Scuttlebut on the Egyptian Crisis:
For the last week since the Egypt crisis erupted, I have been in Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks, for the most part, attending lectures at Valey Beth Shalom, and meeting with L.A. friends and family, Israelis and American Jews for the most part.
My ear was glued to NPR and the Aleph/list comments.
This morning as I returned from the airport in Montreal, I asked the cab driver what he thought about the crisis in Egypt. He answered thoughtfully that it's not easy to deal with eighty million people. He shared that he himself was Lebanese and he thought perhaps the Arab league should be getting involved.
Then he shared about the obscene building that is going on in Dubai, Quatar and other Arab capitals. One of fhese capitals has been awarded the FIFA games and is building a stadium where the open air temperature in the middle of summer will be 26 degrees and you can imagine the millions and the amount of oil required to achieve this.
I was thinking of the article by Jeffrey Simpson, a columnist for the Globe and Mail, which I was reading on the flight between Toronto and Montreal.
Jeffrey Simpson
No democratic tradition, no bright future
He reviews the political situation and then brings these additional facts." ...While most of Asia soars, and parts of Latin America rise, the Arab world stagnates by any economic, social or political measure, as United Nations reports done by Arab experts continue to document.
Egypt’s youth unemployment rate stands at about 25 per cent. Put it another way: Sixty per cent of the country’s total unemployed are under 30. It’s the same dangerous portrait for the entire Arab world, where youth unemployment ranges from 15 per cent in Morocco to 45 per cent in Algeria, according to the UN Human Development Reports on the Arab world.
The latest report, issued last year, showed that Egypt had a poverty rate of 40 per cent, with poverty defined as income of $3 a day. To ease the pain, the Mubarak government sinks massive amounts into subsidizing bread prices, just as it plows huge sums into the military, whose role in the unfolding of events will be crucial. The country’s budget, therefore, is doubly distended to keep social peace and the regime in power.
Egypt’s population has almost doubled since 1980, to 80 million people, although the population growth rate fell throughout the period. But the economy couldn’t produce enough benefits to lift people from poverty with that kind of population surge. Unlike some other Arab states, Egypt couldn’t cover its economic lethargy with oil revenue.
Nor could government services keep pace. Thirty per cent of Egyptians lack proper sanitation services. The illiteracy rate is shockingly high. The country’s infrastructure is lacking in almost everything. All the regime’s self-congratulations can’t hide these doleful realities, but then the same observations could be made about many Arab countries...:
Interestingly this morning as I return and am unpacking, I listen to an Iranian Professor, Abbas Milani, Stanford University who has just written a book on the Shah and the whole history of his rule and his downfall and the American responses at the time on CBC radio
Friday February 4, 2011
Iran 1979, Egypt 2011? Abbas Milani on Q
After the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, a euphoria swept over the country. Sadly it was short-lived. In hindsight, for enemies and critics of the current theocracy, deposing the Shah has become a case of "be careful what you wish for."The parallels between Iran then and Egypt today are eerie and beg the question: is Egypt facing a similar fate? Will the government that replaces Mubarak one day make Egyptians nostalgic for the old regime?
Today on Q we spoke with Abbas Milani, author of "The Shah." His new book is the most comprehensive record to date on the rise and fall of the late, deposed king of Iran.
Take a listen to the interview, below, and let us know what you think on the Q Blog.
Here is the podcast of the interview with Prof. Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. He has some interesting insights on the behavior of the Shah, the psychology of the Shah, and the failure of the American regime to understand what was going on at the time in surprising ways.
By the way Prof. Milani was himself imprisoned by the Shah but gives a very dispassionate and historically insightful review of this period and how the ball was dropped in terms of US influence in Iran. Who knew how weak the Shah was, and how he was straddling both sides of the ideological fence, both banning the books of Khomeini (So people were not able to know how power Khomeini was) and also supporting the Moslem clergy and the building mosques in Iran, unlike his father who had been a secularist.
But just to end on a more positive note I share an article by Irshad Manji on civil society in Gaza.
Earlier Discussion
Irshad Manji on democracy in the Arab world
Published Thursday, Feb. 03, 2011 11:52PM EST
Arab Awakening:a Light in the Palestinian Darkness:
Just a few lines from the article below:
"...Just before Tunisia and Egypt made headlines, an extraordinary statement issued forth from Gaza. Three women and five men – university students all – released a cyber plea for progress on behalf of young people, who make up 50 per cent of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.
The Gaza Youth’s Manifesto for Change begins by blasting Hamas, which “has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behavior and aspirations.” Then the dissidents scorn Israel, the United Nations and the United States. Finally, their fury turns to Fatah, the secular Palestinian political party that competes with Hamas for credibility and clout. “Politics is bollocks, it is screwing our lives up,” vents one of the manifesto’s drafters.
So what exactly do he and his fellow activists want? Says their statement: “We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?”
For the moment, it might be. They’ve posted the manifesto anonymously because, in Gaza, “you can be thrown in jail at any time.” And you’d be endangering more than yourself. Authorities “will threaten you with ruining your family reputation and that would be it.”...
Complicated situations in which we all share and which impact all of us...
