Yes, yes, I know I’ve been awfully quiet. Major events happened recently, and I haven’t blogged about them here (mainly because I’ve been busy tweeting about them instead).
Damn, so where shall I start?
As you can recall, I was mightily pissed off a few months back when Biden refused to acknowledge that Mubarak was a dictator, and the Obama administration reacted to the Egyptian uprising in one hell of a confused and disappointing way.
Eventually, we began noticing the shift in Obama’s US foreign policy towards the region, which went from a rather one-size fits all “yay let’s support these dictators for the sake of stability” to “let’s actively support democracy where we can and avoid doing so in the case of regimes we can’t afford to ditch.”
Things have gotten better in some ways, but not in regards to others.
For years, after 9/11, some enlightened right-wing American pundits (in many ways similar to today’s Fox-Beck-Palin-Limbaugh fans and lovers), have offered a simplistic answer to the question:
“Why Do They Hate Us?”
And by “they,” they pretty much meant anti-US Arabs and Muslims lumped together with the 9/11 terrorists.
So what was the simplistic answer these genius pundits, and their like-minded friends, offered? Well, it was usually one of two brilliant assessments: “they hate us because of our freedoms” or “Islam!”
With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaching, and the United States’ wonderful reaction to the uprising in Egypt, it would be wise for all of us, global citizens who believe in cooperation, to revisit such assessments, demolish them, and replace them with ones that are actually grounded in facts and reality, and that more Americans must learn about.
And we need to do it in light of statements like this from influential people high up in the US government, in this case, from Vice President Joe Biden himself.
Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”
Yup. Joe Biden refuses to refer to Mubarak as a dictator, and it’s not a surprise. His stance represents the overall and general position of the United States’ decades-long foreign policy towards the Arab world.
For years, America has supported many (but not all) oppressive and brutal Arab dictators, preferring to secure its regional geopolitical interests (and those of Israel’s of course) over the freedom and liberty of the Arab citizens it helps oppress.
In recent days, nothing symbolically captured this fact as powerfully as the numerous pictures spreading on the Internet of Egyptian demonstrators holding up tear gas canisters labeled with “Made in U.S.A.”
Such images provoke a real sense of outrage as they should.
That’s why they, the protesters - the overwhelming majority of whom are not members of the Muslim Brotherhood - dislike you, and in some cases, hate you dear America. That’s why they’re outraged, and it is this kind of outrage that fuels the widespread anti-US sentiments in the Arab and Muslim worlds, which then groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamists exploit for their own gains and destructive ideological goals.
Now, speaking of Al-Qaeda, let us be crystal clear about something important.
If starting tomorrow, the United States stopped supporting the Israeli occupation and brutal Arab dictators, withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan and basically stopped interfering and causing problems in Muslim countries, we would still end up with very tiny, albeit dangerous globally scattered groups, of radical militant Muslim fanatics motivated primarily by their wicked theology, and who hate America for her freedoms and her values. However, we must recognize that they will have a much harder time recruiting Muslims and radicalizing them.
Still, such groups must be combated everywhere and mercilessly crushed, which brings us to some critical distinctions that we must not fail to make.
Anti-Americanism in the Arab and Muslim worlds is neither uniform nor of the same type as too many right-wing American pundits make it seem.
The kind espoused by violent jihadist groups is far, far from anything like the much milder version you would find espoused by most Arabs and Muslims, and which is primarily caused and aggravated by various injustices of US foreign policy. Not theological reasons.
These are the sort of people who enjoy consuming American pop culture - music, movies, brands, products, etc., and would love to study and maybe even live in the United States, but revile the American political establishment, just as many strongly leftist Americans themselves do. One actually doubts if such sentiments qualify to be labeled “anti-US.”
But then we have various Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and their form of anti-Americanism, which isn’t as strong as Al-Qaeda’s, but is nonetheless troublesome, and not just for the United States, but also for every Arab and Muslim throughout the world who believes in human rights, freedom and liberty, and democracy.
It’s these guys who make things tricky, and whom Tunisians, Egyptians and all democracy-supporting Arabs need to watch out for.
After all, look at what happened in Sudan after we had our own popular uprising against the military dictatorship of Nimeiri in 1985. Here’s an old video featuring the action:
The gains of the uprising were squandered. Merely a few years later, the Islamists took power in a coup and brought us to our miserable situation today.
The gains of the Tunisian people must not be squandered. Islamists must be encouraged to give up their theocractic tendencies and to participate in the democratic process, but more importantly to uphold democratic principles and human rights.
How that can happen is a task for Tunisia to figure out and work on, and for the military to hopefully enforce. They might want to use this video in their efforts.
As for Egypt, there seems to be a wide consensus that the Egyptian military has very low tolerance for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is good news.
Ultimately, it seems like the status-quo might be beginning to crumble. Moreover, the American people now have a unique opportunity to pressure their government to do the right thing and to stand on the side of Arabs demanding their rights.
And even if Tunisians and Egyptians still haven’t figured out exactly who’s going to lead them or how, it shouldn’t stop us from supporting them.
Post-communist Eastern Europe didn’t have everything figured out. Post-apartheid South Africa didn’t have everything figured out. And post-dictatorship Tunisia doesn’t have everything figured out either, but they’re all better off. And while the possibility of Tunisian Islamists resurfacing is quite a worrisome one, it shouldn’t scare us or stop us.
Whatever happens, we, global citizens and netizens, Arabs, Muslims, Americans, and people everywhere, East and West, who believe in human rights and democracy, need to work together towards goals that are in our common interests, and that serve a higher purpose regardless of how idealistic or impossible this might seem.
Whoever could have predicted the overthrow of an “impossible” dictator like Ben Ali?
Tunisians have made the seemingly impossible, possible, and in this age of social media and the 24/7 news cycle, we all got to see it, and as a result, have become inspired by it.
So again, let’s work together, and do what we can.
Lastly, allow me to leave you with these two tweets from @Gsquare86.
PS: If you enjoyed reading this article, and support its premise, please share it on Facebook, and Twitter, and follow my Twitter handle @SudaneseThinker
The Iranian protests of 2009. WikiLeaks. And nowthe unrest in Tunisia. It doesn’t take a genius to observe the very different ways the US government has reacted and is currently reacting to those events as part of its internet freedom policy, one which is pretty much part of its foreign policy.
If we as a nation truly believed in Internet freedom, then we would focus not only on those countries that might benefit us (a free Iran, a capitalist China) but on all of those nations where citizens are restricted from speaking out. We would loosen the export controls on Syria–not just Iran–to allow Syrian citizens access to communications and circumvention tools, and we would give our ally Tunisia–secular, egalitarian Tunisia–incentive to stop oppressing its citizens.
Although, as Brian Whitwalker observes, it might not be such a bad thing that Tunisia isn’t getting much attention from the United States and its media.
Now, on a related note, sadly, it looks like Tunisian activist and blogger, Slim Amamou, whom I personally know and had the pleasure of meeting in Beirut and chilling with, has been arrested by the Tunisian authorities for the horrible evil crime of peacefully expressing his views and advocating for freedom of speech.
On another related note, good luck to Jake, aka Jacob Appelbaum, billed in this hyperbolic Rolling Stones blog post as “the Most Dangerous Man in Cyberspace: The American Behind Wikileaks.”
Appelbaum is the public face of Tor Project, an organization that, by introducing intermediaries between computers, is used to prevent some of the world’s most repressive regimes from tracking activists’ movements online. Dissidents from China, Tunisia and a suspected high-level member of the Iranian military have used it to protect their identities.
While Appelbaum’s work for Tor has been substantial, more notorious is his extensive work for Wikileaks. “Jake has been a tireless promoter behind the scenes of our cause,” founder Julian Assange said.
I’ve had the fortune of being trained by Jake on how to properly use Tor and other anti-censorship and anonymity tools, twice so far at two separate events, and I certainly hope he can endure the crap he’s been facinglately.
The next days and weeks are going to be interesting for sure, especially as the US Department of Justice builds up its case against Assange, and the unrest hopefully continues in Tunisia and produces some fruitful results. Until then, many questions will remain unanswered, but one thing is for sure. America’s “Net Freedom” policy needs some serious uniformity.
UPDATE: It’s official. Dictator Ben Ali is bye bye. What a glorious, historic moment. What an inspiration. What a beautiful scene.
Like many others, I’ve been following the news closely, and while I am excited about the future prospects of something similar happening in other Arab countries, I remain cautious, because Tunisia is quite a unique case. Also, while social media played a significant role in what happened, it’s only a single factor amongst others, and it can’t take all the credit, or even most of it, as Ethan Zuckerman has explained.
Whatever happens after this, remains to be seen, but I do predict one thing. Governments in the region are going to start thinking about ways of controlling the internet more effectively to preempt any similar developments from taking place within their countries. Good luck to us netizens and bloggers.
Happy holidays and have a kick-ass wonderful new year everyone. I’m super pumped up about 2011, and I hope you are too. 2010 was big in terms of news. (Which year isn’t?)
We’ve learned that George W. Bush doesn’t feel bad about waterboarding, but instead mourned the terrible, terrible moment when Kanye West pretty much implied that he’s a racist bitch. Boohoo, how mean of Kanye West to say that!
We’ve also learned that President Obama enjoys talking about his big audacious goals and getting everyone excited more than actually implementing them. Still, I prefer Obama, even though I have mixed feelings about how he, as Sandmonkey highlighted, has pretty much sold out on democracy promotion in favor of regional stability.
If anything though, this whole WikiLeaks affair has probably been the biggest and most mind boggling thing ever. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an issue that has confused Americans as much as this one.
Julian Assange is a terrorist! Assassinate that dog! Julian Assange is a hero! Yes, Michael Moore, help pay for his bail!
Jeez. In order to get down to the bottom of this topic, I think people need to answer one main question. Can WikiLeaks be categorized as a media entity in this new internet age we live? If your answer is yes, then we need to admit that we’re witnessing some potentially dangerous precedents.
Here’s the thing. What makes WikiLeaks different from other media entities around the world that have stances which annoy certain regimes?
For instance, what will prevent the Chinese or American governments from targeting and pressuring media organizations and people they hate by using tactics such as denying them access to financial services?
See what I mean? Do you see where this is going?
2011 is going to be a fun year for Internet Freedom.
In light of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque circus, and wave of hatred and bigotry that the beloved Robert Spencer and his deluded sick-minded sidekick, Pamella Geller helped start, I am officially linking to what I think is one of the best responses so far to this retardedness.
Also, kudos to Charles Johnson over at LGF for his outspoken rightful opposition to this whole “Ground-Zero Mosque” business, and to the big stinking pile of shit the GOP has sadly become in the last year.
What a shame. Aren’t there any decent prominent Republican politicians anymore? Seriously, what a shame. What we now have instead is people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and the increasingly entertaining Glenn Beck shaping the conversation on the right.
Now on a not-so-related note, I’ve also officially had it with Israel’s policies thanks to its wonderful right-wing government under the leadership of Netanyahu and the ongoing despicable blockade of Gaza.
Heck, screw Arab opinion of the situation. One only needs to check the sentiments on the Israeli left to start getting a decent grasp of the Israeli government’s worsening stances.
Oh, and about those potential peace talks, gosh, I’m sooo optimistic.
Enough said for now.
Peace, Ramadan Kareem, and Happy Eid in advance, but just be sure that you celebrate it in October, and not September. Wait, no. October might be too close, how about January next year?
And FYI, commenting on this post is disabled. We’re taking the party over to Sudanese Optimist’s side here instead.
That’s it. Enough of this shit. I’m not going to remain patient about it anymore. How much longer do I have to wait, lovely US State Department? Huh, HOW MUCH LONGER?!
For the first time ever, I am actually getting a taste of the nasty ordeals some friends have described to me in dealing with US Embassies or attempting to travel to America.
Given that I’ve only had the best experiences when traveling to the United States, and I’m used to receiving my visa within TWO WEEKS ONLY, I used to brush aside my friends’ complaints as isolated incidents.
I applied on the 26th of January for my damn visa. 26th of JANUARY! Isn’t there like maximum waiting period of 60 days until you hear back or something? Apparently not.
Listen US State Department, I understand you have to do your security checks. Fine. I understand that sometimes the number of applications peaks and it takes time to sort things out. No problem. What I cannot and will not understand is how you keep people waiting indefinitely. That’s just complete and utter bullshit. At least give me a deadline damn it!
The meetings I had to go for. Delayed. The conference I was supposed to attend. Bye bye. Visiting my brother in Chicago. Whops, ain’t gonna happen. Traveling in California to meet friends who would have included some GlobalVoices folks. Sorry, forget it.
Since President Obama scolded the agencies for overlooking warning flags against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian charged with trying to blow up an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, the checks have been reinforced and the lists have grown. With that comes a higher likelihood of “administrative processing” for visa applicants whose names may resemble those of terrorist suspects but who are “guilty” of nothing more than having Muslim parents.
… Said Mahrane, a French national born in Algeria and brought up in France, applied for a journalist’s visa to accompany President Nicolas Sarkozy to Washington this week as a correspondent for the weekly newsmagazine Le Point. His colleagues from other publications — with traditional French names — got their visas in a couple of days. But Mahrane’s never came through.
… Mami said at first he reasoned that the delay would not be a problem because orientation classes at Berkeley were to begin March 22. But when the visa had still not arrived by Feb. 15, he sent a registered letter to the embassy inquiring about the delay. The next day, a woman called and said such delays were common and could last weeks or even months, he said.
Muhammad, Jesus, Marry and Joseph! Weeks or even months? Are you freaking kidding me?
Thank you Washington Post for writing about this! Let’s hope somebody is listening, and is going to do something about it.
UPDATE: So, today, exactly one day after publishing this post, I received a call from the US Embassy informing me that I need to come and collect my visa. Coincidence?
Naaa, somebody in the White House probably read my post, asked the CIA to investigate my real identity, and then called up the US State Department and scolded them for keeping the one and only Drima waiting this long.
Blog Power baby! Right.
Pffffffffffft, okay, finally! At last, phew! I have my damn US visa. Next time if I have to travel, I am going to be sure to apply like two or three months in advance!
The honorable Drima looks forward to blessing the United States with his arrival soon. There better be red carpets waiting at the airport.
Let’s face it. Claiming that Jews control the US government is utter nonsense. They don’t. They do however have very significant influence through AIPAC in regard to matters related to the state of Israel, which brings me to the shift that I haven’t been alone in noticing lately. It started with this, but now it’s progressed into this: [click to continue...]
Bailing shit out in 2009 helped save the financial system from collapsing in the United States, and thanks to globalization, elsewhere in the world.
Good, but also bad.
The American auto industry lives on, even the big portions of it which should have been allowed to fail, because you see, if America has been pretty damn good at anything, then it’s failing.
Heavy government regulation prevents that, and contributes to propping up inefficient business operations that end up wasting resources and killing real entrepreneurship.
Still, if America is to survive and flourish economically in this increasingly competitive world, there needs to be a balance and it must fail.
It must continue failing.
Failing forward.
Meanwhile, I leave you with Ayo’s sexy reggae tunes: Help Is Coming!
This email from a new accidental reader made my day!
Subject: Thanks for giving me hope
Hi There,
I somehow stumbled onto your blog tonight.
As an ignorant American who travels a lot on business, I started researching Islam during the “cartoon riots” several years ago, and was really shocked at what I found. Reading “The Islamist” by Ed Husain helped make sense of some of it, but the rest - women arrested over naming a teddy bear, the wars over who is practicing the “right” or “most holy” form of Islam, silencing of 800-yr old church bells in Sweden - Well, I began siding with the Geert Wilders of the world - Maybe Islam really can’t exist within the confines of a diplomatic society.
Your blog gives me hope that reason can win out, and that there’s a lot more to Islam that what we read in the papers. Thanks.
Peace,
KLS.
Yay, this is cool, and really encourages me to keep moving forward.
I know blog updates have significantly lessened in recent months and this will probably continue for a few more.
But sometimes, (as much as it sucks), you just need to slow down so you can speed up again, and right now a lot is happening behind the scenes that will bear fruit soon.
Meanwhile, it would be really nice to know what kind of positive impact this blog has had on you, if any. Please share your thoughts below.
Finally, looks like the annoying divisions within the US State Deparment on what to do about Sudan are bye bye. There will be more internal arguing to come for sure but this is a pretty good step.
Call me a genius, but long time readers will know that I’ve been calling out for a more balanced approach for a long time, very similar to the one being espoused by the new policy.
Maybe Obama’s people have been secretly reading this blog.
The Save Darfur Coalition’s idiotic promotion of military intervention has been dumb from the start. Same goes for the more recent proposed La La Land appeasement approach of new key Obama people.
However, both combined have produced something in the middle that I believe is much better than anything we’ve ever had before. Tough action and credible real threats are needed, but so are some carrots.
Because, as we can see with terrorism-related stuff, the NCP has been very cooperative in recent years, but that still didn’t get Sudan removed from the US State Department’s list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, which up until now made a lot of people within the NCP reluctant in pursuing further cooperation to resolve things in Darfur.
Anyways, for now, this is all lovely and wonderful, but it’s still ink on paper.
Following up on this is what’s needed, while making sure the whole execrise doesn’t deginrate into mere lame naive appeasement. Don’t think the latter will happen though, with people like John Prendergast keeping a watchful idea.
The suspects in the murder of John Granville, who worked for USAID, have been found guilty and sentenced to death.
KHARTOUM (AFP) – A Khartoum court condemned four Islamists to death on Wednesday for the 2008 killing of a US diplomat and his Sudanese driver, as the US embassy warned of possible retaliation over the verdict.
Judge Said Ahmed al-Badri sentenced the four to be hanged for the murders.
A fifth man, who had provided the other defendants with the weapon but did not take part in the murder, was sentenced to two years in prison.
… Federal Bureau of Investigation officers from the United States had helped to investigate the killings which sent shockwaves through the sizeable Western community in Khartoum, a city usually considered one of the safest in Africa.
Again, I must stress that when this murder occured, the vast majority of Sudanese were vocal in their condemnation. Nobody wants crimes like this to be come a trend, except for the jihadists types of course who are a tiny minority.
Here’s to justice being served in elsewhere.
*Cough* Darfur *cough, cough* … Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
Yours truly will update this post shortly with his reaction to the speech. Let’s just say I was pleased it didn’t excessively venture into La La Land territory, which is nice. Plus, many parts of it were surprisingly candid and straight forward.
Anyways, me will be back with more.
Meanwhile, you can dive in and drop your reaction. Good thing Mr. President mentioned Darfur once.
UPDATE: Been crazy busy, but had time to drop a quick comment here. If you’re curious about where Obama got some of his ideas for the speech especially in regards to which Quranic veses to use, then find out here. Meanwhile, me is keeping track of the situation in Iran.
Virtually all my Iranian friends (at least those who are not apathetic and who voted, the majority), are pretty pissed off at what happened, and rightly so. If one word can describe their fight both online and offline at protests, then it’s this.
Inspiring.
According to them, this time it’s different, and unlike any unrest before since the revolution took place. So, let’s see what happens, and how Obama will respond.
Here’s to hoping that filthy bitch called Ahmadinejad gets kicked out. While the lovely Mullahs and supreme leader will remain, it will still be a positive outcome.
You don’t usually come across such loud and candid public debates about Israel within the United States. Or well, at least I myself haven’t. This is certainly a first.
Throughout the debate I found myself agreeing most of the time with Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset.
Michael Scheuer, a former unit director at the CIA, came across as a bit of an angry nut. Disloyal American fifth column?
Erm, okay.
As for Alan Dershowitz, and especially the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold… well, they certainly cracked me up with some of their ludicrous statements.
Given the results of the debate, can we predict the gradual downfall of the notorious AIPAC, and the eventual rise of the better J-Street as a replacement?
Looks like it.
However, with American public opinion on Israel seemingly shifting towards the left, we can only expect more friction between the US and Israel as Israeli internal politics tilt towards the right.
March 24, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese government today acknowledged news reports that US air force conducted airstrikes against arm smugglers last January killing scores of people.
The Egyptian Al-Shurooq newspaper reported this week that US planes destroyed a convoy heading towards the borders carrying arms believed to be on its way to Gaza strip.
The report said that the convoy consisted of 17 trucks carrying 39 passengers that were all destroyed in the operation. None of the people on board the trucks survived the attack.
… The attack is believed to have occurred in a desert area in Northwest of Port Sudan city, near the Mount Al-Sha’anoon.
Okay, so America gets the blame in this one. But then a day later, another article pops up.
March 25, 2009 (WASHINGTON) — An airstrike that targeted a convoy of arm smugglers inside Sudan last January was launched by Israeli planes and not American ones, according to a US television network.
Now, Israel gets the blame in this one. So, who’s responsible? America or Israel? Ah, or as we like to say in Sudan, they’re both one and the same, except America is the body of the snake, and Israel is the head.
Joking aside though, where the hell did the weapons on the truck originate from? How did the US or Israeli air force know about them? Which group were the people on the trucks affiliated to? Who paid them to drive such a long distance? Why did it take two months for this news to surface?
Location: Deep, deep down the orgasmic rabbit hole of epistemology.
The Bio of Awesomeness: Fundamentalist Muslim, turned hippie Sufi and fan of science. Total blogging junkie since 2006. Social entrepreneur and digital media and marketing consultant. Proud Sudanese and cultural nomad. Author of upcoming book on Islam and new media. Pro-democracy guitar-strumming activist. Loud and drop dead gorgeous. Fan of integral theory and spiral dynamics. Sarcastic Afro-Arab goofy genius. The High Priest of Mischief. Welcome. You've Been Warned! ;)
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
