U.S. presidential election (28): Hillary makes history
June 9th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Say what you like about Hillary Clinton – and she’s had an extraordinary amount of criticism (most of it undeserved) – but that woman has resilience.
Eight years after conceding defeat to Barack Obama at the end of one set of Democratic primaries and after a bruising further set of primaries in which Sanders has pressed her very hard indeed, she has become the first female presidential candidate of a major American party in the 240-year history of the republic. It is an incredible achievement.
I do so hope that she now trashes Trump and wins the presidency. This is a woman who has spent four years as Secretary of State and the world would be in safe hands. For a flavour of how she would exercise power, read my review of her State Department memoirs here.
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The Arab Spring (4): where and why did it fail?
June 9th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Last weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London.
Regimes fell in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen – but what about elsewhere?
In Syria, the civil war began in the spring of 2011. Since then, some 400,000 have died with many others injured and millions displaced in the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War. International pressure forced the regime to give up its chemical weapons but the west was otherwise not willing to become involved in the conflict. In this chaos, Islamic State was able to gain strength and eventually create a caliphate in eastern Syria and western Iraq. Meanwhile the Bashar al-Assad regime has been sustained in power by Hezbollah and Russia
Bahrain was the only Gulf state that had significant unrest and this was suppressed by external intervention as Saudi forces clamped down on the majority Shia population.
In Morocco, Jordan and Oman, the regimes were not as repressive and made some concessions. So Arab monarchies were seen as having more legitimacy and showing more flexibility.
In Algeria, memories of the civil war prevented major protests.
So why did the Arab Spring fail?
The diversity of the Arab world always made it unrealistic that there would be a common transition to liberal democracy. In any event, the common slogan of the protesters – “The people demand the end of the regime” – was not a cry for democracy but rather a protest against injustice and repression.
One of the reasons for the failure of the protests was the lack of an organised opposition. The exception was the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In so many Arab states, political repression was so total that there was no organised opposition ready to take over power. But the mosques were a focus for limited dissent and Islamist movements were better organised and able to offer an alternative to failed Western values.
In the one relative success story of the Arab Spring Tunisia, many of those in power had important positions in the old regime. As our lecturer put it: “You cannot start with a clean slate if you throw away the chalk as well”.
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The Arab Spring (3): where did regimes change?
June 8th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At the weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London.
Out of all the countries in the region and all the various protests that occurred, there were only four countries where regimes actually changed. In each case, a strong man at the head of the patrimonial state was overthrown. In these cases, state structures themselves were weak. All of these states were poor without the income enjoyed by other rentier states such as those in the Gulf.
In the first state to topple Tunisia, uniquely in the Arab revolutions trade unions were a significant force for change. The dictator of 24 years Ben Ali was forced to resign in a matter of weeks in January 2011. In the second half of 2011, successful elections were held. Although an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist party there was the most open to the plurality of opinion in the Arab world so, when it won the most seats but not a majority, it was willing to work with others to some extent. Since then, following a dramatic Nobel prize winning intervention by civic forces to keep democracy on track, a four party coalition led by a secular president has come to power. So only Tunisia has managed the transition to some kind of democratic government.
In Egypt, the strong man of 30 years Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign following mass demonstrations, most notably in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. In the elections that followed, Egyptians elected a Muslim Brotherhood government but the president Mohammad Morsi proved clumsy in relations with the opposition and the so-called deep state was working to undermine him. Following massive protests and a military intervention, the elected government was overthrown, so we now have a new dictatorship led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that is more repressive than the previous Mubarak regime.
In Libya, the revolution started in the east which was more marginalized politically and economically. In this case, western governments intervened to protect people besieged in Benghazi. Following the execution of Colonel Gaddafi who had been in power since 1969, the country descended into warlordism and chaos. There are now two different governments, one based in the west of the country (Tripoli) and the other in the east (Tobruk), with a new internationally-backed national unity administration trying to establish a measure of control. Islamist forces have now gained significant footholds throughout the country.
After 13 months of protest in Yemen, the corrupt dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down but subsequently there has been civil war between the northern-based Sunni (Al Qaeda and Islamic State) and the northern-based Shia (Houthi). Today the president is Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi who was elected unopposed in 2012 but he is simply clinging to power.
So, of the four countries that witnessed regime change as a result of the Arab Spring, only one – Tunisia – remains in any a sense a democracy and a fragile one at that.
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The Arab Spring (2): why did it happen?
June 7th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At the weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. Having discussed the naming of the events of early 2011, we went on to examine why the protests happened.
The main reason was frustration at the economic situation.
Arab states have had the lowest rates of economic growth in the developing world but they have experienced some of the highest rates of population growth. The Arab world has a democratic bulge with some 60% of the population under 30 (it is less than 40% in the UK). These young people, who are often more educated than their parents, are frequently unemployed and underemployed. As our lecturer put it: “This is the dry wood of revolution”.
The situation was different in the so-called rentier states which are those that derive income not from taxes but rent such as oil revenues. Except for Bahrain, the settled population in such states has been bought off by substantial social benefits and basic incomes. In Bahrain, however, a Sunni minority dominates a Shia majority and there was substantial protest which was suppressed by forces from Saudi Arabia.
Many of these regimes are patrimonial with the state defined by the person at the apex of lower. This person – the king or the dictator – dispenses wealth through relatives and favoured persons but, if the money runs out, his basis of power is eroded. In the run up to the Arab Spring, there had been declining public investment as a result of the the global recession.
Added to these economic factors, there was the psychological humiliation felt by the populace of so many Arab states. These set backs to the Arab world include the establishment of Israel, the victories of Israel in the various wars, the failure to found a Palestinian state, and the superiority of the west in its production of consumer goods and exercise of military power. These setbacks undermined the standing of the established regimes. More particularly, the invasion of Iraq could be seen as “the kicking of the Arab ant hill”.
Then an incident can serve as the spark that ignites the dry wood because these regimes are so very repressive. It all began in Tunisia on 17 December 2010 when street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set fire to himself after his cart was confiscated. The dictator of 24 years Ben Ali was forced to resign in a matter of weeks. The situation in Tunisia encouraged uprisings in adjacent Libya and Egypt.
Once the uprisings began, modern technology – mobile phones, the Internet and social media – enabled protesters everywhere to know more about what was happening both in their own country and in other countries and to be aware of successes and reprisals across the region. More than a third of the population had access to the Internet. Furthermore Qatar’s media outlet al Jazeera gave continuous coverage of the protests with graphic visual images. So the Internet and social media were major factors in the rapid spread of the protests.
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The Arab Spring (1): why was it called that?
June 6th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. It was a comprehensive day with handouts that mentioned 14 states across north Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and the Middle East with timelines for the initial protests of early 2011 up to the present day.
We began the day by discussing why the events have been called the Arab spring.
What is it that unites the Arab world? Above all, it is the Arabic language that is spoken throughout the region although with many different dialects. To large extent, it is the Islamic religion. However, there is the very important difference between Sunni and Shia streams of Islam which (unlike the schisms in the Christian world) are divided not so much by doctrinal differences but by differences in issues of legitimacy of succession and authority.
But, of course, all of the states in the Arab world have some ethnic minorities and Iran and Turkey – the most populous and powerful states historically – are not Arab.
Also there are profound economic and geographic differences. Large parts of the Arab world are sparsely populated because of the dessert terrain. The region is oil-rich but the most oil-rich are those states with the smallest populations. So there is a growing economic disparity between the oil-rich states and other states in the region.
Finally on this Arab appellation, it should be remembered that only a third of Arab states experienced significant unrest and only four states had actual regime change.
As for the use of the word ‘spring’, we were told that the many revolutions throughout Europe which began in February 1848 were the original use of the term ‘Spring’ as a portmanteau word for revolution. Those events were known as ‘the Spring of Nations’, ‘People’s Spring’ and ‘Springtime of the Peoples’.
There was an Arab Spring in 2005 with the assassination of the Lebanese prime minister. Responsibility for this was attributed to Syria and there were mass demonstrations against the presence of Syrian forces in the country that were forced to withdraw. This was called the Lebanese Spring.
Some describe the Arab Soring of 2011 it as the first act in the second Arab awakening – the first was at the end of the 19th century For their part, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was late to the revolution but used the term ‘awakening’ to refer to it.
Our lecturer insisted that, for all the use of this seasonal term, in political terms Summer does not necessarily follow Spring and he suggested that, in this case, one could argue that the hopes of Spring have been followed by the reality of Winter.
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A review of the Israeli film “Lemon Tree”
June 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I’ve only just caught up with this 2008 film in which almost all the dialogue is Arabic or Hebrew. If you can cope with sub-titles, this is worth seeing as a balanced and sensitive insight into elements of the Arab/Israeli conflict. You can read my review here.
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A review of the film version of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
June 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I enjoyed the television series in the mid 1960s when I was a teenager but I’m not sure that a new film version was needed. You can read my review here.
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A review of the remake of “The Jungle Book”
June 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
So many children’s films are so good these days you really have to have a child in the family or beg, buy or borrow one so that you can enjoy the fare. The latest splendour is the new version of “The Jungle Book” which I’ve reviewed here.
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Will the polls get it right on Britain’s EU referendum?
June 4th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I’ve blogged several times on the growing difficulties for accurate political polling [for one example, see here]. Indeed. for all sorts of methodological and behavioural reasons, I think finding out what consumers and citizens really think is becoming harder.
So I was interested in this article in the “Washington Post” by three academics which takes a careful and critical look at all the polling data so far in relation to the referendum on 23 June on UK membership of the European Union.
Their conclusion?
“What to make of these wildly different but highly informed and often methodologically sophisticated predictions is anyone’s guess. All the predictions agree on the favorite — Remain — but not on much else. A victory for Leave would thus upend the consensus expectations of pollsters, punters, pundits and political scientists. Just like the Conservatives’ victory did last year.”
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What is it like to be a practicing Muslim at Ramadan?
June 4th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
If you’re a practising Muslim, you’ll be preparing for the start of the month-long Ramadan which this year is expected to begin on Monday. If you’re not a Muslim, you probably have little idea what is involved.
This is because so much media coverage of Islam is about the small number of fundamentalists and not about the overwhelmingly majority who are not simply law-abiding but dedicated, devoted and disciplined.
Ramadan is always a challenge, since it involves abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, but this year it’s going to be one of the toughest in the 33- year cycle as explained in this article.
I am not a Muslim; I am not religious; but I follow the daily experience of one of my Muslim friends on her Facebook page and I see how hard, but how rewarding, it is.
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