These are uncertain times for Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer and a key ally in the struggle against militant Islam. The conservative kingdom is balancing on the cuff of a change in leadership that threatens to introduce a period of volatility as the health of its most senior, octogenarian royals falters. At risk, is continued reform designed to curb the sharp ends of the kingdom’s puritan interpretation of Islam and create greater economic and social prospects and opportunity.
Fuelling the uncertainty is the fact that understanding the inner workings of the ruling royal family is akin to the art of reading tea leaves. That art is in high demand with 86-year old reformist King Abdullah recuperating in New York from an operation to relieve haematoma resulting from a prolapsed disc. Abdullah’s illness is not life-threatening, but has raised the spectre of a Saudi Arabia ruled by a succession of short-lived monarchs. The king’s medical treatment comes weeks after he appointed his son as commander of the National Guard, the Bedouin force responsible for the royal family’s security, and the return to the kingdom of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States who is a consummate dealmaker. Taken together, these developments suggest that Saudi Arabia’s ruling family may be preparing for a gradual transfer of power to its next generation.
The stakes for Saudi Arabia as well as its western allies are high. Concern focuses on whether Abdullah’s reforms intended to defeat militant Islam, liberalize the economy, reduce unemployment, fight corruption, limit the power of the conservative, religious establishment and reform the judiciary have taken sufficient root to survive his rule. The reforms challenge basic tenants of the powerful clergy’s puritan interpretation of Islam that coupled with the lack of economic opportunity creates a breeding ground for religious militants. Saud Arabia’s recent announcement of the arrest of 149 primarily Saudi members of Al Qaeda and revelations that the curriculum of some 40 Saudi schools in Britain and Ireland preach hatred, racism and incitement to violence underlines the urgency of continued reform in the kingdom.
In an absolute monarchy in which passes down the line of aging sons of King Abdulaziz, the kingdom’s founder, Abdullah’s most probable immediate successors are grappling with health issues of their own. 84-year old Crown Prince and Defence Minister Prince Sultan, returned to Saudi Arabia on the eve of Abdullah’s departure from a two-year absence due to illness. Their younger brother, Prince Nayef, the 76 year-old interior minister who is third in line, may not be healthy enough to fully take over the reins of power when his time comes. Nayef, moreover, is widely viewed as a hard line and conservative, raising questions about whether he would pursue reform with the same zeal as Abdullah.
Tension between Sultan and Nayef could well erupt in a post-Abdullah Saudi Arabia as the kingdom prepares to hand the reins to the next generation, Abdulaziz’s grandsons who may not be as amenable as their elders to compromise in the competition for power. Abdullah’s creation in 2006 of an Allegiance Council made up of Abdulaziz’s surviving sons and grandsons to confirm the nomination of crown princes was intended to formally involve the next generation in the succession process. It could well serve as a platform to fuel their ambitions.
The creation of the council signalled that Saudi leaders were envisioning the day on which power would pass to their sons. Abdullah reinforced this view by in November appointing Prince Mutaib, his 57-year old son to replace him as commander of the National Guard. In a country in which senior prince’s run their ministries as family fiefdoms, the appointment was widely seen as Abdullah emphasizing that it was time to start turning over power to the next generation and possibly kick starting changes in anticipation of a changing of the guard while at the same time reducing the risk of a power struggle within the family.
In this scenario, Prince Sultan would step down as defence minister in favour of Khalid bin Sultan, his deputy and son who gained prominence as commander of Arab forces during the 1991 expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait. Critics hold Khalid responsible for tactical mistakes that caused higher than necessary Saudi casualties in fighting last year against rebels in Yemeni tribal areas bordering on the kingdom. Further change would involve the succession of ailing Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal by his brother, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence who served as ambassador to Britain and then the United States. Similarly, Prince Nayef would is likely succeeded as interior minister by Prince Mohammed, his son and deputy minister who has earned praise for his leadership in battling the Islamists.
The envisioned changes leave open the question of who will ultimately emerge as the monarch to steer Saudi Arabia through continued reform designed to eradicate the grounds on which the militants feed and ensure that the economy can compete in the 21st century. For much of the past decade, reformers and Western officials saw the 74-year old long-standing governor of Riyadh, Prince Salman, a full brother of Prince Nayef, as their preferred candidate. Recently, however, Prince Khalid al-Faisal, the 69-year old governor of Mecca, an accomplished poet and painter known for his friendship with Britain’s Prince Charles and his successful administration of the province of Asir, home to several of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, appears to be emerging as a compromise candidate.
All of this amounts to little more than reading tea leaves. The good news, however, is that Saudi Arabia’s most powerful princes appear determined to reduce the risk of volatility by seeking to ensure a smooth generational transition that would allow the kingdom to push ahead with the reforms needed to create a more open, competitive economy capable of offering Saudis prospects that compete with the dire alternative put forward by Islamist militants.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Elections in Egypt to test Western commitment to democracy
By James M. Dorsey
Deutsche Welle
Egyptians head to the polls on November 28 to vote for their next parliament amid criticism of systematic repression. Will Western nations step up their support for political reform or simply stand on the sidelines?
The parliamentary elections in Egypt are shaping up to be as much an indication of US and European commitment to human rights and democracy as they are a dress rehearsal for next year's Egyptian presidential election.
Michele Dunne, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said people in Egypt and other Arab countries were watching the West closely to see to what extent they press for free and fair elections in the Arab world's most populous country.
"They will take that as a sign of whether the US and Europe are serious about these issues or whether they have relegated them to the sidelines," Dunne said.
For much of the past year, the US and the European Union have largely been quiet about the deterioration of human rights and prospects for real democracy in Egypt. These issues were glaringly absent from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's agenda when she met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit earlier this month in Washington. Similarly, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's poor human rights and democracy record has not figured prominently in recent high-level contacts between the EU and Egypt.
Crackdown on opposition
The western stance appears to have led Mubarak, in power since 1981, to conclude that he has a free hand in shaping the electoral process. For weeks, police and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition movement, have been clashing. The banned group controls a fifth of the seats in the present parliament by running candidates as independents.
According to Human Rights Watch, security forces have so far arrested over 1,300 Muslim Brotherhood members, including five candidates. The government has also shut down several independent media organizations.
"The regime is sending a message that there will be no election," said Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, the head of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc.
Monitors? No, thank you
The US has, however, called for free and fair elections. Earlier this week, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley appealed to Egypt to allow peaceful political gatherings, open media coverage and admit international observers to the polls. The foreign ministry in Cairo countered in a statement that this constituted meddling in Egypt's internal affairs.
"The latest positions taken by the administration toward internal Egyptian affairs is something that is absolutely unacceptable," the foreign ministry said in the statement, quoting an unnamed official. "It is as if the United States has turned into a caretaker of how Egyptian society should conduct its own politics. Whoever thinks that this is possible is deluded."
The statement said Egypt would honor the tradition of mutual respect as long as the United States did the same.
The heated discussion over the Egyptian political scene is nothing new and has been going on for some 20 years, said Adel Iskandar, a professor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. But it was crucial for the US and Europe to foster debate about democracy and human rights.
"The regime has taken two steps forward and five steps back," Iskandar said. "Instead of focusing on how much progress has been made, the debate should revolve around how little progress has been achieved."
Weighing the pros and cons
It is a fine line, though, considering the volatile, geo-strategic part of the world. Western governments fear that taking Egypt to task for its dismal democracy and human rights record could prompt Mubarak to withdraw support for the stumbling Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Egypt also supplies valuable logistics for allied military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Some analysts argue, however, that the long-term risks of the US and Europe being perceived as perpetuating authoritarian rule in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world could prove costlier than the short-term benefits of turning a blind eye to flagrant violations of human rights and democratic deficiencies.
But Edward Walker, a former US ambassador to Egypt, said changes were up to the Egyptian people.
"It is not something that the US can or should dictate, but neither should we be quiet about what we believe in," Walker said. "So I think it is appropriate for the administration to review what is going on."
In addition, western powers may just have more leverage than they assume. Analysts said Egypt had a vested interest in continued support of US policy in the greater Middle East.
The Arab nation would not backtrack on support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and risk US congressional favor for its substantial annual aid package. The government in Cairo uses much of the aid to strengthen its domestic security and ability to confront opposition groups. Putting that in jeopardy could spark unrest in the military concerned that it could lose its prerogatives at a time that Egypt is gearing up for a battle over who will succeed the country's octogenarian leader.
The government is also unlikely to risk its control of all US and European democracy and human rights assistance to Egyptian non-governmental organizations. It exercises that control through an agreement with donors that they will only fund NGOs, which are officially recognized and authorized by the government.
Pivotal presidential elections next year
This month's parliamentary polls are of only moderate importance compared to the presidential elections scheduled for next year that could change Egypt's political landscape, many US and European officials believe.
Speculation is rife about whether 82-year-old Mubarak, who is in poor health, will run for a sixth six-year term or whether he will push his banker son Gamal or his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as his successor. Even if Mubarak does opt for reelection, it is unlikely that he would be able to serve another full term.
Proponents of a more assertive American and European stance said the time will then be ripe to address Egypt's human rights record and stifling of democratic development.
By publicly focusing on the issue, the US and the EU would shape debate in Egypt prior to a changing of the guard along the Nile, encourage democracy and human rights activists and alter widespread perception in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world that the United States favors authoritarian rule.
Deutsche Welle
Egyptians head to the polls on November 28 to vote for their next parliament amid criticism of systematic repression. Will Western nations step up their support for political reform or simply stand on the sidelines?
The parliamentary elections in Egypt are shaping up to be as much an indication of US and European commitment to human rights and democracy as they are a dress rehearsal for next year's Egyptian presidential election.
Michele Dunne, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said people in Egypt and other Arab countries were watching the West closely to see to what extent they press for free and fair elections in the Arab world's most populous country.
"They will take that as a sign of whether the US and Europe are serious about these issues or whether they have relegated them to the sidelines," Dunne said.
For much of the past year, the US and the European Union have largely been quiet about the deterioration of human rights and prospects for real democracy in Egypt. These issues were glaringly absent from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's agenda when she met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit earlier this month in Washington. Similarly, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's poor human rights and democracy record has not figured prominently in recent high-level contacts between the EU and Egypt.
Crackdown on opposition
The western stance appears to have led Mubarak, in power since 1981, to conclude that he has a free hand in shaping the electoral process. For weeks, police and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition movement, have been clashing. The banned group controls a fifth of the seats in the present parliament by running candidates as independents.
According to Human Rights Watch, security forces have so far arrested over 1,300 Muslim Brotherhood members, including five candidates. The government has also shut down several independent media organizations.
"The regime is sending a message that there will be no election," said Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, the head of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc.
Monitors? No, thank you
The US has, however, called for free and fair elections. Earlier this week, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley appealed to Egypt to allow peaceful political gatherings, open media coverage and admit international observers to the polls. The foreign ministry in Cairo countered in a statement that this constituted meddling in Egypt's internal affairs.
"The latest positions taken by the administration toward internal Egyptian affairs is something that is absolutely unacceptable," the foreign ministry said in the statement, quoting an unnamed official. "It is as if the United States has turned into a caretaker of how Egyptian society should conduct its own politics. Whoever thinks that this is possible is deluded."
The statement said Egypt would honor the tradition of mutual respect as long as the United States did the same.
The heated discussion over the Egyptian political scene is nothing new and has been going on for some 20 years, said Adel Iskandar, a professor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. But it was crucial for the US and Europe to foster debate about democracy and human rights.
"The regime has taken two steps forward and five steps back," Iskandar said. "Instead of focusing on how much progress has been made, the debate should revolve around how little progress has been achieved."
Weighing the pros and cons
It is a fine line, though, considering the volatile, geo-strategic part of the world. Western governments fear that taking Egypt to task for its dismal democracy and human rights record could prompt Mubarak to withdraw support for the stumbling Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Egypt also supplies valuable logistics for allied military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Some analysts argue, however, that the long-term risks of the US and Europe being perceived as perpetuating authoritarian rule in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world could prove costlier than the short-term benefits of turning a blind eye to flagrant violations of human rights and democratic deficiencies.
But Edward Walker, a former US ambassador to Egypt, said changes were up to the Egyptian people.
"It is not something that the US can or should dictate, but neither should we be quiet about what we believe in," Walker said. "So I think it is appropriate for the administration to review what is going on."
In addition, western powers may just have more leverage than they assume. Analysts said Egypt had a vested interest in continued support of US policy in the greater Middle East.
The Arab nation would not backtrack on support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and risk US congressional favor for its substantial annual aid package. The government in Cairo uses much of the aid to strengthen its domestic security and ability to confront opposition groups. Putting that in jeopardy could spark unrest in the military concerned that it could lose its prerogatives at a time that Egypt is gearing up for a battle over who will succeed the country's octogenarian leader.
The government is also unlikely to risk its control of all US and European democracy and human rights assistance to Egyptian non-governmental organizations. It exercises that control through an agreement with donors that they will only fund NGOs, which are officially recognized and authorized by the government.
Pivotal presidential elections next year
This month's parliamentary polls are of only moderate importance compared to the presidential elections scheduled for next year that could change Egypt's political landscape, many US and European officials believe.
Speculation is rife about whether 82-year-old Mubarak, who is in poor health, will run for a sixth six-year term or whether he will push his banker son Gamal or his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as his successor. Even if Mubarak does opt for reelection, it is unlikely that he would be able to serve another full term.
Proponents of a more assertive American and European stance said the time will then be ripe to address Egypt's human rights record and stifling of democratic development.
By publicly focusing on the issue, the US and the EU would shape debate in Egypt prior to a changing of the guard along the Nile, encourage democracy and human rights activists and alter widespread perception in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world that the United States favors authoritarian rule.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Rap and Metal on Planet Islam
The booming voice of pent-up Middle Eastern anger
James M. Dorsey from the December 2010 issue of Reason Magazine
Nabyl Guennouni, 30, is a heavy metal singer and band manager in Morocco. He also sits on a jury that selects rising talents to perform at Casablanca’s annual L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens, a six-day extravaganza in two soccer stadiums that has become North Africa’s largest underground music festival, with some 160,000 visitors each year. This marks a dramatic change for Guennouni. When he and 13 other black-shirted, baseball-capped, middle-class headbangers tried to organize a music festival seven years ago, the police dragged them from their homes and charged them with wooing young Moroccans into Satanism, with a bonus count of promoting prostitution. Morocco’s legal system allows a maximum sentence of three years for such attempts to convert Muslims to another faith.
Egged on by conservative Islamist politicians, who six months earlier had doubled their number of seats in parliament, prosecutors produced as evidence against Guennouni fake skeletons and skulls, plaster cobras, a latex brain, T-shirts depicting the devil, and “a collection of diabolical CDs,” which they described as “un-Islamic” and “objects that breach morality.” In cross-examination, the government attorneys asked the defendants such questions as, “Why do you cut the throats of cats and drink their blood?” Al Attajdid, a conservative daily, depicted the musicians as part of a movement that “encourages all forms of delinquency, alcohol and licentiousness which are ignored by the authorities.” One of the trial judges maintained that “normal people go to concerts wearing suits and ties” and that it was “suspicious” that some of the musicians’ lyrics had been penned in English.
During the trial, some of the defendants recited sections of the Koran to prove they were good Muslims. It didn’t work. In a verdict that divided the nation, Guennouni was sentenced to one month in jail; the others received sentences ranging from six months to a year. Outside the courthouse, protesters organized concerts, waged an Internet campaign, and criticized King Muhammad VI for presiding over a travesty of justice.
Yet as dark as that moment was for Casablancan rockers, the trial was a turning point that set Morocco on a path to becoming one of the Arab world’s more liberal societies when it comes to accepting alternative lifestyles. A month after the sentencing, prosecutors, unnerved by the degree of popular support the musicians had attracted, urged an appeals court to overturn the verdicts. The appeals court acquitted 11 of the defendants and reduced the sentences of three others. The decision constituted a rare example of successful civic protest in the Arab world.
Weeks after the appeals court decision, Casablanca was rocked by a series of Islamist suicide bombings that killed 45 people. Musicians responded with a Metal Against Terrorism concert that boosted what Moroccans call Al Nayda, the Awakening, a movement for greater cultural freedom that is topped every year by the L’Boulevard festival. “We needed to channel the aspirations and frustrations of young people in Morocco,’ ” Guennouni tells me. “Al Nayda is a community of spirit,” adds Mohammed “Momo” Merhar, co-founder of the festival. “Moroccan youth was holding its breath for 40 years. A wind of freedom is blowing now, and creativity is exploding.”
Today L’Boulevard attracts metal, rap, and jazz performers from around the globe. King Muhammad donated $250,000 to the event last year. Marie Korpe, executive director of Freemuse, a Copenhagen-based organization funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency that advocates freedom of expression for musicians and composers worldwide, notes that “as musicians push the boundaries of acceptable musical performance in their countries, it is clear that, wittingly or not, they are helping to open their cultures and potentially their political systems.”
With L’Boulevard, Morocco is doing something new in a part of the world where repression and censorship are the norm. The cultural awakening nonetheless operates within a narrow band in a country where human rights groups, independent media outlets, and critical artists continue to live a precarious existence. Moroccan radio stations, acting on government instructions, recently boycotted a collection of rap songs that was appropriately titled Forbidden on the Radio. Invincible Voice (I-Voice), a Beirut-based Palestinian duo that fuses hip-hop with classical Arab music, was forced to cancel an Arab world tour when Morocco and other Arab countries denied them visas. Yasin Qasem, a 21-year-old freelance sound engineer and half of I-Voice, was subsequently denied entry to lead a sound engineering workshop in Casablanca. Qasem and his partner, TNT, a.k.a. Mohammed Turk, a 20-year-old construction foreman whose songs lament the sorry state of political, cultural, and economic affairs in the Arab world, finally obtained visas for the United Arab Emirates to finish production of their upcoming album, only to be declined entry when they landed at the Dubai airport.
Across a swath of land stretching from Morocco’s Atlantic coast to the Persian Gulf, underground musicians are playing a continuous game of cat and mouse with authorities to evade harassment and arrest. Musicians in Iran endure forced haircuts, beatings in jail, and threats to their families. Egypt bans heavy metal from radio and television. Earlier this year, Islamist police stormed a crowded auditorium in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the hip-hop musicians B Boy Gaza had just started performing. “The show is over,” the officers announced before confiscating equipment and arresting six musicians, who were eventually released after signing a pledge not to hold further performances without police permission. The rapping Emirati brothers Salem and Abdullah Dahman have had their music banned in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia because their lyrics contrast the Arab world’s multiple problems with the glorious Muslim past. Last summer, police in the Saudi capital Riyadh broke up a metal concert in a residential compound attended by 500 mostly Saudi fans.
Civilian and religious authorities across the Middle East and North Africa have accused heavy metal musicians of threatening public order, undermining Islam, and performing the devil’s music. Metalheads are also singled out because of their music’s highly charged and often politically, socially, and sexually suggestive lyrics. As a result, their music flourishes mostly in underground clubs, basements, and private homes, and only occasionally on stage when a regime decides that banning a public performance is not worth the political risk.
Underground musicians pose a challenge to Middle Eastern and North African regimes because they often reflect in their lyrics pent-up anger and frustration about unemployment, corruption, and police tyranny. “We play heavy metal ’cause our lives are heavy metal,” says Reda Zine, one of the founders of the Moroccan headbanger scene.
With the growing realization that the region’s authoritarian regimes and controlled economies are unable to offer opportunity to their predominantly young populations, metal and rap have been elevated as channels to express discontent. Their role is enhanced by the Internet and other technologies for mass distribution that make government control difficult and allow musicians and their fans to carve out autonomous spaces that shield them from intrusion by censors and other cultural scolds.
In a recent report for Freemuse, Mark LeVine argues that music plays a role in the Middle East and North Africa similar to the role rock played in the velvet revolutions that toppled regimes in Eastern Europe. LeVine has a good vantage point for studying the subject: He is both a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California at Irvine and a musician who has performed with the likes of Mick Jagger and Albert Collins. The struggle and success of underground music, he says, “reminds us of a past, and offers a model for the future, in which artists—if inadvertently at first—helped topple a seemingly impregnable system of rule.” LeVine describes underground musical communities as “avatars of change or struggles for greater social and political openness,” saying “they point out cracks in the facade of conformity that is crucial to keeping authoritarian or hierarchical and inegalitarian political systems in power.”
Nowhere is that more evident than in Iran, where all rock music is forced underground. Musicians risk harassment and imprisonment by a regime that frowns on all music and routinely tortures dissidents. In May 2009, a heavy metal concert in Shiraz was raided by an Islamist militia that arrested some 100 people on charges of consuming alcohol and worshiping the devil. Musicians are forced into exile or onto the Internet to carve out creative spaces of their own.
Coming under particular scrutiny are Iranian underground musicians who replicate American accents, indulge in obscene lyrics, and use female singers—all viewed as symbols of Western decadence by the authorities. Most CD shop owners refuse to sell underground music, fearing raids, imprisonment, and hefty fines. Concerts in private gatherings are often canceled because of threats from neighborhood vigilantes. Kalameh, an Iranian rapper, recently uploaded one of his latest songs to YouTube in response to the regime’s crackdown on the country’s reform movement: “This nation says No / Says NO to autocracy / Says NO to censorship / Says NO to sedition / Says NO to beating and killing / Says NO to injustice / Says NO to democracy / This constant pain of mine, emanates from being a human / Because one night, they stole my light of hope / If I stay silent, if I stay still / Who is gonna right? Who is gonna say? / If I leave it that way?”
Yet hip-hop’s lyrical style and heavy metal’s pounding beat may be natural fits in a world where poetry is a popular art form and praying often involves rhythm and bobbing. Some Muslim religious figures, particularly practitioners of more mystical forms of Islam, recognize an affinity with metal, even though some of the genre’s most popular forms in the region are its most extreme. “I don’t like heavy metal,” a Shiite cleric in Baghdad told LeVine. “Not because it’s irreligious or against Islam; but because I prefer other styles of music. But you know what? When we get together and pray loudly, with the drums beating fiercely, chanting and pumping our arms in the air, we’re doing heavy metal too.” Cyril Yarboudi of Lebanon’s Oath to Vanquish agrees. “You can practice your religion; you can go pray in a mosque and listen to metal,” he says. “What’s the problem?”
In a 1997 crackdown that put its stamp on much of the heavy metal scene in the Middle East and North Africa, police in Cairo arrested 100 heavy metal fans. The arrests followed publication of a photo from a metal concert allegedly showing someone carrying an upside-down cross. One newspaper reported that the house raided by the police was “filled with tattooed, devil-worshiping youths holding orgies, skinning cats, and writing their names in rats’ blood on the palace’s walls.”
Muslim and Christian clerics were up in arms. Cartoons in newspapers depicted scruffy, marijuana-smoking musicians with T-shirts emblazed with the Star of David who play guitar while being seduced by scantily dressed blond women. The musicians’ critics portrayed them as Zionist agents subverting Muslim society and blamed their emergence on a government that, in their view, was in cahoots with the Zionists in allowing Western culture to undermine Egypt’s social and religious values. Interestingly, this criticism was expressed by many in the underground music community as well. A broad segment of Egyptians, cutting across political, ideological, religious, and social fault lines, accuses the government of failing to effectively support the Palestinians, acquiescing in the Israeli control of Palestinian territories, and supporting unpopular U.S. policies in the region.
Emotions peaked when Sheikh Nasr Farid, Egypt’s mufti at the time, demanded that those arrested repent or face the death penalty for apostasy. In response, intimidated musicians and fans destroyed their guitars and shaved off their beards to avoid the worst. A decade later, many Egyptian musicians remain reluctant to publicly discuss their music or lyrics, even though government policy has become somewhat more relaxed. (The regime of President Hosni Mubarak is currently more concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood and dissident bloggers than it is about underground music.)
“You can’t get arrested for being a metalhead so easily now,” an Egyptian heavy metal fan tells me. “They can still stop you in the streets, or stop your car if you listen to very loud heavy music. But when it comes to arresting they can’t now unless you have some sort of drugs on you. It’s not that the law is more liberal now. Rather, it’s because the whole media is not so interested to know about us anymore.”
Morocco’s bow to popular pressure and Egypt’s recent shift of focus highlight a lesson most Arab regimes have yet to learn: The velvet glove is often more effective than the baton. The more mainstream underground music becomes and the less censorship it endures, the less socially and politically potent it may become.
But as long as there is discontent to be expressed, there will be musicians eager to channel it. Even if metal and hip-hop lose their bite, LeVine predicts, the “cultural avant-garde of youth culture will naturally search for other genres of music to express the anger, anxieties, and despair that originally made the music so powerful.”
James M. Dorsey from the December 2010 issue of Reason Magazine
Nabyl Guennouni, 30, is a heavy metal singer and band manager in Morocco. He also sits on a jury that selects rising talents to perform at Casablanca’s annual L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens, a six-day extravaganza in two soccer stadiums that has become North Africa’s largest underground music festival, with some 160,000 visitors each year. This marks a dramatic change for Guennouni. When he and 13 other black-shirted, baseball-capped, middle-class headbangers tried to organize a music festival seven years ago, the police dragged them from their homes and charged them with wooing young Moroccans into Satanism, with a bonus count of promoting prostitution. Morocco’s legal system allows a maximum sentence of three years for such attempts to convert Muslims to another faith.
Egged on by conservative Islamist politicians, who six months earlier had doubled their number of seats in parliament, prosecutors produced as evidence against Guennouni fake skeletons and skulls, plaster cobras, a latex brain, T-shirts depicting the devil, and “a collection of diabolical CDs,” which they described as “un-Islamic” and “objects that breach morality.” In cross-examination, the government attorneys asked the defendants such questions as, “Why do you cut the throats of cats and drink their blood?” Al Attajdid, a conservative daily, depicted the musicians as part of a movement that “encourages all forms of delinquency, alcohol and licentiousness which are ignored by the authorities.” One of the trial judges maintained that “normal people go to concerts wearing suits and ties” and that it was “suspicious” that some of the musicians’ lyrics had been penned in English.
During the trial, some of the defendants recited sections of the Koran to prove they were good Muslims. It didn’t work. In a verdict that divided the nation, Guennouni was sentenced to one month in jail; the others received sentences ranging from six months to a year. Outside the courthouse, protesters organized concerts, waged an Internet campaign, and criticized King Muhammad VI for presiding over a travesty of justice.
Yet as dark as that moment was for Casablancan rockers, the trial was a turning point that set Morocco on a path to becoming one of the Arab world’s more liberal societies when it comes to accepting alternative lifestyles. A month after the sentencing, prosecutors, unnerved by the degree of popular support the musicians had attracted, urged an appeals court to overturn the verdicts. The appeals court acquitted 11 of the defendants and reduced the sentences of three others. The decision constituted a rare example of successful civic protest in the Arab world.
Weeks after the appeals court decision, Casablanca was rocked by a series of Islamist suicide bombings that killed 45 people. Musicians responded with a Metal Against Terrorism concert that boosted what Moroccans call Al Nayda, the Awakening, a movement for greater cultural freedom that is topped every year by the L’Boulevard festival. “We needed to channel the aspirations and frustrations of young people in Morocco,’ ” Guennouni tells me. “Al Nayda is a community of spirit,” adds Mohammed “Momo” Merhar, co-founder of the festival. “Moroccan youth was holding its breath for 40 years. A wind of freedom is blowing now, and creativity is exploding.”
Today L’Boulevard attracts metal, rap, and jazz performers from around the globe. King Muhammad donated $250,000 to the event last year. Marie Korpe, executive director of Freemuse, a Copenhagen-based organization funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency that advocates freedom of expression for musicians and composers worldwide, notes that “as musicians push the boundaries of acceptable musical performance in their countries, it is clear that, wittingly or not, they are helping to open their cultures and potentially their political systems.”
With L’Boulevard, Morocco is doing something new in a part of the world where repression and censorship are the norm. The cultural awakening nonetheless operates within a narrow band in a country where human rights groups, independent media outlets, and critical artists continue to live a precarious existence. Moroccan radio stations, acting on government instructions, recently boycotted a collection of rap songs that was appropriately titled Forbidden on the Radio. Invincible Voice (I-Voice), a Beirut-based Palestinian duo that fuses hip-hop with classical Arab music, was forced to cancel an Arab world tour when Morocco and other Arab countries denied them visas. Yasin Qasem, a 21-year-old freelance sound engineer and half of I-Voice, was subsequently denied entry to lead a sound engineering workshop in Casablanca. Qasem and his partner, TNT, a.k.a. Mohammed Turk, a 20-year-old construction foreman whose songs lament the sorry state of political, cultural, and economic affairs in the Arab world, finally obtained visas for the United Arab Emirates to finish production of their upcoming album, only to be declined entry when they landed at the Dubai airport.
Across a swath of land stretching from Morocco’s Atlantic coast to the Persian Gulf, underground musicians are playing a continuous game of cat and mouse with authorities to evade harassment and arrest. Musicians in Iran endure forced haircuts, beatings in jail, and threats to their families. Egypt bans heavy metal from radio and television. Earlier this year, Islamist police stormed a crowded auditorium in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the hip-hop musicians B Boy Gaza had just started performing. “The show is over,” the officers announced before confiscating equipment and arresting six musicians, who were eventually released after signing a pledge not to hold further performances without police permission. The rapping Emirati brothers Salem and Abdullah Dahman have had their music banned in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia because their lyrics contrast the Arab world’s multiple problems with the glorious Muslim past. Last summer, police in the Saudi capital Riyadh broke up a metal concert in a residential compound attended by 500 mostly Saudi fans.
Civilian and religious authorities across the Middle East and North Africa have accused heavy metal musicians of threatening public order, undermining Islam, and performing the devil’s music. Metalheads are also singled out because of their music’s highly charged and often politically, socially, and sexually suggestive lyrics. As a result, their music flourishes mostly in underground clubs, basements, and private homes, and only occasionally on stage when a regime decides that banning a public performance is not worth the political risk.
Underground musicians pose a challenge to Middle Eastern and North African regimes because they often reflect in their lyrics pent-up anger and frustration about unemployment, corruption, and police tyranny. “We play heavy metal ’cause our lives are heavy metal,” says Reda Zine, one of the founders of the Moroccan headbanger scene.
With the growing realization that the region’s authoritarian regimes and controlled economies are unable to offer opportunity to their predominantly young populations, metal and rap have been elevated as channels to express discontent. Their role is enhanced by the Internet and other technologies for mass distribution that make government control difficult and allow musicians and their fans to carve out autonomous spaces that shield them from intrusion by censors and other cultural scolds.
In a recent report for Freemuse, Mark LeVine argues that music plays a role in the Middle East and North Africa similar to the role rock played in the velvet revolutions that toppled regimes in Eastern Europe. LeVine has a good vantage point for studying the subject: He is both a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California at Irvine and a musician who has performed with the likes of Mick Jagger and Albert Collins. The struggle and success of underground music, he says, “reminds us of a past, and offers a model for the future, in which artists—if inadvertently at first—helped topple a seemingly impregnable system of rule.” LeVine describes underground musical communities as “avatars of change or struggles for greater social and political openness,” saying “they point out cracks in the facade of conformity that is crucial to keeping authoritarian or hierarchical and inegalitarian political systems in power.”
Nowhere is that more evident than in Iran, where all rock music is forced underground. Musicians risk harassment and imprisonment by a regime that frowns on all music and routinely tortures dissidents. In May 2009, a heavy metal concert in Shiraz was raided by an Islamist militia that arrested some 100 people on charges of consuming alcohol and worshiping the devil. Musicians are forced into exile or onto the Internet to carve out creative spaces of their own.
Coming under particular scrutiny are Iranian underground musicians who replicate American accents, indulge in obscene lyrics, and use female singers—all viewed as symbols of Western decadence by the authorities. Most CD shop owners refuse to sell underground music, fearing raids, imprisonment, and hefty fines. Concerts in private gatherings are often canceled because of threats from neighborhood vigilantes. Kalameh, an Iranian rapper, recently uploaded one of his latest songs to YouTube in response to the regime’s crackdown on the country’s reform movement: “This nation says No / Says NO to autocracy / Says NO to censorship / Says NO to sedition / Says NO to beating and killing / Says NO to injustice / Says NO to democracy / This constant pain of mine, emanates from being a human / Because one night, they stole my light of hope / If I stay silent, if I stay still / Who is gonna right? Who is gonna say? / If I leave it that way?”
Yet hip-hop’s lyrical style and heavy metal’s pounding beat may be natural fits in a world where poetry is a popular art form and praying often involves rhythm and bobbing. Some Muslim religious figures, particularly practitioners of more mystical forms of Islam, recognize an affinity with metal, even though some of the genre’s most popular forms in the region are its most extreme. “I don’t like heavy metal,” a Shiite cleric in Baghdad told LeVine. “Not because it’s irreligious or against Islam; but because I prefer other styles of music. But you know what? When we get together and pray loudly, with the drums beating fiercely, chanting and pumping our arms in the air, we’re doing heavy metal too.” Cyril Yarboudi of Lebanon’s Oath to Vanquish agrees. “You can practice your religion; you can go pray in a mosque and listen to metal,” he says. “What’s the problem?”
In a 1997 crackdown that put its stamp on much of the heavy metal scene in the Middle East and North Africa, police in Cairo arrested 100 heavy metal fans. The arrests followed publication of a photo from a metal concert allegedly showing someone carrying an upside-down cross. One newspaper reported that the house raided by the police was “filled with tattooed, devil-worshiping youths holding orgies, skinning cats, and writing their names in rats’ blood on the palace’s walls.”
Muslim and Christian clerics were up in arms. Cartoons in newspapers depicted scruffy, marijuana-smoking musicians with T-shirts emblazed with the Star of David who play guitar while being seduced by scantily dressed blond women. The musicians’ critics portrayed them as Zionist agents subverting Muslim society and blamed their emergence on a government that, in their view, was in cahoots with the Zionists in allowing Western culture to undermine Egypt’s social and religious values. Interestingly, this criticism was expressed by many in the underground music community as well. A broad segment of Egyptians, cutting across political, ideological, religious, and social fault lines, accuses the government of failing to effectively support the Palestinians, acquiescing in the Israeli control of Palestinian territories, and supporting unpopular U.S. policies in the region.
Emotions peaked when Sheikh Nasr Farid, Egypt’s mufti at the time, demanded that those arrested repent or face the death penalty for apostasy. In response, intimidated musicians and fans destroyed their guitars and shaved off their beards to avoid the worst. A decade later, many Egyptian musicians remain reluctant to publicly discuss their music or lyrics, even though government policy has become somewhat more relaxed. (The regime of President Hosni Mubarak is currently more concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood and dissident bloggers than it is about underground music.)
“You can’t get arrested for being a metalhead so easily now,” an Egyptian heavy metal fan tells me. “They can still stop you in the streets, or stop your car if you listen to very loud heavy music. But when it comes to arresting they can’t now unless you have some sort of drugs on you. It’s not that the law is more liberal now. Rather, it’s because the whole media is not so interested to know about us anymore.”
Morocco’s bow to popular pressure and Egypt’s recent shift of focus highlight a lesson most Arab regimes have yet to learn: The velvet glove is often more effective than the baton. The more mainstream underground music becomes and the less censorship it endures, the less socially and politically potent it may become.
But as long as there is discontent to be expressed, there will be musicians eager to channel it. Even if metal and hip-hop lose their bite, LeVine predicts, the “cultural avant-garde of youth culture will naturally search for other genres of music to express the anger, anxieties, and despair that originally made the music so powerful.”
Friday, November 19, 2010
U.S. Should Push for Democracy in Egypt
By James M. Dorsey
World Politics Review
Human rights were glaringly absent from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's agenda when she recently met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit ahead of Egypt's Nov. 28 parliamentary elections. The silence is noteworthy, given Cairo's suppression of the political opposition in advance of the elections as well as its overall dismal human rights record.
The Obama administration fears that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will respond to criticism by withdrawing both political support for the stumbling Israeli-Palestinian peace process and logistical support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration is also concerned that criticism would boost the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's popular Islamist opposition group. Finally, should Egypt simply reject the criticism, it could paint President Barack Obama as too weak to influence one of the United States' closest allies and a major recipient of U.S. aid.
Apparently testing the waters, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley called on Egypt in a written statement to allow peaceful political gatherings and open media coverage, and to admit international election observers. Egypt immediately rejected the call, saying it has a system of judges and other safeguards in place to monitor the fairness of the elections and that the government has issued guidelines for free and fair media coverage of the campaign.
To be sure, repression of the opposition, intimidation and control of the media, and electoral restrictions virtually guarantee that Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party will win the elections. But for the U.S., the long-term risks of being perceived as perpetuating authoritarian rule in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world may well outweigh the short-term benefits of turning a blind eye to flagrant human-rights violations and measures that stymie democratic development.
Read more at World Politics Review
World Politics Review
Human rights were glaringly absent from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's agenda when she recently met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit ahead of Egypt's Nov. 28 parliamentary elections. The silence is noteworthy, given Cairo's suppression of the political opposition in advance of the elections as well as its overall dismal human rights record.
The Obama administration fears that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will respond to criticism by withdrawing both political support for the stumbling Israeli-Palestinian peace process and logistical support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration is also concerned that criticism would boost the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's popular Islamist opposition group. Finally, should Egypt simply reject the criticism, it could paint President Barack Obama as too weak to influence one of the United States' closest allies and a major recipient of U.S. aid.
Apparently testing the waters, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley called on Egypt in a written statement to allow peaceful political gatherings and open media coverage, and to admit international election observers. Egypt immediately rejected the call, saying it has a system of judges and other safeguards in place to monitor the fairness of the elections and that the government has issued guidelines for free and fair media coverage of the campaign.
To be sure, repression of the opposition, intimidation and control of the media, and electoral restrictions virtually guarantee that Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party will win the elections. But for the U.S., the long-term risks of being perceived as perpetuating authoritarian rule in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world may well outweigh the short-term benefits of turning a blind eye to flagrant human-rights violations and measures that stymie democratic development.
Read more at World Politics Review
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Proposed NATO Defense Shield Fuels Discussion of New European Security Architecture
By James M. Dorsey
A proposed $280 million NATO missile defense system upgrade is straining relations between the United States and Turkey in the run-up to this week’s NATO summit in Lisbon. Turkish officials say they will only agree to having radar components of the system on Turkish soil if NATO abstains from identifying any potential target of the system and promises not to share intelligence with non-NATO members.
The Turkish demands reflect a mounting divergence in US and Turkish foreign policy with Turkey no longer signing up to Western policies simply to align itself with the West but instead making cost-benefit analysis a key element of its decision-making. As a result, Turkey is demanding a quid-pro-quid for its accommodation of the proposed missile defense shield upgrade that threatens to put it between a rock and a hard place.
If Turkey rejects the upgrade, it risks angering its US and NATO allies; if it joins the shield, it would upset Iran, a neighbor and major energy supplier, and could complicate its relations with Russia, which opposed the upgrade when it was first proposed by US President George W. Bush. "We do not perceive any threat from any neighbor countries and we do not think our neighbors form a threat to Nato," says Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The Turkish demand that NATO refrain from identifying the system’s target strikes at declared US policy: a White House fact sheet recently described Iran as the threat the proposed shield would be designed to counter. Turkey opposes Iran becoming a nuclear power but advocates continued engagement in the hope to expand its trade with Iran to $30 billion a year over the next five years. The US Treasury’s point man on Iran sanctions, Stuart Levy, last month failed to convince his Turkish counterparts to go further than the largely symbolic United Nations sanctions, which Turkey opposed, and endorse the much stricter US sanctions regime.
Turkey, concerned that any US or Israeli military effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program would further destabilize the Middle East, moreover wants assurances that any intelligence garnered from radars on its territory will not be shared with Israel. Turkish officials refused to confirm or deny reports that the Turkish Security Council last month approved changes in its national security document, called the "Red Book," removing Iran and Syria and adding Israel to the list of countries that pose a "major threat."
Turkey fears that allowing the radar to be based in Turkey will raise Iranian suspicions that it would be associated with a potential US or Israeli strike against the Islamic republic. The United States wants to base the radars in Turkey after US President Barak Obama promised Russia in September of last year that it would seek to accommodate Russian objections against basing them in Poland and the Czech Republic. Turkey’s position on the defense shield is influenced by the fact that its past accommodation of US and European interests has not pushed forward as Turkish leaders had hoped its efforts to join the European Union.
The quid-pro-quid Turkey is seeking for possible accommodation of NATO is US pressure on France and Germany to reverse policies that are preventing progress in negotiations for Turkish European Union membership. The US has signaled its willingness to accommodate the Turks by putting high on the agenda of a US-EU summit scheduled immediately after the NATO gathering Turkish EU membership. In expectation of a NATO compromise, Turkish officials say they have begun technical studies on the radars in preparation for possible deployment. The studies are in part designed to reduce tension between the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the armed forces, which view Iran’s nuclear program as a threat and favor deployment of the NATO missile shield.
While most analysts and officials believe that Turkey is genuinely seeking to balance its long-standing commitment to Western interests with the impact of paradigm change since the end of the Cold War, some analysts caution that a failure to take Turkish interests into account could provoke a rupture with Turkey feeling forced to choose between the West and Iran.
Mitigating against a rupture is the fact that Europe may have a renewed interest in embracing Turkey because of the United States’ perceived preoccupation with security risks posed by the Middle East and China at the expense of its past focus on Europe. Calls in Europe for a new European security architecture that would put a greater emphasis on the role of Turkey as well as Russia are gaining momentum. A recently published European Council on Relations report entitled "The spectre of a multipolar Europe" argues that Obama’s failure to participate in ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was the latest sign that the US is no longer focused on Europe’s internal security. “Washington has its hands full dealing with Afghanistan, Iran and China and is no longer a European power,” the report concluded.
To fill the void, the report calls for an informal dialogue that would allow the EU, Turkey and Russia to build a new European security architecture from the ground up. This would require blowing new life into Turkey’s EU accession negotiations by expanding them to include common security and defense policies as well as energy. “The post-Cold War order is unraveling. Rather than uniting under a single system, Europe’s big powers are moving apart. Tensions between them have made security systems dysfunctional: they failed to prevent war in Kosovo and Georgia, instability in Kyrgyzstan, disruption to Europe’s gas supplies, and solve frozen conflicts… The EU has spent much of the last decade defending a European order that no longer functions. Russia and Turkey may complain more, but the EU has the most to lose from the current peaceful disorder,” the report says.
A proposed $280 million NATO missile defense system upgrade is straining relations between the United States and Turkey in the run-up to this week’s NATO summit in Lisbon. Turkish officials say they will only agree to having radar components of the system on Turkish soil if NATO abstains from identifying any potential target of the system and promises not to share intelligence with non-NATO members.
The Turkish demands reflect a mounting divergence in US and Turkish foreign policy with Turkey no longer signing up to Western policies simply to align itself with the West but instead making cost-benefit analysis a key element of its decision-making. As a result, Turkey is demanding a quid-pro-quid for its accommodation of the proposed missile defense shield upgrade that threatens to put it between a rock and a hard place.
If Turkey rejects the upgrade, it risks angering its US and NATO allies; if it joins the shield, it would upset Iran, a neighbor and major energy supplier, and could complicate its relations with Russia, which opposed the upgrade when it was first proposed by US President George W. Bush. "We do not perceive any threat from any neighbor countries and we do not think our neighbors form a threat to Nato," says Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The Turkish demand that NATO refrain from identifying the system’s target strikes at declared US policy: a White House fact sheet recently described Iran as the threat the proposed shield would be designed to counter. Turkey opposes Iran becoming a nuclear power but advocates continued engagement in the hope to expand its trade with Iran to $30 billion a year over the next five years. The US Treasury’s point man on Iran sanctions, Stuart Levy, last month failed to convince his Turkish counterparts to go further than the largely symbolic United Nations sanctions, which Turkey opposed, and endorse the much stricter US sanctions regime.
Turkey, concerned that any US or Israeli military effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program would further destabilize the Middle East, moreover wants assurances that any intelligence garnered from radars on its territory will not be shared with Israel. Turkish officials refused to confirm or deny reports that the Turkish Security Council last month approved changes in its national security document, called the "Red Book," removing Iran and Syria and adding Israel to the list of countries that pose a "major threat."
Turkey fears that allowing the radar to be based in Turkey will raise Iranian suspicions that it would be associated with a potential US or Israeli strike against the Islamic republic. The United States wants to base the radars in Turkey after US President Barak Obama promised Russia in September of last year that it would seek to accommodate Russian objections against basing them in Poland and the Czech Republic. Turkey’s position on the defense shield is influenced by the fact that its past accommodation of US and European interests has not pushed forward as Turkish leaders had hoped its efforts to join the European Union.
The quid-pro-quid Turkey is seeking for possible accommodation of NATO is US pressure on France and Germany to reverse policies that are preventing progress in negotiations for Turkish European Union membership. The US has signaled its willingness to accommodate the Turks by putting high on the agenda of a US-EU summit scheduled immediately after the NATO gathering Turkish EU membership. In expectation of a NATO compromise, Turkish officials say they have begun technical studies on the radars in preparation for possible deployment. The studies are in part designed to reduce tension between the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the armed forces, which view Iran’s nuclear program as a threat and favor deployment of the NATO missile shield.
While most analysts and officials believe that Turkey is genuinely seeking to balance its long-standing commitment to Western interests with the impact of paradigm change since the end of the Cold War, some analysts caution that a failure to take Turkish interests into account could provoke a rupture with Turkey feeling forced to choose between the West and Iran.
Mitigating against a rupture is the fact that Europe may have a renewed interest in embracing Turkey because of the United States’ perceived preoccupation with security risks posed by the Middle East and China at the expense of its past focus on Europe. Calls in Europe for a new European security architecture that would put a greater emphasis on the role of Turkey as well as Russia are gaining momentum. A recently published European Council on Relations report entitled "The spectre of a multipolar Europe" argues that Obama’s failure to participate in ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was the latest sign that the US is no longer focused on Europe’s internal security. “Washington has its hands full dealing with Afghanistan, Iran and China and is no longer a European power,” the report concluded.
To fill the void, the report calls for an informal dialogue that would allow the EU, Turkey and Russia to build a new European security architecture from the ground up. This would require blowing new life into Turkey’s EU accession negotiations by expanding them to include common security and defense policies as well as energy. “The post-Cold War order is unraveling. Rather than uniting under a single system, Europe’s big powers are moving apart. Tensions between them have made security systems dysfunctional: they failed to prevent war in Kosovo and Georgia, instability in Kyrgyzstan, disruption to Europe’s gas supplies, and solve frozen conflicts… The EU has spent much of the last decade defending a European order that no longer functions. Russia and Turkey may complain more, but the EU has the most to lose from the current peaceful disorder,” the report says.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
US Risks Little With Support for Egyptian Human Rights
Human rights were glaringly absent on the agenda of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in the run-up to Egypt's parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28.
U.S. officials fear that criticism of Egypt's dismal human rights record could jeopardize Egyptian support for the Middle East peace process and U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan encourage the country's popular Islamist opposition and set President Barak Obama up for a failure if Egypt ignores U.S. pressure.
Repression and electoral restrictions virtually guarantee that the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) will win this month's elections, but the long-term risks of perpetuating authoritarian rule in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world may well prove costlier than the short-term benefits of turning a blind eye to flagrant violations of human rights.
Analysis of the feared risks, moreover, shows that they are grounded more in perception than in reality and that U.S. support for adherence to human rights is a battle that can be won over time rather than a zero-sum game. Divided over whether or not to participate in the elections, Egypt's foremost opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, is going into the elections substantially weakened with many of its leaders in prison and a quarter of its candidates barred from standing as candidates. Egypt would risk U.S. Congressional support for its substantial annual aid package by backtracking on support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process or logistics for U.S. military operations in the region or reducing intelligence. Similarly, Obama could avoid perceived failure by raising the human rights issue publicly without invoking threats or sanctions and instead taking a leaf out of former President George W. Bush's playbook.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would surely reject Obama's criticism. Nonetheless, Obama's public focus on human rights and democracy would shape debate in Egypt, encourage activists and influence perceptions of the United States. All in all, the United States has more to win by nudging Egyptian and Arab debate about democracy and human rights and more to lose by maintaining a policy that so far has exclusively identified it with repressive, corrupt regimes and significantly tarnished its image.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Awal Bank Asks US Court For Deadline Extension
Charles Russell LLP, the Bahrain-appointed administrator of Awal Bank BSC, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s embattled Saad Group owned by Saudi billionaire Maan al-Sanea, has asked a U.S. court for an extension of the deadline to file schedules of assets and liabilities and a statement of financial affairs in the bank’s application for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The request follows rejection last week by the New York court of Awal Bank’s initial application for limited Chapter 11 because the troubled bank was asking to be allowed to keep information confidential and to be exempted from the need to create a U.S. creditors committee. At the same time, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper kept the door open for Awal to repetition the court provided it the bank agreed to establish such a committee. Gropper said he would allow more time to assess the information provided give creditors the opportunity for creditors to make representations.
In the request for an extension, Charles Russell said it needed additional time to canvass creditors’ views and would only once it had done so decide whether it wished to further pursue Chapter 11 protection. The Office of the United States Trustee indicated that it had no objection to Charles Russell request for an extension of the deadline.
Awal initially applied last month for Chapter 11 protection saying that it would help the bank recover “avoidable” transfers out of its estate prior to the bankruptcy. The Chapter 11 filing came little more than a year after Awal had filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the same court. Chapter 15 bankruptcy seeks to protect companies from U.S. litigation while they reorganize in a non-U.S. court.
Defaults on loans last year by Awal Bank as well as Saudi conglomerate, Ahmad Hamad Al-Gosaibi & Brothers Co. set off a bitter legal battle on three continents between the two groups that are related by al Sanea’s marriage to a daughter of the Al-Ghosaibi family. Al-Gosaibi has accused Al-Sanea in court filings on three continents of siphoning off $10 billion from his in-laws.
Al-Gosaibi is seeking to recover $9.2 billion in lawsuits in the Cayman Islands against al-Sanea and Awal subsidiaries. The lawsuits were stayed after al-Sanea challenged the Cayman court’s jurisdiction, and an appeal of that decision is set to be heard in November. In July, New York State Supreme Judge Hon. Richard B. Lowe dismissed a lawsuit Al-Gosaibi had filed against Awal and al- Sanea, on grounds of that court being an improper forum. Court proceedings involving Awal are also ongoing in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Britain.
Awal’s original Chapter 11 court filing suggested that it would it file a reorganization plan or opt for liquidation in Bahrain rather than the United States. Even though the court papers kept reorganization on the table, the Chapter 11 filing suggests that liquidation is the more likely option. According to its court filing, Awal has assets valued at most at $100 million and liabilities of more than $1 billion. Under Bahrain law, the administrator has until the summer of next year to decide whether to liquidate Awal or return it to its owners.
Assuming that the bankruptcy filing was made with the consent of the Bahrain Central Bank, the filing suggests that Bahrain has decided that Awal is beyond salvation and should be liquidated. In its filing, Awal asserts that after payment of the administrators and other immediate expenses, it will not be able to compensate its unsecured creditors, who number somewhere between 60 and 100 and include: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, AlGosaibi Money Exchange, Bank of Montreal, Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank, Bayerische Landesbank, Boubyan Bank, Calyon Corporate and Investment Bank, Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Commercial Bank of Qatar, Commerzbank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Fortis Bank, Gulf International Bank, HSBC, HSH Nordbank AG, JP Morgan, Kuwait Finance House and The International Banking Corporation.
The request follows rejection last week by the New York court of Awal Bank’s initial application for limited Chapter 11 because the troubled bank was asking to be allowed to keep information confidential and to be exempted from the need to create a U.S. creditors committee. At the same time, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper kept the door open for Awal to repetition the court provided it the bank agreed to establish such a committee. Gropper said he would allow more time to assess the information provided give creditors the opportunity for creditors to make representations.
In the request for an extension, Charles Russell said it needed additional time to canvass creditors’ views and would only once it had done so decide whether it wished to further pursue Chapter 11 protection. The Office of the United States Trustee indicated that it had no objection to Charles Russell request for an extension of the deadline.
Awal initially applied last month for Chapter 11 protection saying that it would help the bank recover “avoidable” transfers out of its estate prior to the bankruptcy. The Chapter 11 filing came little more than a year after Awal had filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the same court. Chapter 15 bankruptcy seeks to protect companies from U.S. litigation while they reorganize in a non-U.S. court.
Defaults on loans last year by Awal Bank as well as Saudi conglomerate, Ahmad Hamad Al-Gosaibi & Brothers Co. set off a bitter legal battle on three continents between the two groups that are related by al Sanea’s marriage to a daughter of the Al-Ghosaibi family. Al-Gosaibi has accused Al-Sanea in court filings on three continents of siphoning off $10 billion from his in-laws.
Al-Gosaibi is seeking to recover $9.2 billion in lawsuits in the Cayman Islands against al-Sanea and Awal subsidiaries. The lawsuits were stayed after al-Sanea challenged the Cayman court’s jurisdiction, and an appeal of that decision is set to be heard in November. In July, New York State Supreme Judge Hon. Richard B. Lowe dismissed a lawsuit Al-Gosaibi had filed against Awal and al- Sanea, on grounds of that court being an improper forum. Court proceedings involving Awal are also ongoing in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Britain.
Awal’s original Chapter 11 court filing suggested that it would it file a reorganization plan or opt for liquidation in Bahrain rather than the United States. Even though the court papers kept reorganization on the table, the Chapter 11 filing suggests that liquidation is the more likely option. According to its court filing, Awal has assets valued at most at $100 million and liabilities of more than $1 billion. Under Bahrain law, the administrator has until the summer of next year to decide whether to liquidate Awal or return it to its owners.
Assuming that the bankruptcy filing was made with the consent of the Bahrain Central Bank, the filing suggests that Bahrain has decided that Awal is beyond salvation and should be liquidated. In its filing, Awal asserts that after payment of the administrators and other immediate expenses, it will not be able to compensate its unsecured creditors, who number somewhere between 60 and 100 and include: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, AlGosaibi Money Exchange, Bank of Montreal, Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank, Bayerische Landesbank, Boubyan Bank, Calyon Corporate and Investment Bank, Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Commercial Bank of Qatar, Commerzbank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Fortis Bank, Gulf International Bank, HSBC, HSH Nordbank AG, JP Morgan, Kuwait Finance House and The International Banking Corporation.
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