the funeral of Saane (or Sanee) Zhaleh, who was killed in protests on Monday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, said the protests were doomed to fail.
• Egypt: Protesters are planning to gather in Tahrir Square on Friday to mark a week since Hosni Mubarak, the president, stood down. A coalition of activists have released a list of candidates they would like to see in the transitional government. Both moves are intended to put pressure on the army, which took control after Mubarak's fall.
• Libya: Up to 38 people have been injured in the city of Benghazi after protests about the arrest of a civil rights campaigner and critic of Muammar Gaddafi. There are reports that critics of Gaddafi have been arrested.
• Morocco: Protests are planned for Sunday
To Read more detailed reports and to access live stream
Slavoj Zizek: For Egypt... There is no room for compromise. Either the entire Mubarak edifice falls, or the uprisi
For Egypt, this is the miracle of Tahrir Square. There is no room for compromise. Either the entire Mubarak edifice falls, or the uprising is betrayed.
by Slavoj Žižek
Guardian (United Kingdom)
One cannot but note the "miraculous" nature of the events in Egypt: something has happened that few predicted, violating the experts' opinions, as if the uprising was not simply the result of social causes but the intervention of a mysterious agency that we can call, in a Platonic way, the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity.
The uprising was universal: it was immediately possible for all of us around the world to identify with it, to recognise what it was about, without any need for cultural analysis of the features of Egyptian society. In contrast to Iran's Khomeini revolution (where leftists had to smuggle their message into the predominantly Islamist frame), here the frame is clearly that of a universal secular call for freedom and justice, so that the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt the language of secular demands.
The most sublime moment occurred when Muslims and Coptic Christians engaged in common prayer on Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting "We are one!" – providing the best answer to the sectarian religious violence. Those neocons who criticise multiculturalism on behalf of the universal values of freedom and democracy are now confronting their moment of truth: you want universal freedom and democracy? This is what people demand in Egypt, so why are the neocons uneasy? Is it because the protesters in Egypt mention freedom and dignity in the same breath as social and economic justice?
From the start, the violence of the protesters has been purely symbolic, an act of radical and collective civil disobedience. They suspended the authority of the state – it was not just an inner liberation, but a social act of breaking chains of servitude. The physical violence was done by the hired Mubarak thugs entering Tahrir Square on horses and camels and beating people; the most protesters did was defend themselves.
Although combative, the message of the protesters has not been one of killing. The demand was for Mubarak to go, and thus open up the space for freedom in Egypt, a freedom from which no one is excluded – the protesters' call to the army, and even the hated police, was not "Death to you!", but "We are brothers! Join us!". This feature clearly distinguishes an emancipatory demonstration from a rightwing populist one: although the right's mobilisation proclaims the organic unity of the people, it is a unity sustained by a call to annihilate the designated enemy (Jews, traitors).
So where are we now? When an authoritarian regime approaches the final crisis, its dissolution tends to follow two steps. Before its actual collapse, a rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy; its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down …
In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroads, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman withdrew; within hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although street fights went on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game was over.
Is something similar going on in Egypt? For a couple of days at the beginning, it looked like Mubarak was already in the situation of the proverbial cat. Then we saw a well-planned operation to kidnap the revolution. The obscenity of this was breathtaking: the new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, a former secret police chief responsible for mass tortures, presented himself as the "human face" of the regime, the person to oversee the transition to democracy.
Egypt's struggle of endurance is not a conflict of visions, it is the conflict between a vision of freedom and a blind clinging to power that uses all means possible – terror, lack of food, simple tiredness, bribery with raised salaries – to squash the will to freedom.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
by Slavoj Žižek
Guardian (United Kingdom)
One cannot but note the "miraculous" nature of the events in Egypt: something has happened that few predicted, violating the experts' opinions, as if the uprising was not simply the result of social causes but the intervention of a mysterious agency that we can call, in a Platonic way, the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity.
The uprising was universal: it was immediately possible for all of us around the world to identify with it, to recognise what it was about, without any need for cultural analysis of the features of Egyptian society. In contrast to Iran's Khomeini revolution (where leftists had to smuggle their message into the predominantly Islamist frame), here the frame is clearly that of a universal secular call for freedom and justice, so that the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt the language of secular demands.
The most sublime moment occurred when Muslims and Coptic Christians engaged in common prayer on Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting "We are one!" – providing the best answer to the sectarian religious violence. Those neocons who criticise multiculturalism on behalf of the universal values of freedom and democracy are now confronting their moment of truth: you want universal freedom and democracy? This is what people demand in Egypt, so why are the neocons uneasy? Is it because the protesters in Egypt mention freedom and dignity in the same breath as social and economic justice?
From the start, the violence of the protesters has been purely symbolic, an act of radical and collective civil disobedience. They suspended the authority of the state – it was not just an inner liberation, but a social act of breaking chains of servitude. The physical violence was done by the hired Mubarak thugs entering Tahrir Square on horses and camels and beating people; the most protesters did was defend themselves.
Although combative, the message of the protesters has not been one of killing. The demand was for Mubarak to go, and thus open up the space for freedom in Egypt, a freedom from which no one is excluded – the protesters' call to the army, and even the hated police, was not "Death to you!", but "We are brothers! Join us!". This feature clearly distinguishes an emancipatory demonstration from a rightwing populist one: although the right's mobilisation proclaims the organic unity of the people, it is a unity sustained by a call to annihilate the designated enemy (Jews, traitors).
So where are we now? When an authoritarian regime approaches the final crisis, its dissolution tends to follow two steps. Before its actual collapse, a rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy; its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down …
In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroads, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman withdrew; within hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although street fights went on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game was over.
Is something similar going on in Egypt? For a couple of days at the beginning, it looked like Mubarak was already in the situation of the proverbial cat. Then we saw a well-planned operation to kidnap the revolution. The obscenity of this was breathtaking: the new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, a former secret police chief responsible for mass tortures, presented himself as the "human face" of the regime, the person to oversee the transition to democracy.
Egypt's struggle of endurance is not a conflict of visions, it is the conflict between a vision of freedom and a blind clinging to power that uses all means possible – terror, lack of food, simple tiredness, bribery with raised salaries – to squash the will to freedom.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
Arundhati Roy and Chalmers Johnson: Blowback
Who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He's America's family secret. He is the American president's [George W. Bush] dark Doppelganger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilized. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America's foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of "full-spectrum dominance," its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts. ... Now that the family secret has been spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable.
--Arundhati Roy, The Guardian (September 27, 2001)
"Blowback" does not mean just revenge but rather retaliation for covert, illegal violence that our government has carried out abroad that it kept totally secret from the American public (even though such acts are seldom secret among the people on the receiving end). It was a term invented by the Central Intelligence Agency and first used in its "after-action report" about the 1953 overthrow of the elected government of Premier Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran. This coup brought to power the U.S.-supported Shah of Iran, who would in 1979 be overthrown by Iranian revolutionaries and Islamic fundamentalists. The Ayatollah Khomeini replaced the Shah and installed the predecessors of the current, anti-American government in Iran. This would be one kind of blowback from America's first venture into illegal, clandestine "regime change"--but as the attacks of September 11, 2001, showed us all too graphically, hardly the only one.
--Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006)
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