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Are Arabs Capable of Democracy?
3 Dicembre 2013 By Andrea Spada
The Arab Spring and Political Change
Gli stati arabi stanno attraversando una fase di cambiamento e, nel loro cammino verso sbocchi più o meno democratici, incontreranno sicuramente delle battute d'arresto. La democrazia non è qualcosa che può essere insegnata o "preparata" in precedenza, come ad esempio sotto la cura protettiva di una monarchia. Jan Kuhlmann sostiene "perché" dovremmo dare al popolo arabo il beneficio del dubbio…
The question came unexpectedly. No one had posed anything similar up to that point. During a recent public discussion with journalists and experts in Berlin on the situation in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, a member of the audience came forward. The Egyptians lack any experience in democracy, he said. Wouldn't it therefore be better, he proposed, to reinstate the monarchy that had been swept away in 1952 by a military putsch?
The question reflected serious concerns about what will follow after the mass protests in the Arab world. Above all, many fear that Islamists in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia will pursue the model of Iran or Saudi Arabia and establish strict religious rule. There is now even talk of an "Islamic Spring" in the Arab world.
The election results in Egypt confirm the views of many sceptics that the triumphal march of religion has now begun. The Muslim Brotherhood amassed almost 50 percent of the vote, while the ultra-conservative Salafists garnered 25 percent. One might suppose that the country is firmly in the grip of sinister, bearded religious fanatics.
Mistrust and arrogance
The man's question, however, also reveals to what extent the people in the Arab world are regarded with mistrust. The question could be reformulated more bluntly: What do they even know about democracy down there anyhow?
When seen in this light, the question is clearly impertinent, when not downright arrogant. It assumes that the people "down there" cannot live in a democracy – that people in the Arab world are generally incapable of functioning within a democratic system.
This, in turn, implies that they are unable to learn from experience nor further develop themselves. It wasn't so very long ago that similar views were held with respect to a certain European country. After the Nazi dictatorship, many were of the opinion that the Germans were simply incapable of living in peace with their neighbours and that it would be better to transform Germany into an agricultural land.
Luckily, those who insisted on giving Germany the benefit of the doubt prevailed. We should follow the same approach with the Arab world. We should offer support to all those who have worked to establish democracy in the Middle East. It is impossible to say how long this process with take, but it will surely require decades, and not just a few years.
Many obstacles remain in place, not least of which is the military. One can similarly point to the structures left behind by the former dictatorships, religious extremists, and the enormous poverty in the region. There will be setbacks. Yet, democracy is not something that can be practiced beforehand, such as under the protective care of a monarchy. Whoever believes this is simply naïve.
Experience with democracy and democratic procedures can only be gained through practice. One could say that democracy is like on-the-job training. The first attempts may even fail. But that doesn't mean that Arabs are incapable of instituting democracy. They wouldn't be the only ones who required more than one attempt.
Whether the right time for democracy has arrived is not dependent on the extent of people's knowledge of democracy, but on whether they want to live in a democracy. So much, however, is clear – the millions of Arabs who turned out on the streets against their dictators, as well as those who are still demonstrating, want democracy. They demand pluralism, a separation of powers in government, and the rule of law. They are fed up with being governed by a corrupt elite.
This does not, by any means, entail that they all want to turn their backs on religion. On the contrary. Islam plays an important role in the lives of people in the Middle East. Many are extremely devout, while others only associate religion with certain values and traditions. The election results in Egypt clearly reflect the attitudes of the country's population. They do not support political programmes that have completely broken with religion. Islam should provide the framework within which those in power must act.
Combination of Islam and democracy
Islam, as such, does not stand in the way of democracy, although this has been frequently and vehemently claimed. Countries such as Tunisia and Egypt are currently seeking a formula that allows for a combination of democracy and Islam. The topic is one of passionate debates at the moment.
After the strong showing by Islamist forces in Egypt, the question arises as to whether they are capable of working within a democratic framework. With respect to the ultra-conservative Salafists, considerable doubt is in order. It is difficult to see how their call for a strict form of Sharia as the foundation of the legal system can be reconciled with a pluralistic democratic state based on the rule of law.
As for the Muslim Brotherhood, the answer is more vague. It is a broad-based organization, which until now has been able to unite its various disparate factions under the general slogan "Islam is the solution."
Although there have been recurring debates on reform within the Brotherhood for decades, it has always maintained its conservative worldview. The pressure of persecution by the state was too great to allow sufficient scope for renewal. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood chose to isolate itself – solidarity and defence against external enemies were more important than reform.
The top leadership of the party and the older generation find it difficult to break with these attitudes, even after the overthrow of Mubarak. There is still a very strong esprit de corps within the Brotherhood. Public criticism of the organization from its members is deemed unacceptable.
Nonetheless, even the Muslim Brotherhood has shown itself not to be immune from the new, more open political climate in Egypt. In particular, the younger generation within the organization, who only a year ago demonstrated alongside their peers, demand open debates on the future course of the Brotherhood.
A transition with no clear outcome
They do not see Islam and democracy as being in opposition. Their main concern is finding the right formula to combine the two. They are well aware that the "Turkish model" is considerably more successful than the "Iranian model". There is no reason to doubt their allegiance to democracy.
In addition, statements made by the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Freedom and Justice Party, offer hope that they are serious in their support for a democratic system. They are quite conscious of the fact that any sort of new dictatorship, whether military or religious in form, would encounter massive resistance on the streets.
The greatest achievement of the uprising in the Arab world is that young people, in particular, have been transformed from passive subjects in a dictatorship into active citizens wanting to take part in the political life of their country.
There is no guarantee that the transformation in Egypt and in other Arab countries will everywhere result in thoroughly democratic states. Yet, the opportunities provided by the tumultuous changes in the Arab world are far greater than any of the risks.
Jan Kuhlmann
© Qantara.de
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Trend towards "Individual Jihad"
Guido Steinberg è uno degli specialisti più importante sul terrorismo islamico in Europa. In questa intervista con Paul Hockenos, parla delle specificità del terrorismo islamico in Germania e del cambiamento della strategia di al-Qaeda…
Mr. Steinberg, your book is the first, full, comprehensive account of Islamist terrorism in Germany. Yet there are hundreds of such books in the US and dozens in other countries on terrorism in those countries. Why so?
Guido Steinberg: Part of the reason is that the German Jihadist scene has only developed since 2006. Of course, there was the Hamburg cell which included the mastermind and pilots behind 9/11, but they were foreigners who came here to study. They'd been socialized in their home countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. The emergence of a truly German Jihadist scene happened first in about 2005 when Kurds, Turks and German converts from Germany joined its ranks.
Outside observers would say that Germany is one of the few major Western powers that has been spared terrorist Islamist attacks …
Guido Steinberg: Well, we did have a single attack by a man who was apparently a lone wolf. In 2011 he shot and killed two U.S. American military personnel at Frankfurt airport. We did have much larger plots but they were all thwarted.
And German Jihadists have played a major role in international networks and attacks, among them 9/11. They've also been very important in new strategies that al-Qaeda developed as of 2010, namely the Europlot, when it sent back European recruits to build new structures and perpetrate attacks in Germany and other countries. This might have been al-Qaeda Central's last effort to survive as an effective terrorist organization. All together, I think the German Jihadist scene has been underrated until recently.
Still, there's been nothing like 9/11 or the bombings in London and Madrid. Is it because German intelligence and counterterrorism is so good?
Guido Steinberg: On the contrary! Although German intelligence is not as bad as some would have it, it is not operating on the level of the French, the British, or the Americans. At the time of the 9/11 attacks only the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East were targets. For a short time after 2003 Germany was spared because it did not take part in the Iraq war, which was the single-most radicalizing factor at the time and the underlying reason for the attacks in London 2005 and Madrid 2004. Germans thought they might be spared but in 2006 the German military presence in Afghanistan became more visible to the Jihadists because of the escalating Taliban insurgency. When the insurgency there gained ground, the German presence became an important issue. A growing number of German recruits began joining Jihadist organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan and these organizations realized that there is a major German presence in Afghanistan. That is when al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations started targetimg Germany.
n your book you tell how it was US intelligence, gathered by the National Security Agency, NSA, that helped point German secret services to the most dangerous of the bomb plots hatched in Germany, planned in 2007 by the so-called Sauerland Group. Was this information gathered through Operation Prism, the surveillance revealed by Robert Snowden and currently so controversial in Europe?
Guido Steinberg: I don't know as I hadn't heard of Prism before the Snowden revelations. But I was told by intelligence officers that the information that ultimately led to thwarting the Sauerland Group was given to our foreign intelligence service by the NSA.
This detail has now gained importance here in Germany because it is one very important example where US intelligence, possibly Operation Prism, saved German lives.
I think the German public tends to ignore how important American cooperation has been over the last twelve years. There is more than this one case when American cooperation has helped the German security authorities to foil attacks.
Like the US surveillance programs, the drone strikes of the Bush and Obama administrations are also very controversial here in Europe. Have the drone strikes had an impact on the Jihadist scene in Germany and Europe?
Guido Steinberg: The drone strikes had great influence on the German Jihadist scene. Most Germans arrived in the tribal areas in Pakistan in 2009, when Obama escalated the drone war. As a consequence, al-Qaeda decided to evacuate most of its fighters in 2010 and ordered some Europeans to return to their home countries, build new structures and perpetrate attacks there. This scheme has been called the Europlot. With one exception, the case of Mohammed Merah in France, all these attacks were thwarted and many German Jihadists ended up in jail.
Since you finished your book, the biggest terrorist strike has been carried out in the US, in Boston. Does this act say anything relevant for Europeans about the nature of the kind of terrorist groupings and strikes in the future?
Guido Steinberg: There is a trend towards "individual jihad" in the Western world since 2011. When the Europlot failed in 2011, al-Qaeda decided to rely on lone wolfs. In a long video featuring all important al-Qaeda leaders at that time, the organization asked its followers to perpetrate attacks without coming to train with the organization in Pakistan. This was a major shift in al-Qaeda strategy, which was triggered by the weakening of the organization as a result of the drone strikes. As we could see in spring 2011, some Western followers heeded the call and attacked in Boston, London, and Paris.
Your epigraph is dedicated to "our dead soldiers" in Afghanistan. What do you mean by that and why did you choose to dedicate the book to them?
Guido Steinberg: All in all, 54 German soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. I dedicated the book to them because I cherish their dedication to securing their homeland, which I think has not been sufficiently recognized in Germany.
Furthermore, I consider many of them victims of ill-advised Western counterterrorism policies. I analyze the situation in the Kunduz area in one of the chapters and I describe the rise of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, there.
I think it is tragic that so many have died without our government having met even the most modest aim of the campaign in Afghanistan, namely keeping it from becoming a safe haven for Jihadist groups again.
What's the most difficult aspect of researching and writing about Islamist terrorism in Germany?
Guido Steinberg: Language is the biggest practical problem. If you take a look at the German Jihadist scene in 2001 you needed two languages: German and Arabic. The networks at the time were largely composed of Arabs. This changed when Turks and Kurds entered the fold in 2005, 2006. That means you have at least to be able to read Turkish texts. Most recruits then joined one of the Uzbek groups, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or the Islamic Jihad Union. So it helps if you read this language, which I don't.
This chronology mirrors the development of the whole Jihadist movement, which explains my subtitle "the internationalization of Islamist terrorism". Although the German scene has been small compared to that of some of our neighbours, like in the UK, it can be read as a paradigm for the trajectory of the whole movement.
What's your next project? Is a German Jihad II inevitable?
Guido Steinberg: No, my next project is a larger work on religious authorities in Jihadist networks. It will be an Islamic studies project trying to determine how people within this movement manage to claim religious authority. I hope to win some insight into the development of religious authority in Islam in general in the 21st century.
Interview by Paul Hockenos
L'epurazione etnica di Tawarga
29 Novembre 2013 By Andrea Spada
Quella di Tawarga è la pagina più nera (e meglio occultata) della cosiddetta rivoluzione libica contro Muammar Gheddafi. A distanza di mesi continua a produrre strascichi ed a sanguinare. Un caso da manuale di epurazione etnica, perpetrato dalle milizie (bianche) di Misuratacontro la popolazione (nera) di Tawarga, la cittadina di 40mila abitanti, colpevole solo di aver ospitato la 32° Brigata di Khamis Gheddafi nei lunghi mesi dell'assedio a quella che è stata la città-martire della rivoluzione del 17 febbraio.
Respinti i ripetuti attacchi dei soldati di Gheddafi, e quando ormai le forze del regime erano in rotta, Tawarga divenne nell'agosto 2012 il bersaglio collettivo di una spietata vendetta da parte delle milizie di Misurata che portò a svuotare letteralmente la città di tutti i suoi abitanti, compresi donne e bambini, e che ora – se non sono rinchiusi in prigioni – vivono in una serie di campi profughi intorno a Tripoli e Bengazi.
Gli abitanti di Tawarga sono libici neri, discendenti dei tanti africani arrivati nei secoli sulla costa mediterranea attraverso la tratta transahariana degli schiavi. Cittadini libici a tutti gli effetti, gli abitanti di Tawarga hanno sperimentato nella Libia indipendente e poi in quella gheddafiana un destino di subalternità sociale e culturale che si lega direttamente alle loro origini. È particolarmente evidente il legame di dipendenza che legò la città di Tawarga anche durante il regime di Gheddafi a quella di Misurata dove molti di Tawarga si recavano giornalmente a lavorare occupando tutta una serie di mansioni faticose o poco retribuite. La guerra civile libica ha ridato slancio a questa come ad altre contrapposizioni sociali che sono il portato di una storia lunga e complessa.
Ancora oggi non si sa di preciso quante siano state le vittime – almeno un migliaio fra i morti e le persone sparite, dicono i profughi – ma quello che è certo è che si è voluto cancellare questa città dalle carte geografiche e che i suoi abitanti superstiti sono stati costretti alla fuga, probabilmente per sempre. A nulla però sono servite le denuncie di HRW e di Amnesty International: le persecuzioni sono anzi continuate anche all'interno dei campi profughi – nella più totale indifferenza delle nuove autorità – e ancora oggi vengono segnalati uccisioni, violenze e arresti arbitrari.
In realtà, a Tawargasi è solo scoperchiato il pentolone dei nuovi odi che rischiano di avvelenare il futuro della nuova Libia. Ai tempi di Gheddafi questo odi erano stati assorbiti e al tempo stesso disinnescati grazie al sistema di alleanze e di prebende con cui il Colonnello esercitava il suo potere. Il resto lo faceva il suo apparato repressivo, che spazzava via ogni dissenso.
Oggi, invece, l'instabilità politica e lo strapotere delle milizie consentono agli odi di attecchire, di crescere e di diventare un fattore identitario assai potente. Emerge così una Libia divisa fra popolazioni bianche della fascia costiera e popolazioni nere del Sud, fra cui da sempre non corre buon sangue e che oggi possono esibire senza remore i reciproci pregiudizi, soprattutto nelle aree dove sono costrette a convivere.
E' quello che è successo anche nell'oasi di Kufra, fra i Tubu (neri) e gli Zwai (bianchi), con almeno una cinquantina dimorti. Eppure, entrambi i gruppi si sono schierati con la rivoluzione del 17 febbraio e contro il regime di Gheddafi. Evidentemente, l'essersi sbarazzati del Colonnello non è una condizione sufficiente per costruire una Libia nuova, veramente libera e democratica.
Anche nelle ultime settimane si registrano morti e feriti tra gli sfollati libici del campo di al-Fallah, nei pressi di Tripoli. Le milizie di Misurata hanno circondato il complesso, entrandovi più volte con le armi in pugno. Al-Fallah Camp, come altri insediamenti simili intorno alla capitale libica, sono stati occupati dall'agosto 2012 dagli abitanti sfollati di Tawarga.
Difficile dire quanto vi sia di vero nelle innumerevoli accuse che i vertici politici delle milizie di Misurata hanno indirizzato indiscriminatamente agli abitanti di Tawarga: come mostrano video e testimonianze varie vi sono stati episodi di violenza contro civili di Misurata che furono commessi dalle truppe gheddaffiane provenienti dal Fezzan o addirittura da fuori dei confini libici che per il colore nero della pelle possono essere facilmente accomunati agli abitanti di Tawarga.
Si dice che alcuni degli abitanti di Tawarga commisero dei crimini, come molti altri libici durante la guerra; più difficile poter pensare che un'intera città possa essere ritenuta colpevole. Sta di fatto che per le colpe di alcuni, stanno pagando tutti gli oltre 40 mila abitanti di Tawarga, comprese donne e bambini.
Il Consiglio nazionale di transizione prima, e il governo libico poi, hanno intavolato una complicata trattativa con i vertici politici delle milizie di Misurata per discutere il reinsediamento di questi libici neri nella loro città d'origine, ma per il forte ascendete che Misurata esercita sulle nuove istituzioni libiche tutto si è risolto in un nulla di fatto.
È chiaro come in un momento come quello attuale, dove le autorità governative stanno cercando di sottrarre il controllo della capitale alle diverse milizie, prendersela con gli sfollati di Tawarga non rappresenta un obiettivo politico in sé, ma finisce per essere una deriva particolarmente ignominiosa di una più generale logica nella quale Msrata non è disposta a nessuna concessione in favore delle autorità centrali e di una vera riconciliazione nazionale, questione di Tawarga compresa.
In totale, sono 65.000 gli sfollati interni della Libia. Oltre ai tawarga, l'elenco comprende membri della tribù mashashya delle montagne di Nafusa, abitanti di Sirte e Bani Walid e tuareg di Ghadames. Ma i tawarga, libici neri, sono tra coloro che hanno patito le peggiori sofferenze.
The Revival of Secular Dissent in Egypt
from http://carnegieendowment.org/
Aumentano le critiche, anche fra gli egiziani "laici" che avevano visto con favore la stoppata della Fratellanza Musulmana da parte dei militari…
Egypt's interim president, Adly Mansour, signed a new law restricting protests on November 24. Against the backdrop of widespread objections to the law (including within the cabinet), the government asserts that it will help the police maintain stability. A few days earlier, the constitutional committee had approved a draft constitution broadening the powers of the military. It is no coincidence that these steps come at the time when criticism of the military-backed transition is starting to spread.
Marches against the military's removal of Muslim Brotherhood–backed Mohamed Morsi from the presidency in July 2013 have been surprisingly persistent. What's more, recent conversations in Cairo showed that even secular Egyptians who were happy to see Morsi go were starting to express misgivings about the dominance of the military and internal security in the new arrangement.
The dominant narrative among Egypt's secular elite is that Morsi's removal, however undemocratically executed, was unavoidable. Many with whom I met last week believed there was now no alternative to allowing the military to call the shots. As the head of one secular political party said, "Once you accept military intervention, you have to play by their rules." Several noted that for better or worse, most Egyptians are dawlati (statist) and still want the state, which at least for now means the military, to take care of them more than they want it to be accountable to them or to their elected representatives.
Many interlocutors portrayed the ongoing crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood—whose Freedom and Justice Party might soon be dissolved—as an unfortunate necessity. Former parliamentarian Amr El-Shobaki (now a member of the Constituent Assembly drafting the country's constitution) said that it had not been possible to integrate the Brotherhood "safely" into political life for two reasons: Egypt had failed to develop ground rules for the political game. And the Egyptian Brotherhood was a "secret society" with an international presence and agenda, which El-Shobaki differentiated from the more successful experience of Islamist political parties in Turkey, Tunisia, and Morocco.
A youth activist who supported Morsi's ouster was one of many others saying that the Brotherhood was somehow un-Egyptian or displayed dual loyalties—both of which are fears being fanned actively by the state media. "Even if in the end the military betrays" the liberals who supported Morsi's ouster, he said, "we will still be better off than if the Brotherhood had stayed in power; at least we will preserve our national identity."
Others were more practical in their criticism of the Brotherhood. "They ruined our best chance at democracy because of way they ruled," said an adviser to the Constituent Assembly. "Now the whole process is surrounded by a thick cloud of doubt and lowered expectations."
Objections Starting to Surface
But other secular voices are beginning to speak up and differ with the groupthink that emerged after the July 3 coup. In a small but highly symbolic move, young demonstrators defaced a new monument to victims of the revolution that overthrew strongman Hosni Mubarak on November 19. The transitional government had hastily erected the monument in Tahrir Square, the heart of the revolution, on the anniversary of clashes with security forces that left 47 dead on Mohamed Mahmoud Street two years ago.
Cairo has also been abuzz with discussion of—and disappointment at—the cancellation of satirist Bassem Youssef's television program after its first broadcast, in which he poked fun at adulation of Defense Minister General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Dostour Party member Ahmad Harara's strong comments against military rule on a talk show on November 13 were also much discussed. In private conversations but also increasingly in the media, some politicians and activists are rejecting the binary choice between military and Brotherhood rule, objecting to the ascendancy of the military and the reemergence of the secret police, and voicing dismay at the continuing media focus on demonizing the Brotherhood.
Recent columns by prominent secular commentators were emblematic of the shifting debate. Journalist Amr Khafagy tasked "those who wanted to get rid of Mubarak but not the tools of his rule" with the current morass in a November 20 column in the newspaper al-Shorouk. "All those who wanted to get rid of Mubarak but then to use his tools can never win the revolutionaries' love or allegiance," he warned, "because the revolution was against Mubarak and all his tools; and the latter hate the revolution no matter what they might say to the contrary."
As part of a series of satirical articles entitled "Things I Got Wrong," former parliamentarian Amr Hamzawy wrote on November 20:
I thought that Egypt could never be renewed by political leaders who adopted a security perspective, gave exceptional powers to the military, and called on military leaders to run for the presidency. I thought it could never be renewed by leaders who knew nothing about politics but the zero sum game of winner versus loser and right versus wrong, or manipulating the people's religious sentiments in order to get into power and stay there—but I guess I was wrong.
Young Popular Front activist Hossam Munis was more straightforward, writing in al-Masry al-Youm that "whoever wants to honor the legacy of Mohamed Mahmoud Street and keep its spirit alive must act immediately to counteract spreading disappointment and despair . . . to construct an alternative to get Egyptians out of this binary conflict and to deliver them from those who killed their sons."
In private conversations, Egyptian secularists indicated that there was much division within families about whether military dominance, the return of an invasive internal security apparatus, and the Brotherhood crackdown were necessary. A leftist political leader said that "public opinion is changing quickly and sharply; the pro-coup alliance is deteriorating." A founder of the Egypt Freedom Party indicated that many secular activists had held back until recently on criticism of the military because "we don't want to be used again by the Brotherhood as it attempts to get back into power." But such considerations may be now dissipating.
Does the Military Have the Answers?
On one point many Egyptians seemed to agree: the 2011 revolution expressed a fundamental change in the society. Citizens would not be patient long with a state that failed to deliver services, abused human rights, and monopolized economic benefits. Many also said that the few "democrats" (as they are called, with Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Bahaa El-Din in the lead) in the current transitional cabinet were fighting a noble, uphill battle to inject progressive thinking into government decisionmaking and to protect basic freedoms.
But no one expressed confidence that the current military-democratic alliance would be able to find or implement solutions to Egypt's mounting economic, social, and security problems. A prominent secular intellectual who has thrown his lot in with the transitional arrangement said he was "not sure how long the military-democratic partnership will last; it is uncomfortable and even nasty, and we are taking it day by day. The big question is whether we can bring anything positive out of it." A political party leader worried that "we have already lost momentum and failed to create hope, as well as to divert attention from the Brotherhood protests."
The months ahead will be extremely challenging, with a hectic schedule of political events. The first is the holding of a referendum on the constitution amid continuing and perhaps escalating security and economic problems.
The referendum to pass the new document will be widely seen as a vote on the July 3 coup against Mohamed Morsi, and many said that the military is determined to get better voter turnout and a higher yes vote than the Brotherhood got during the December 2012 constitutional referendum. Then, a total of 18 million voters took to the polls, two-thirds of whom approved the text. There is little prospect that a new referendum would be voted down, but a low turnout would be seen as a sign of weak support for the military-backed transition. The more savvy and well-organized political parties, such as the Salafi al-Nour, are well aware of this fact and are using their presumed ability to mobilize voters (or prevent them from mobilizing) as leverage regarding what the constitution will say on issues important to them.
Beyond immediate issues such as the transition road map, many Egyptians are increasingly concerned about much larger problems: the need to rebuild a crumbling state and the possibility of state failure if urgent problems cannot be addressed for several more years because of political turmoil. Former Shura Council member Sameh Fawzy complained in al-Shorouk that public discourse remains obsessed with the Brotherhood to the detriment of these broader problems, saying "any discussion of rebuilding the state economically, socially, and culturally is absent or at most extremely limited."
And indeed, there is no evidence of a vision for such rebuilding within the new order, at least so far. A prominent young politician said, "Egyptians trust military officers to save the state, but no one expects them to be able to develop it." A young researcher confessed his concern that Egypt might be headed for state failure, saying what he saw in neighboring countries frightened him because "I am not sure that we are any better than the Syrians or Libyans."
November's Fateful Events
During a conversation with me, Egyptian analyst Mohamed El Agati half-jokingly pointed to the fateful events that have taken place in the month of November for the last few years: Corrupt parliamentary elections in November 2010 sharpened disgust with the Mubarak regime. Killings of protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street in 2011 spurred a campaign of resistance against the then ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. And the November 2012 constitutional declaration ignited widespread opposition to Mohamed Morsi.
This year, the set of constitutional articles was approved on November 20 that granted the military broad powers to try civilians in military courts and to veto the president's choice of defense minister for at least the next eight years. On November 24, the president signed the law restricting rights of protest that gives security agencies like the police the right to disperse protests by force if necessary. It is not yet clear whether these moves will eventually be seen as the same kind of overreach that characterized the last three Novembers. But if the current military leadership proves no more able to address Egypt's major problems than the Supreme Council of Armed Forces or the Brotherhood was, Egyptians might look back and see the powers they have just given to the military and police in November 2013 as a wall to scale as massive as the stone barriers that now block access from Cairo boulevards to Tahrir Square.
A Deadly Year for Iraq
Iraq witnessed a fresh string of deadly bomb attacks and shootings this week, with over a hundred people reportedly killed.
On Thursday, medical officials confirmed that at least 48 people died in this week's deadliest attack when a bomb exploded at an outdoor vegetable market in the northeastern town of Sadiya.
Meanwhile, in the town of Taji, north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber set off his belt laden with explosives at an army checkpoint, leaving 6 soldiers dead and 12 wounded.
A number of other car bombs went off in busy commercial areas of northern and western Baghdad, killing a total of 9 people and wounding dozens more. In Baghdad's southeastern neighbourhood of Bayaa, gunmen attacked a supermarket, killing its two owners and wounding 2 shoppers.
On Friday, shortly after midday prayers, two roadside bombs went off near Sunni mosques in the southern and western outskirts of Baghdad, killing 3 worshippers and wounding 12, according to local police.
On Saturday, a car bomb and suicide bomber killed at least 9 people and left a further 54 wounded in the town of Tuz Khurmato in northern Iraq. Police and medical sources reported that the car bomb was detonated in a busy market close to a Shi'ite mosque and was followed shortly after by a suicide bombing.
While no group has claimed responsibility for these attacks, the Iraqi government has blamed Sunni militias, including al Qaeda, for trying to enflame sectarian tension between Sunnis and Shi'as.
Sunni militant groups have certainly stepped up attacks across the country in recent months, killing scores of Iraqi civilians and soldiers. These attacks are partly fuelled by resentment among Iraq's Sunni population against its government and partly due to external influence emanating from the ongoing civil war in Syria.
Meanwhile, many fear former Shi'a militias, which have mostly joined the national security forces since giving up their arms, will be pushed to rearm and revamp their activities in the face of a growing and worsening Sunni insurgency.
A council of senior clerics called on Sunni mosques to close in protest against the lack of security for their communities, blaming government security forces for not doing enough to keep Sunni areas safe. On Saturday a number of Sunni mosques in Baghdad did in fact close, while others in the city centre remained open.
According to the United Nations, 979 people, including police and military personnel, have been killed in violent attacks in October, while more than 6,500 civilians have died since January. This makes 2013 the deadliest year in Iraq since 2008.
Growing sectarian tensions and continuing spillover from the Syrian conflict do not bode well for reaching a peaceful solution to this ongoing violence. One can only hope that the violence does not escalate to levels witnessed during Iraq's civil war period of 2006-7 and that the Iraqi population pushes back against minority militia groups attempting to instigate further violence between different sects.
From Muftah Org.
Syrian war swirls around Lebanese border town
The town of Arsal risks being caught in the vortex of the civil war raging across the border.
Arsal, Lebanon – For more than a week, thousands of Syrian refugees have poured into this hilltop town. They are fleeing the Syrian army takeover of Qara in the mountainous Qalamoun region along Lebanon's eastern border, and the highway linking Damascus with the city of Homs.
Aala Hamid, a soft-spoken 20-year-old mother, has recently arrived from Qara. She cradled her son in a crowded downtown clinic as she patiently waited to hear about vaccination shots.
On November 15, Aala's family hid in their dark basement as shells bombarded Qara and struck part of their home. During a brief ceasefire they, along with their neighbors, piled into a van and drove along worn smuggling paths through the night, and across the border to Arsal.
"There were bombs and shelling," she said. "I know many people who were injured by shrapnel, or who lost their husbands. One woman died because her roof fell on top of her."
Aala, her husband and two young children now sleep with 15 other refugees in one room. There are no mattresses on the floor, and she said they brought nothing with them. "We don't have food or money, and we know the owner will ask us for rent. We'd rather go home than live in a tent."
But for the time being, Aala, like thousands of others, will remain. "People won't go back because it's too dangerous," said Claire Lansard, a worker in the area with medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres. "And they might not have a home to return to."
Arsal has seen its predominantly Sunni Muslim population of 35,000 double this year. The town is largely supportive of the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad's government, but lies within a mainly Shia region that favours Hezbollah, which has pledged military allegiance to the Syrian regime. More than 120,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict so far, and Arsal has been targeted by sporadic cross-border shelling like much of Lebanon's northern frontier.
The town is still struggling to cope with the wave of 20,000 refugees that arrived after the Syrian government and Hezbollah forces laid siege to the city of Qusayr this spring. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the town has received 18,000 more refugees from Qara since November 15.
But as the Syrian government seeks to seal off all cross-border rebel supply routes with Lebanon and consolidate access from Damascus to the coast, Arsal's local government fears the worst is yet to come. "We know that the battle for Qalamoun has started, and it's going to be one village to the next like dominos," said Ahmad Hassan Al Filiti, Arsal's deputy mayor. "If the Syrian army is going to hit Yabrud, this will be a humanitarian disaster. People can't go to Homs or Damascus. So either they will go to Arsal or they will stay there. There is no other alternative."
The Ministry of Social Affairs has just approved a plan with UNHCR to establish an official temporary camp for up to 250 tents, and a plot of land for the first 50 has been found. "This is the first agreement like it with the government for this many tents," said UNHCR spokesperson Dana Sleiman. "This is part of a joint contingency plan with the government and as long as the tents are needed, they should be there."
Filiti singled out shelter as their top concern. "It's hard to find empty land in Arsal," he said. "The government wants the camps inside the checkpoints, to control the area."
Syrian refugees, their financial situation worsened by Lebanon's high rents, are desperate for work and settle for low wages. They cannot afford health care. Many families quickly run out of savings.
A November survey of refugees' livelihoods by Oxfam and the Beirut Research and Innovation Center said: "When expressing their greatest concerns and fears, respondents listed issues such as poverty, remaining in refugee status, lack of dignified work, missing out on an education for their children and losing a loved one during war. Sectarian strife and illegal status in Lebanon were viewed as lesser concerns."
The influx of refugees, the cross-border shelling, intensified clashes in Tripoli, hard-line Sunni armed groups and Hezbollah's pro-Assad stance has dangerously polarised Lebanon along sectarian lines.
"This week's suicide bombing of the Iranian embassy is directly related to the attack that is waged by the Syrian regime and Hezbollah on the Qalamoun area," said Sami Nader, a professor of international relations at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. "This is the first time Hezbollah has been targeted by a suicide bombing by [Sunni] jihadists. What we are seeing is a Shiite and Sunni war taking place across the whole Levant."
Control of Qalamoun is one part of the wider picture. "Whoever controls Qalamoun can control the Lebanese border, and the Sunni presence in the Bekaa Valley and in the north," said Nader.
At a private field hospital in downtown Arsal, surgeon Mohammed Ammar is tired. He calls the three-day trip he made from Qusayr to Arsal, with medical staff and hundreds of injured patients, "the journey of death".
"The people arriving here now are feeling very desperate," he said. "The tragedy is ongoing. People who fled Qusayr went to Qara, and now to Lebanon. The psychological effect is tremendous because every family has lost someone. The word 'hopelessness' is coming up a lot – they don't feel secure here, and they don't know when they have to leave."
In a hospital bed next door, 25-year-old Mohammed from Homs – his real name has not been used for his protection – is recuperating from shrapnel wounds. He was taken to Qara for treatment, only to be evacuated to Arsal during the army's assault.
"I will return to Syria – I will not stay here," he said. "I can't wait to go back. I want the regime to fall."
The utopian vision of 'security' is killing Israel
Somewhere along the way, security for Israeli Jews became utopia: it will never be achieved, but it exacts an infinite price of destruction for its own sake, on the road to nowhere.
Isaiah Berlin's seminal critique of utopia holds that no matter how noble the idea at hand, the assumption that one truth can be universal and overriding denies the reality of conflicting, but equally vital, human truths. We may believe all humans agree on the right to life and physical security. But we also cherish other human rights and freedoms, and sometimes these are in conflict. Acknowledging and struggling with that tension makes us human; automatically trampling one value for the other results in disaster.
The notion of perfection requires us to suspend other basic human and political values to achieve it. This is Berlin's point in the famous metaphor: to make the perfect omelet, there is no such thing as too many broken eggs.
Nineteenth century ideologies of both the right and the left based on utopian visions led to Nazism and Communism, which perpetrated grand-scale destruction of human lives and minds.
In 21st century Israel, a utopian notion of security has evolved, perhaps as a natural outcome of Jewish history. Utopian security in this vision is the total absence of Arab-on-Jewish violence or even anger. In utopian security, there would never be attacks from rogue cells, unbalanced individuals, or borderline ethno/national-cum-criminal/hooliganism. No non-Jewish adult or child would ever throw a stone at an Israeli, nor at Jews anywhere in the entire world. No scrap of anti-Semitic literature would ever be found in any Palestinian hands. Naturally, this serves the interests of the right and often mainstream centrists, who argue that Israel must not make peace or even negotiate as long as our security is threatened, including psychologically.
On a personal level, I dream of a world where nobody hurts anyone, Jew or non-Jew, for any reason.
But to place utopia at the center of a political project, to predicate political solutions on a fantasy and end all creative debate by pulling out perfect security as a trump card – usually as proof of why the search for peace is in vain – is a grave historic mistake and an injustice to all people in the region. It is shamelessly hypocritical, because Jewish Israeli security in this vision is, of course, unidirectional. The fantasy rests on an absurd denial of human nature the world over.
Expectations have gone overboard as a result. Daily conversations over coffee often end with some version of "how we can negotiate when their textbooks don't even show Israel on the map?" because that too, is a breach of utopian – psychological – security.
The zero sum complex: Either utopian security or total destruction
In current Israeli Jewish discourse there are only two options: utopian security, or full-on existential destruction. There is nothing in between. A reserve soldier expressed this well in a recent op ed in Ynet (Hebrew), explaining that he was "proud to serve in Judea and Samaria," because he helped people celebrate the Seder without getting murdered, prevented the stabber or the suicide-bomb-belt [sic] from crossing the Green Line, prevented murder and harm to human life. The entire article was hypothetical, as I understood it – he never told an anecdote or referred to real-life events. Yet he knew that his presence had saved Jews, because there had been massacres in 1929. In his mind, the fact that there had been no attacks while he served was the same as saying he prevented a scenario of certain and total destruction. This despite the sharp decline in terror-related casualties and attacks over the last seven years to the point where the numbers can be measured in dozens, if that. By comparison, road accidents kill between 370-600 Israelis annually. Criminal murders number between 100-200 annually.
Yes, there are very real security violations from external enemies. But these are not an existential threat. Yes, there is an Iranian nuclear threat – just like the one I grew up with under the shadow of the USSR, which actually had the bomb. When I was in third grade, after a particularly impressive social studies class, my friends and I discussed somberly in the school lunchroom that we probably wouldn't live to see the turn of the millennium; we were told there were enough nuclear weapons to blow the whole world up 10 times over. There were nuclear fallout shelter signs everywhere.
I lived with it then, and I can live with it now. This is unrelated to the increasingly desperate need to reach a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It's ironic therefore that the right has succeeded in branding the left as naïve. What's truly dismaying is that the left has fallen for it.
It's time to inject some unapologetic realism into the debate.
Sacrifices at the altar of utopia
When security for Israel became utopia, there were two profound ramifications: the paralysis of the peace process and the simultaneous de-legitimization of the broad left camp (inside Israel and in the diaspora), particularly over the last decade – with the left's stuttering acquiescence.
Peace process sacrificed to security. Since the outbreak of the Second Intifada (and in truth, beginning in the Oslo years of the mid-1990s), Israelis have come to believe that peace – an umbrella term that they frequently confuse with the process (the Oslo Accords, Camp David negotiations) – actually harms security. The notion was injected by the hard right, those responsible for the infamous "Bring Oslo criminals to justice!" narrative. The notion that peace-related policy causes terror caught on in the mainstream, and then stuck.
In the 2000s, the players changed slightly but the paradigm remained. The 1990s notion of 'peace' was replaced in Israeli minds by unilateral Israeli withdrawals. The 2000 IDF withdrawal from Lebanon was viewed as the cause of rocket fire in the north (as if Israel didn't suffer casualties and rockets for 18 years before that). Dismantling settlements from Gaza became the reason for the electoral victory of the Hamas, rocket fire from Gaza, and the capture of Gilad Shalit – all violations of non-existent, utopian security and the basis for the policy that Israel does not talk while under fire.
Before he was murdered, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin coined a pithy notion of advancing the peace process as if there is no terrorism and fighting terrorism as if there is no peace process. But the concept died with him. What seemed so logical to Rabin – rejecting the interdependence of peace and security – seems impossible for Israelis to comprehend 17 years later.
The left assists its own de-legitimization. The left has completely failed to mount an effective argument on the question of security; the typical answers have probably done more damage than good. Intellectual, moral, legal, political, pragmatic or rational angles are smashed apart in daily conversations, by the inevitable silver bullet: how can we make peace when they conduct terror?
That was the question that defined the decade. The left failed to dispel the utopian paradigm, and instead became defensive. Failing to provide an adequate answer to the demand for perfect security, the left lost political relevance in Israel.
Instead, typical left-wing responses were reactive, never proactive – envision a whole figurative political camp trembling whenever the issue is raised, which is all the time.
When backed into a corner, the left usually proffers one of three main arguments: first, the occupation is the source of anger, hatred, poverty and hopelessness, which create the conditions for terror; second, that peace will advance security; and third, the rare argument, coming mainly from small pockets of the more radical left, that Israel has no right to expect security when it is the aggressor in an asymmetrical conflict.
When the right is right
Shooting these arguments down has been child's play for the right. After years of lamenting that there's no left left, it's time to admit when the right is right: terror and violence against Israeli Jews (and other Jews) existed before the occupation, continued through the earliest advances and concessions for a peace process and continue today (as did Israeli violence against Palestinians). The first argument fails.
The notion that peace advances security is no match for the deeply entrenched interpretation of events described earlier. Worse, the hope that peace will bring security does nothing to dispel the utopian aspect and thus strengthens it; every lull that ends with a stone or a rocket is a victory for the utopists.
Left-wing groups have wracked their brains considering how to convince Israelis that the peace-causes-terror interpretation is wrong, one-sided, ignores the Palestinian reality, is biased by our media or missing critical facts. But of course: all human beings see their reality first. It's natural. Trying to enlighten Israelis about the truth may be a worthy cause in itself, but it is hopeless to imagine that left-wing truths will cause people to give peace another chance or bring perfect security. The irresponsible, quixotic crusade to get Israelis to see the light, or put someone else's narrative first has earned only accusations of arrogance or betrayal.
The notion that Israel as the aggressor cannot expect security is plainly immoral in my mind, because civilians always deserve security, Palestinians and Israelis. This line exposes the genuine hypocrisy of some within the camp that I call my own, which is personally painful for me. Perhaps the height of this argument was reached with the demented apologia for the horrific killing of a whole family, including tiny children, in the settlement of Itamar. Aside from being simply wrong, such commentary again advances the fatal notion: if we stop killing them, we can expect perfect security.
I am not writing this in order to conjure a brilliant strategic message, provide talking points, copywriting or slogans. This is my experience of a tragic reality. This is my analysis of why many mainstream, centrist and even some right-wing Israelis whom I am privileged to interview through my public opinion research – or whom I know as friends and family – actually seem as pained as I am: they genuinely want to reach a solution, but nobody is helping them cope with the security problem. This was the left's job, and we have failed them.
Here's how I view reality: there is no perfect world. Everyone lives with a security threat, even on remote islands in Norway, the state that symbolizes peace.
If there's one thing I trust the military and intelligence establishment of Israel to do, it's their job. The occupation is not their job. Keeping me as safe as possible under an imperfect, non-utopian political reality, under the best possible political compromise the Israeli and Palestinian people can reach, is. That's what I call defense.
It is time to expose the fact that our prevailing notion of security is a dangerous fantastical nightmare perpetuating the conflict forever, by demanding that unacceptable deeds be committed in its name. But the right can hardly be expected to give up a vision that serves its political interests. Instead, the current leadership abuses that vision for rapacious gain, sacrificing the well-being of Israel as a country in the process.
The left must show people that they are being exploited and misled to dream of an unattainable myth. The left must admit that there is a permanent security threat instead of ignoring it. The left must make the case that an immediate political resolution to the conflict is not a formula for an impossible, flawless level of security, but for a better Israel – something we'll be proud to protect.


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Archive for the 'Roman Catholicism' Category
My father was raised as a Catholic. He left the Catholic Church as a young man. I remember when I was growing up, my younger brother once attended a party at a neighbor's house. My family learned afterwards that he had spoken to a priest at the party. My father become extremely upset when he heard about this. The rest of us couldn't understand why.
Spotlight tells the story of the Boston Globe investigation of child sexual abuse in the Boston archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church. When Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) arrives as the new editor of the Globe, people are afraid he's going to cut jobs. Instead, he suggests to the paper's Spotlight investigative team, led by Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton), that they investigate a case of a local priest who has been accused of molesting a child. In the course of their investigation, they learn that there may be as many as 87 pedophile priests in the city. They eventually learn that Cardinal Law, the head of the archdiocese, has been aware of this for over a decade.
I've never been able to share the admiration that some leftists have for Pope Francis. He is part of the system that produces the sort of behavior depicted in this film. It tells us something that the Church's reaction to the scandal in Boston was to promote Law. At the very least, Law should have removed these pedophiles from the priesthood. Instead, he moved them from one parish to another, knowing that they would likely carry out the same abuses. Even in terms of self-interest, such behavior makes no sense. These pedophile priests cause people to leave the church. They undermine its moral authority. They cause the church to become embroiled in costly lawsuits. The fact that the church leaders can't see this shows that they are out of touch with reality, let alone common decency.
Posted in Boston, Christianity, Journalists, Republicans, Roman Catholicism | Leave a Comment »
Religion is a Business
Now that the Supreme Court has decided that business owners have a right to impose their religious beliefs on their employees, I think this is an appropriate time to remind people that religion itself is a business, a point I made in a previous post:
Sun Myung Moon was one of the greatest entrepreneurial geniuses of the twentieth century. Like L. Ron Hubbard, he grasped the essential truth that religion is a business. You promise salvation to people, and they pay you money for it. (Salvation is a special kind of commodity. Although it has no form or substance, it is nonetheless fungible.)
No one should know this better than Pope Francis. Salon recently posted an article by Anna Marsh about the pontiff. In it, Marsh destroys the Pope's reputation as a populist. She writes:
While the pope transmits a populist vibe—particularly about the economy— he is an old-school conservative who, despite his great PR, maintains nearly all of the socialpolicies of his predecessors and keeps up a hardline Vatican "cabinet." He has done virtually nothing to change the policies of the church to match his more compassionate rhetoric. People excuse the pope, claiming that he doesn't have much power to make changes, but this simply isn't true. Further, it is ludicrous to suggest that a man who denies comprehensive reproductive health care (including all forms of birth control including condoms and abortion) and comprehensive family planning is a man who cares about the poor of this world.
Marsh tells us that the Pope's populist rhetoric has a venal motive:
According to The Economist, "The American church may account for as much as 60 percent of the global institution's wealth. Little surprise, then, that it is the biggest contributor to head office (ahead of Germany, Italy and France). Everything from renovations to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to the Pontifical Gregorian University, the church's version of West Point, is largely paid for with American money." The National Catholic Reporter points out that American Catholics put more than $150 million a week into the collection plate, totaling $8 billion annually. Even if, as they assert, ninety percent of those donations never leave their parish, that means that about $800 million a year donated by American Catholics is being used to fund the Catholic Church around the world.
Forbes points out that U.S. Catholics are responsible for almost a third of the charitable contributions that directly fund the Holy See, contributions that were down from $82 million in 2009 to 70 million in 2011. This time period overlaps the decline in Pope Benedict's favorable numbers among U.S. Catholics and is widely attributed to Benedict's lack of PR finesse, handling of the church's sexual abuse scandal, and launching of an investigation into the practices of the American nuns.
The Vatican hired a PR man named Greg Burke to help them with this problem. Burke used to work for Fox News, and he is a member of the reactionary Opus Dei. It is apparently Burke who has largely engineered the new pope's reputation as a populist. A lot of people have apparently fallen for this, but I wonder how long Francis will be able to continue this charade.
Posted in Capitalism, Pope Francis, Religion, Roman Catholicism | Leave a Comment »
The college of cardinals has selected a new pope. He is an Argentinian named Jorge Bergoglio, but he will rule under the name Francis, in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. The Guradian reports:
Inside the Sistine Chapel after the final vote was cast, the most junior of the cardinals, James Harvey, a former prefect of the papal household, called in the secretary of the college of cardinals, Monsignor Lorenzo Baldisseri, and the master of papal liturgical ceremonies, Monsignor Guido Marini, to witness the new pope's acceptance of one of the most daunting jobs on Earth.
Daunting? Really? I imagine being a coal miner would be a daunting job, as would being a factory worker at Foxconn. But being Pope? You mostly just have to wear funny clothes and make reactionary statements. Sounds like a sweet gig to me. The Guardian also reports:
No indication of how or why the new pope was chosen was expected to emerge. On Tuesday, before the start of the conclave, the cardinal-electors took an oath of secrecy, as had those Vatican employees and officials involved in the election.
Additional precautions included a sweep of the Sistine Chapel to ensure that no listening devices had been planted inside and the use of electronic jamming techniques.
If history teaches us one thing, it's that people who obsess over secrecy are usually up to no good. And when one looks into the background of this man, Bergoglio, one can see that he has good reasons for secrecy. According to another article in the Guardian:
The main charge against Bergoglio involves the kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, Orland Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were taken by Navy officers in May 1976 and held under inhumane conditions for the missionary work they conducted in the country's slums, a politically risky activity at the time.
His chief accuser is journalist Horacio Verbitsky, the author of a book on the church called "El Silencio" ("The Silence"), which claims that Bergoglio withdrew his order's protection from the two priests, effectively giving the military a green light for their abduction.
Actually, the election of Bergoglio makes perfect sense to me. With the church besieged by accusations of money laundering and child abuse, who better to have as Pope than a criminal?
Ratzinger – er, I mean Pope Benedict XVI – got a lot of grief for having been a member of the Hitler Youth as a child. In my view, that's negated by the fact that he refused to serve in the German army during World War II. But what are we to make of a man who aided and abetted a murderous regime? And what should we make of a church that promotes such a man to its highest position?
Posted in Argentina, Religion, Roman Catholicism | 4 Comments »
It used to be that the Republicans would run as the "no new taxes" party. Now we have a Republican ticket that is effectively promising to raise taxes on most Americans, while giving huge tax cuts to the richest Americans. At the risk of sounding portentous, I can't help but wonder if we are entering a new phase of capitalism, one in which politicians no longer even pretend to care about the general welfare. Ronald Reagan pretended to be a friend of the working class, even as he attacked workers' living standards. Romney and Ryan are effectively giving the finger to the working class. They are here to benefit the rich, and they want everyone to know it. The question is: how many Americans will buy this? True, there are a lot of people who have read Atlas Shrugged, but there are a lot more who haven't. Not everybody has been indoctrinated into the Randroid zombie army. Not yet, anyway.
There must be a deep affinity between Romney and Ryan, for one can see no other reason why Romney would choose him. According to this article in the New York Times, Ryan doesn't give Romney any electoral advantage. Being a Catholic, he won't help the Mormon Romney with evangelicals, although he won't hurt him either. The Catholic fanatic, Rick Santorum, had his strongest support during the primaries among Protestant fundamentalists. (Interestingly, Santorum tended to do poorly in states with large Catholic populations.)
Ryan's proposed budget calls for cuts in Social Security and effectively scrapping Medicare. As I have pointed out before, attacking Social Security and Medicare is a losing argument for the Republicans, since their largest voting base consists of old people. Ryan has even echoed Rick Perry's claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Perhaps Romney and Ryan are gambling that their supporters are too senile to know what they are talking about.
In this admiring article about Ryan from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute ("Wisconsin's Free Market Think Tank"), we learn: "With his father's passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college." Assuming that Ryan is a principled man, he would certainly want to return his ill-gotten gains from our national Ponzi scheme, wouldn't he?
Posted in Capitalism, Republicans, Roman Catholicism | Leave a Comment »
We Have a Pope
Although I am not a Catholic, I have always felt a peculiar connection to the Catholic Church. My father came from a family of devout Catholics. My great-father reportedly came to this country to escape the kulturkampf, Bismarck's campaign to suppress the power of the Catholic Church in Germany. (Since my great-grandfather was a coal miner, it's not clear to me why this would have affected him. I will have to do more research on this.) My father was sent to a Catholic school, an experience that had the happy effect of making him into an atheist. What's more, most of my friends were raised as Catholics, and the ones who aren't traumatized still go to mass occasionally. Oh, and I once played a priest in a school play.
So, I was naturally interested in seeing Nanni Moretti's latest film, We Have a Pope. I didn't know whether this film would be a satire of the Church or simply a "feel good" comedy in priestly drag. Strange to say, it turns out to be neither.
The College of Cardinals has gathered to choose a new Pope. After several inconclusive ballots, they elect the unassuming Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli) as the new pontiff. Just before he is to be presented to the crowd in St. Peter's square, however, he suffers a panic attack that turns into a nervous breakdown. He tells the Cardinals that the burden of the papacy would be too much for him. (Could it really be that much of a burden? Basically all the Pope has to do is make speeches denouncing contraception.) Out of desperation, the cardinals bring in a psychoanalyst, Brezzi, (Nanni Moretti) to examine Melville. Their sessions get nowhere. Brezzi mentions that his wife, (Margherita Buy), is also a therapist. Melville persuades the Vatican press agent (Jerzy Stuhr) to take him in disguise to see this woman. On their way back, Melville manages to run away. Melville wanders around Rome. He eventually falls in with a troupe of actors who are putting on a production of Chekhov's The Seagull. Meanwhile, the cardinals are stuck at the Vatican, because, according to tradition, they cannot leave the conclave until the new Pope has been announced. To pass the time, Brezzi organizes a volleyball tournament.
The main problem with We Have a Pope is that it's never made clear why Melville is so afraid of becoming Pope. He merely mumbles vague statements about how he is not worthy of the position. The closest we get to an explanation is when he tells Brezzi's wife that he once wanted to be an actor. But wouldn't that make the papacy attractive to him? After all, church ceremonies are basically a form of theater.
There are a few funny moments, but not enough for this film to qualify as a comedy. The ending is inexplicably melodramatic. From a balcony, Melville tells a huge crowd in St. Peter's square that he cannot be Pope. He then goes inside and the screen goes black. It's not clear what exactly Moretti is trying to say about the Catholic Church. Moretti has said about this film: "I wanted to depict a fragile man, Cardinal Melville, who feels inadequate in the face of power and the role he's called to fill … I think this feeling of inadequacy happens to all cardinals elected Pope, or at least that's what they say." Unfortunately, Moretti is unable to show why we should care about this.
Posted in Cinema, Italy, Religion, Roman Catholicism | Leave a Comment »

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: Shared Libraries and Executable linking with static C run time on Linux. Does each of them have separate heap like Windows? I am clear about Window heap allocation and stack of heaps etc. Though being new to Linux, i do not have much clarity how does it work?
On Windows:

*

*At the beginning of a process, the OS creates a default heap called Process heap. The Process heap is used for allocating blocks if no other heap is used.

*Language run times also can create separate heaps within a process. (For example, C run time creates a heap of its own.)

*Besides these dedicated heaps, the application program or one of the many loaded dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) may create and use separate heaps, called private heaps

*These heap sits on top of the operating system's Virtual Memory Manager in all virtual memory systems.

*a)  C/C++ Run-time (CRT) allocator: Provides malloc() and free() as well as new and delete operators.
b)  The CRT creates such an extra heap for all its allocations (the handle of this CRT heap is stored internally in the CRT library in a global variable called _crtheap) as part of its initialization.
c)  CRT creates its own private heap, which resides on top of the Windows heap.
d)  The Windows heap is a thin layer surrounding the Windows run-time allocator(NTDLL).
e)  Windows run-time allocator interacts with Virtual Memory Allocator, which reserves and commits pages used by the OS.

Our DLLs and exe link to multithreaded static CRT libraries. Each DLL and exe we create has a its own heap, i.e. _crtheap. The allocations and de-allocations has to happen from respective heap. That a dynamically allocated from DLL, cannot be de-allocated from executable and vice-versa.
Compiling our code in DLL and exe's using /MD or /MDd to use the multithread-specific and DLL-specific version of the run-time library, will link both DLL and exe to the same C run time library and hence one _crtheap. Allocations are always paired with de-allocations within a single module.
Is this the same behavior on Liunx?
What all heaps are there? What about CRT heaps?

A: I don't really know how to answer this, but I'm going to try to give enough general information that I'll hit on what you need to know.
As a unix person, what I learned about Windows memory management from your question is that you guys use the word "heap" a lot. We don't, except as an informal synonym for "memory area managed by malloc".
There are 2 major dynamic memory allocation primitives to be aware of: brk and mmap. All the other allocation functions including malloc are built on top of those.
brk is the old one. It works by simply adding more memory to the process's virtual memory map after the end of the bss segment. You pass brk a value, and that becomes the process's "break" address - the end of the allocated virtual memory.
malloc can be built on top of brk by calling it with a new, higher, value every time more memory is needed, and maintaining some internal data structure that tracks what's been freed and what's still in use. (Giving memory back to the system on free was not done in the classic implementation.) The internal data structure of some malloc implementation must have been a heap giving the brk segment its nickname: "the heap".
See also: What does brk( ) system call do? (it has pictures!)
It's really unusual for a program to call brk directly. (Or even the thin wrapper sbrk). Every use of brk in a normal program is via malloc. Remember, though you view the C library, including malloc, as some kind of optional extra, we have an OS that is tightly coupled with C, so a program that doesn't use libc for the low-level stuff like memory management is very weird indeed. So most of the time, all of the memory in the brk segment a.k.a. "the heap" is being managed by malloc. However, the reverse isn't true because...
mmap, newer than brk (mmap is from the 90's; brk is from the 70's) offers a lot of options. When you want to map a file into memory, or allocate several discontiguous blocks of memory instead of just adding some space at the end of the original data block, you use mmap. The shared library loader uses mmap to map each library's text and data. Modern malloc implementations use mmap for large requests and brk for small ones. We also have mremap which relocates a mapping to a new virtual address while keeping it at the same physical address, allowing realloc to avoid an expensive copy.
If you look at /proc/$PID/maps on Linux, you'll see a memory region labeled [heap]. That's the brk segment. There's only one of these per process. (I've seen some examples where the maps file showed 2 of them, but they were contiguous and had identical attributes, so really equivalent to a single region. I don't know what causes the double listing.)
With all this background in mind, what would it mean to allocate an "extra heap"? You could request some memory from the system with mmap, giving you a region that is independent from malloc. You could then do your own malloc-like management of that region, handing it out in chunks of various sizes and keeping track of which parts are unused. But your new allocator won't be "the heap". Which doesn't actually mean anything, because the system doesn't know anything about heaps.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
Report: USPS nears settlement with 19 states on election mail
Posted: Sep 25, 2020 / 04:08 PM CDT / Updated: Sep 25, 2020 / 04:08 PM CDT
SAN FRANCISCO – DECEMBER 15: Stacks of boxes holding cards and letters are seen at the U.S. Post Office sort center December 15, 2008 in San Francisco, California. On its busiest day of the year, the U.S. Postal Service is expecting to process and mail over one billion cards, letters and packages. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — The U.S. Postal Service is close to a settlement with 19 states and the District of Columbia on how the agency will handle mail-in ballots, according to a report from the Washington Post.
The settlement is expected to cover portions of a USPS cost-cutting initiative linked to recent mail delays.
According to the Post, the involved states are hopeful the agreement recognizes a state's role in presiding over elections and ballot processing and minimizes President Trump's argument mail-in voting isn't secure and effective.
According to the Post, the settlement could be announced as early as next week.
Trump opposes postal money that would help vote-by-mail
The development would effectively end court cases in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania that challenged operational changes put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that many feel could delay the processing of mail-in ballots. Those changes included stricter schedules and limits on extra trips by postal carriers.
The Postal Service says those directives didn't come from leaders of the agency and instead may have been made at the local level. But that assertion is challenged in a report earlier this week from the Post.
According to the Post, negotiators are still working through the specifics on how USPS will handle election mail and overtime hours.
Who can vote by mail? 77% of voters eligible this fall
"Some of the language about election mail is also a little bit vague for us whether they're really going to treat it like first class mail or not. It seems like there's some wiggle room to us," a source told the Post.
USPS removed close to 1,500 public mailboxes over the summer along with some 700 mail sorting machines.
Dejoy has argued these moves were part of normal process and fired back at theories the moves were made to support Trump and harm the ability of voters to use the mail to vote.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WEHT) Indiana University is holding a Zoom meeting with three IU experts about the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.
If you're having trouble viewing the live stream in our mobile app click here.


text:
Q: Dotnet core webapi requiring Azure b2c authorization sending error which cannot be consumed by Android Volley I am using Volley to connect to a dot net core web api protected by Azure B2C. The issue is that I am getting back a HTML response from the API making it hard to identify and resolve on the in the client app.
The response I am getting back is:

HTML behind it:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd'><title>Logging in...</title><meta name='CACHE-CONTROL' content='NO-CACHE'/><meta name='PRAGMA' content='NO-CACHE'/><meta name='EXPIRES' content='-1'/><form id='auto' method='post' action='https://localhost:5001/signin-oidc'>
<input type='hidden' name='error' id='error' value='redirect_uri_mismatch'/><input type='hidden' name='error_description' id='error_description' value='AADB2C90006: The redirect URI 'https://dev.webapi.enablewear.com/signin-oidc' provided in the request is not registered for the client id '[guid here]'.
    Correlation ID: [guid here]
    Timestamp: 2021-02-19 13:28:34Z
    '/><input type='hidden' name='state' id='state' value='[token here]'/>

Although we have detected that you have Javascript disabled, you will be able to use the site as normal.

As part of the authentication process this page may be displayed several times. Please use the continue button below.
<input type='submit' value='Continue' />
</form>

The only way I can get that information is through a Volley StringRequest:
    StringRequest stringRequest = new StringRequest(Request.Method.POST, url, new Response.Listener<String>() {
        @Override
        public void onResponse(String response) {
            Log.d(TAG, "onResponse: " + response);

        }
    }, new Response.ErrorListener() {
        @Override
        public void onErrorResponse(VolleyError error) {
            Log.d(TAG, "onErrorResponse: " + error.toString());
        }
    }) {

        @Override
        protected Map<String, String> getParams() throws AuthFailureError {
            HashMap<String, String> param = new HashMap<>();
            //param.put(IndicationDM.NAME, indication.getName());
            return param;
        }

        @Override
        public Map<String, String> getHeaders() throws AuthFailureError {
            HashMap<String, String> header = new HashMap<>();
            Log.d(TAG, "getHeaders: Bearer " + accessToken);
            header.put("Authorization", "Bearer " + accessToken);
            return header;
        }

    };

I would rather use a JsonObjectRequest and handle errors like this:
            if ( error instanceof AuthFailureError ) {
                Log.d(TAG, "onError: AuthFailureError");
            } else if (error instanceof NetworkError) {
                Log.d(TAG, "onError: NetworkError");
            } else if (error instanceof ParseError) {
                Log.d(TAG, "onError: ParseError");
            }

but the problem is that the AuthFailureError is not being called, the ParseError is because the HTML above is not JSON. I wish the result came back as json or kicked off the AuthFailureError, but I'm not sure if there is a webapi configuration I need to change or Azure b2c configuration.
The dotnet core webapi controller is using the [Authorize] attribute. I may need to refresh the token, but I will run into this issue and want to catch/respond to it.
Any ideas?
UPDATE
I looked at this example and made changes to the startup.cs and am now getting the AuthFailureError, which is great. I still am finding it incredibly hard to diagnose challenges, which is the subject for a different post. Here is what I changed:
TO:
        services.AddAuthentication(JwtBearerDefaults.AuthenticationScheme)
                .AddMicrosoftIdentityWebApi(options =>
            {
                Configuration.Bind("AzureAdB2C", options);
                options.TokenValidationParameters.NameClaimType = "name";
            },
            options => { Configuration.Bind("AzureAdB2C", options); });

        services.AddControllers();

        services.AddAuthorization();

FROM:
services.AddMicrosoftIdentityWebAppAuthentication(Configuration, "AzureAdB2C");

I cannot say for sure I did not change anything else. I was trying to make tweaks on the server, but this was actually the last change I remember making/testing.

A: I assume that "protected by B2C" here means that it is deployed to an Azure Web App service using Easy Auth is still the case. Once you configure an app service to require authentication, it will expect to either get an access token in the authorization header or an authorization cookie in the request. App Service does not distinguish between hosting an API or a Web App (html). If it does not get an access token or a cookie it will presume that a browser is trying to access a web app and initiate OIDC redirect to the server. Your client calling the API should treat a 302 response as unauthorized. Your Web Api should not use [Authorize] or attempt to validate incoming tokens. The Azure service will do that. You can retrieve the claims (and the token) in your app code using either environment variables or the ClaimsPrincipal as per the article.


This form is required by our district for the care of your child in case of emergency. A new form should be filled out at the beginning of each school year and if information changes throughout the year. Page 1 of this form states the Ohio Revised Code.
This form is required for the school to administer prescription and non-prescription medications. Please complete form & return to building with medication in original container.
This is our policy for parents giving permission for computer use.
K-12 Enrollment Form. Please print, complete & take to appropriate building to complete registration requirements.
You may qualify for free or reduced breakfast/lunches...Please print, complete & return to appropriate building for approval. Free & reduced information will remain confidential.


MISSING LINK (2019) *Score: 5/10* Starring: Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana, Zach Galifianakis, Emma Thompson. A Laika Studios film about an explorer, Lionel Frost (Jackman), whose goal is to search for the elusive Sasquatch and bring back proof of its existence to London, so he can join a local prestigious gentlemen's club. I try to make an effort to support some of the "little guys" in theaters, since Disney doesn't necessarily need my money to survive. I typically really enjoy Laika's films, but this one kind of fell short, in my opinion. I much prefer "Coraline" and "ParaNorman..." The animation style and overall tone of the film were definitely on point, though, and fit the theme of the rest of Laika's repertoire. I liked this one, but I won't be buying it for my personal collection.
Is his reaction a bit extreme? Yes. But obviously Star Wars means a lot to him. I always think it is great when someone has a hobby or an interest that truly brings them joy. It helps you get through the tedious necessary tasks you have to get through in life. That being said, I cry whenever I watch the Disney fireworks shows (both in CA and FL). Disney means a lot to me for reasons I won't go into right now; but it's something that means a lot to me. I will admit that I have watched the new teaser trailer about 6 times, and have actually shed tears every time Carrie Fisher makes a screen appearance.
what, they cain't say no???
I would pick "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) and dedicate it to my granddad. It is one of his favorite old movies of all time, and he and I always have a lot of fun watching "old" movies together whenever I visit him and my nonna (Italian for grandmother). A couple years ago, he gave me his own personal copy of the "It's a Wonderful Life" companion book. It has the complete script of the film, as well as some photos and behind the scenes information. It is something I will treasure always. Honestly, Jimmy Stewart will always remind me of my grandfather, because he is one of his favorite actors.
Cary Grant & Jean Simmons in "The Grass is Greener"


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myscience.ch › news › news 2021 › Rare earth elements in wastewater
Rare earth elements in wastewater - 11.3.21
Rare earth elements in wastewater
11 March 2021 - Deutsch - Français
Rare earth elements such as cerium (Ce) and gadolinium (Gd) occur naturally, but are also used increasingly in industry and hospitals. The rare earth elements enter wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) via wastewater. A large part of the cerium is separated in the sewage sludge. However, almost no gadolinium is retained in the WWTP; it flows into the aquatic environment with the treated wastewater. (Graphic; Ralf Kägi, Eawag)
Rare earth metals such as cerium and gadolinium are increasingly entering wastewater from industry, but also from hospitals. This is shown by Eawag's investigations at 63 wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland.
Today, almost nothing works without rare earth metals. There would be no smartphones, flat screens, LED lamps, rechargeable batteries, electric motors and many other electronic devices. In the high-tech industry, for example in the automotive, electronics and energy sectors and in medicine, it is impossible to imagine life without these valuable raw materials. It is therefore of increasing interest to know where these rare earth metals disappear to after use.
On behalf of the Federal Office of the Environment FOEN, the aquatic research institute Eawag has now for the first time taken a closer look at rare earth elements in Swiss wastewater. A team of researchers from the two departments of Process Engineering and Water Resources and Drinking Water investigated the sewage sludge from 63 Swiss wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The most important thing first is that rare earth metals, which are used in industry and hospitals, often end up in wastewater.
The challenge: Distinguishing between natural and human sources
First, the research team estimated what proportion of the rare earth metals came from natural sources. This is the only way to assess what proportion is added by humans. To do this, the researchers analysed soil samples from Switzerland, taking into account the PAAS values (post-Achaean Australian shales), which reflect the average composition of rare earth elements in the earth's crust. This is how they obtained the naturally occurring composition of the rare earth elements in Switzerland - the background measurement. In addition, the research team developed two new methods to deduce the proportions from industrial sources from the concentrations measured in the wastewater and the natural sample.
The findings: in the sewage sludge of most WWTPs, the concentrations of rare earth elements found correspond to the natural background measurement. However, in a few WWTPs, particularly those of Yverdon, Bioggio, Hofen and Thal, the concentrations of individual rare earth metals were significantly higher. The research team concluded that rare earth metals are not used on a large scale, but come from highly-specialised applications in industry.
The highest concentrations were found for the rare earth cerium. Cerium is often used as an abrasive in industry. Extrapolated for Switzerland, more than 4,000 kilograms of cerium reach the WWTPs every year, around half of which comes from industrial applications. A very large proportion of this remains in the sewage sludge, around 95 percent. The rest ends up in the environment. The researchers therefore assume that elevated cerium concentrations will also be found in lakes, rivers and groundwater in the near future.
Gadolinium is a special case. Elevated concentrations were already detected in water bodies in Europe 20 years ago. The source was assumed to be the wastewater from hospitals. In the current Eawag study, the researchers found around 80 percent of the total gadolinium content originating from industrial sources in the Ramsen WWTP near Lake Constance on the German-Swiss border. The WWTP treats wastewater from the town of Singen in Germany, where a cancer centre with MRI facilities is located. The region is also home to industries that produce large quantities of gadolinium-based contrast agents. The findings therefore confirm the previous assumption that the gadolinium found in sewage sludge can be traced back to the production and use of contrast agents. Appropriate measures to reduce the input of industrial gadolinium into wastewater by industry have already been taken and will lead to a significant reduction in the gadolinium load.
Unlike the other rare earth elements, the concentration of lanthanum is elevated in the sewage sludge of all WWTPs investigated. One possible cause could be biological processes that alter the retention of lanthanum in sewage sludge. Another explanation could be the use of lanthanum-enriched fertilisers in agriculture. However, the extent to which biological processes or fertilisers are responsible for the increased values needs to be investigated in more detail.
Ralf Kaegi, Alexander Gogos, Andreas Voegelin, Stephan J. Hug, Lenny H.E. Winkel, Andreas M. Buser, Michael Berg: Quantification of individual Rare Earth Elements from industrial sources in sewage sludge. Water Research X.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wroa.2021.100092
EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
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text:
Q: vim wildmenu: move into subdirectory with a different key than  This has been bothering me for quite a long time. I like to use wildmenu for browsing directories in command mode. The problem is that for entering into subdirectory I need to use <down> key which is always out of reach. I tried to make some mapping to overcome this issue but without success. For instance:
cnoremap <C-j> <DOWN>

But if I press <C-j> when I want to enter a subdirectory in wildmenu, the menu disappears and ^I occurs at the end of the command line. Any idea how to solve this?

A: Christian Brabandt came up with a different solution on vim_dev: For your original mapping to work, you need to set 'wildcharm' to the same value as 'wildchar':
:let &wildcharm = &wildchar
:cnoremap <C-j> <DOWN>

A: I can reproduce this. It looks like command-line mappings (same with <Tab>, not just <Down>) aren't interpreted in wildmenu mode, and instead exit it and insert the 'wildchar' literally. You can report this to the vim_dev mailing list. I think additionally a wildmenuvisible() function analog to the pumvisible() would be needed, so that mappings could behave differently depending on whether the wildmenu is currently active.
You can work around the issue with feedkeys(), though:
function! EnterSubdir()
    call feedkeys("\<Down>", 't')
    return ''
endfunction
cnoremap <expr> <C-j> EnterSubdir()

A: This was probably a bug which was fixed by the Vim patch 8.2.2221.


text:
Q: benchmark to run against normal server and vmware we are switching over to vmware for our server.  I want to make sure no performance is lost.  What type of benchmark can I run on the old server and the new vmware server to determine performance?

A: You should use a benchmark that fits your server usage. If it is a mailserver you should benchmark mail delivery. If its a fileserver you should benchmark io. If you use it for computations you should run one of those.
IMHO you will loose performance if your vmware server does not have more power...
If you want to have fun, try bonnie++.

A: As Wienczny states on like-for-like hardware you will lose some performance, depending on version of VMWare and usage type - should be between 5% and 20% unless it's VERY IO-bound.