On Cairo negatives

Obama’s speech in Cairo on June will mark the third time he has addressed the Muslim world, seeking partnership and conciliation with Muslims jaded by George Bush’s unrelentingly belligerent and humiliating “war on terror” policies and his divisive, poisonous rhetoric.

In his first major interview to Al-Arabiya, Obama proclaimed: “My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.”

Yet, Obama’s choice of Egypt is an implicit endorsement and validation of Mubarak’s dictatorship, and it reiterates the oft-spoken but albeit true cliché in the Muslim world that US merely covets selfish policy interests instead of democratization, autonomy and self determination by and for the Arab and Muslim people.

“Obama chooses a reliable dictatorship,” Wajahat Ali, Information Clearing House, 12 May, 2009.

I have written on the problems posed by an Obama visit to Cairo (though in a slightly different context); I maintain those reservations towards the “symbolism” and meaning of such an address in Cairo. Having heard embassy staff slobber about the “deep meaning” of such an address depending on its location and visual composition of his address, one is partly concerned that the visit has no strong meaning based on any of the actual stated principles the government would like, outside of reassuring the Egyptians that the US perceives it as among its strongest Arab allies and will support the Egyptian government in a more congenial way than the previous administration. An American official who works on what basically comes up to [rather crude] public relations told me: this will be important for our relations with European Muslims and Muslims everywhere. In the first place the notion that the US needs a special or enhanced relationship with European Muslims (unless this individual was referring to Kosovars, Albanians, Bosnians and the like) is rather strange.¹ Aside from that, the Cairo speech will offer significant insight into the administration’s intentions and circumstance vis-a-vis the Arabic-speaking Middle East. Very often, in this blogger’s view, the relevance such happenings have in the broader Muslim world are exaggerated. But the relevance it may have to how the administration approaches the Muslim world will be half-way significant, depending on the content of what Obama says and how he says it. But it will not, I repeat, will not show any Muslim or any Arab what the United States plans to do in the Arab or Muslim worlds. What has been seen recently, as the piece notes, is a continuation of material ties between the United States and Egypt. And it is well known that the Egyptians are most concerned that the Americans perceive them as the primary power in the Arab world and behave accordingly. Thus, the emphasis on the Arab-Israeli dispute, the possible resolution of which will not yield many positive results for anyone but those directly involved (and this does not include the average Egyptian or Algerian). Such efforts re-enforce pre-existing relations between the United States and the states in the region. What the administration says the “Muslim world” it means allied governments whose staff and populations are Muslim. Reference to much of anything else is diplospeak and represents half-measures, such is the heart of the American relationship with most countries and these especially. Unless real changes begin, outside of rhetoric, the administration’s actual policy remains obscure. If the president is bold enough to speak to the concerns of Egyptians and Muslims, beyond the ruling castes, it may signal change. But that much is unlikely.

In Nezzar’s own words

Those who have not should check out the bits of Khaled Nezzar’s memoirs on Ech-Chourouk‘s website. They are there for obvious reasons, I think, and are worth perusing and parsing (some of this may come here eventually): they speak volumes about the former Algerian junta leader’s self-perception and world view generally (Nezzar carries a classically Algerian manner of revealing much about himself (often negative things one would not want others to know about) in the process of self-aggrandizement). For all that one may think of him, he has a way of playing the press (as he did last year in the newspaper war with Chadli and Anissa Boumediene) that is almost Bismarck-esque, though with less mastery, for he bogs down in minutia and hyperbole. One should be mistaken in believing that this to say anything other than his penchant for controlling his image in the Algerian media is similar to the German Chancellor, though he may have looked to that direction in career. Some Algerians would look to other Germans for a better analogy more broadly.

From Cairo

Apologies to the readership for the scarce posting during the last few weeks. I have been in Cairo and will be for a few more weeks and will post soon on Louisa Hanoune, American Muslims and on some issues relating to my experience here. As the Arabist said to me: Cairo at times feels more African than Mediterranean and I believe that I am adjusting to its pace and its logistics in such a frame of reference.

The Sky is Falling: Walt on Threatmongers

Stephen Walt has a pretty strong list outlining “The Threatmonger’s Handbook”. Of special interest are rules 2 (“Everything is connected”), 4 (“Portray allies as a liability rather than an asset”), 5 (“Whenever possible, depict opponents as part of a strong and highly cohesive movement, and preferably one united by strong ideological convictions”) and 6 (“We must act now!”). All of these are present throughout the foreign policy commentariat, and much of area studies: threats from every corner of the world are often billed as the most pressing and potentially crushing peril. Even experts and pundits focusing on the world’s most dangerous regions are often guilty of exaggerating the level of risk emanating from their subject areas ad nauseam. If all this trouble came from the ignorant generalist pundit class, made of columnists and talking heads present more because of their ease in prose or their choice of hair parting, it would be more excusable. But one need only look at the legions of area studies experts working for lobbies and big firms to push through weapons sales, academic funding and other perks for themselves.

The central question around this vexation is why? No academic or public figure would admit to simple hunger for recognition, funding, the betterment of lobbies or other base motivations. Most would likely wrap their exaggerations about the dire threat of radical Islam, the urgency of a remote semi-democracy’s “survival” or the perniciousness of one or the other regime in the banner of the national interest. But in reality, financial desires or necessities tend to drive some of the heaviest threat assessments (academic departments often need all the money they can get for research and programming and appealing to the government for assistance is a valid and legal means of getting it). This has been remarked upon on this blog before, especially with reference to public intellectuals and area studies experts. The result is often a distorted public perception of certain problems in international affairs and a warped political discourse. All the while, those with anything to say on the new “existential” threat to national security maintain relevance and expensive business suits.

At the same time, the public interest and funding raised by those worried that the sky is falling often benefits more rational scholarship and policy making in the medium and long term. Still, one example that boggles the mind: that so much attention has been spent on improving the limited American capacity in the Arabic language (I know, some readers are saying What?), but other strategic languages, like Pashto — the language of much of the Taliban and its sympathizers in Pakistan — is tremendously low and little has been done in the way of raising awareness or concern about this. It would be interesting to take a poll of how many Americans actually know what Pashto is. There are certainly myriad reasons why Pashto and other languages continue to elude the American foreign policy bureaucracy and the domestic academic environment, part of it probably poor estimation of the need and a shortage of qualified teachers Statesside. The end result: only two people in the American Embassy in Kabul have Pashto skills, far from what is needed given contemporary circumstances. The biggest beneficiaries from recent federal funding for area studies since the dawn of our century have been, I would imagine, Arabists and China experts. It may have been wise to have invested as rigorously (surely if not more so) in Pashto and other Afghan languages as in Arabic.

In any event, threat mongering has its draw backs and its boons. Eventually, though if those mongers could calibrate their alarm so as to be more proximate to where funding ought to go the boons would be in higher frequency. Even still, too often these kinds cause needless trepidation on behalf of businesses and interest sets to the detriment of other, more truly pressing, concerns.

More than a little bit misleading

The madrasas offer almost no instruction beyond the memorizing of the Koran, creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to militancy.

Caption, “Pakistan’s Islamic Schools Fill Void, but Fuel Militancy,” New York Times, 2 May, 2009.

Berriane consultation

Atteint de troubles psychiques depuis de longues années, mais qui se sont aggravés avec tous les évènements dramatiques qu’a vécus Berriane, notamment ceux ayant eu lieu dans son propre quartier, M. B. a mis fin à ses jours, samedi vers 17h, en se jetant du haut de la terrasse de son domicile.

Âgé de 59 ans et père de 8 enfants, il n’aurait, selon ses proches, pas supporté toutes les violences vécues ces 2 dernières années par sa coquette rue de l’Indépendance, située juste à proximité du siège de la sûreté de daïra de Berriane. Le suicide de ce sexagénaire a plongé la ville dans un grand émoi. Une enquête a été ouverte par la sûreté de daïra de Berriane pour déterminer les causes et circonstances exactes de ce drame.

“Suicide d’un sexagénaire,” Liberte, 4 May, 2009

Since the last outburst of inter-communal violence in Berriane, the government has attempted to mediate between the town’s Melikite and Ibadite communities where previous local efforts had failed. These have been led by the Ministries of the Interior and Public Works. Special emphasis has been placed on combating unemployment among Melikite youth and combating bigotry at the popular level. Dr. Mohamed Nabulsi visited Berriane toward the close of April, appeal to “Muslim unity“. The government, and most everyone else, believes the root cause is a socio-economic one, and Berriane is slated for “special development programs” following the consultations being carried out presently. How much the government mission will consult the youth is unclear, if it is at all to tale place. [Serious] Investigations into the local security forces’ conduct also seems unlikely. Little can be expected of the effort, as previous efforts have failed. When the consultations are over and more details of their nature and content are available, evaluation will be possible.