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THE ARAB DOMINOES DEFINED

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on February 3, 2011.

02/03/11-by L.S. Carbonell
As reported this morning, there are protests being planned across North Africa and the Middle East. Some of the countries where these democracy protests are being held are not well-known to Americans, while others are names we don’t really attach identities to.

The term “Muslim world” is usually applied to all majority Muslim nations from North Africa to the Far East. “The Arab World” is a term the West uses to describe the North African and Middle Eastern countries that were converted to Islam by the Armies of Mohammed 1500 years ago, the North African and Arabian medieval Caliphate. What they have in common, besides a religion that is as divided as 17th century Christianity, is a 1500 year history of invasion, conquest and occupation by each other and Europe. The tsunami of protest that is roiling across the region is directed at decades-old authoritarian regimes.

I had a wonderful friend named Barbara who was a British spy in North Africa in the late 1940′s, though she emphatically denied it, claiming she was nothing but a go-fer for a film unit making documentaries for the War Department. The one thing she stressed in discussing North Africa was the fact that though it is referred to as part of the Arab World, and is Muslim, the people aren’t Arabs. They are the descendants of the nomadic tribes who lived between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara, and descendants of the pre-Roman Egyptians who created one of the ancient world’s greatest civilizations. Americans aren’t really taught that in addition to the various rival sects of Islam, the region is filled with tribal and ethnic divisions. There really isn’t a “one size fits all” Arab World.

It is sometimes difficult for Americans to break out of the mental image of the British parliament and understand how other parliaments are constructed. We are accustomed to the idea that in a parliament, the party that wins the most seats controls the legislature, has their party leader installed as Prime Minister and appoints all the federal judges. It’s not quite that simple in the absence of a monarch. In some countries, there are both a president who is directly elected and a prime minister who may or may not be the head of the party. In Egypt, the prime minister is appointed by the president. In a constitutional monarchy, like Britain or Spain, the monarch is the “head of state” sort of the social face of the country, with little political power. In parliamentary systems without a monarch, the two roles of president and prime minister are harder to distinquish. Parliamentary systems are easily corrupted into single-party rule similar to communist states. This is what has happened in many of these North African and Middle Eastern countries where opposition parties are repressed, just without the economic aspects of communism.

In a region where more than half the population is under 30, the ages of North African leaders is as important as when they took office. All of these demonstrations are prompted by economic imbalances and entrenched ruling parties that have repressed opposition and prevented free and fair elections. Protests are already scheduled in the following countries:

Jordan: Protesters were not satisfied with the naming of a new Prime Minister and cabinet. They are calling for a completely new government, not retreads from the past. King Abdullah is meeting with opposition leaders to work out a compromise for a transition to new representative districts and open elecitons. See previous articles for details about Jordan.

Yemen: Over 20,000 people assembled in the capital city of Sanaa Thursday. Parliamentary Republic. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, 68, inaugurated 1990, Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Mujawar, 57, inaugurated 2007. Its position at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, on the Red Sea side, has made Yemen a strategically important shipping center for traffic moving through the Suez Canal and for shipments of oil out of Saudi Arabia. Liberated in 1918-19 from Ottoman rule, Yemen was led by Iman Yahya ibn Muhammed from 1904 to 1948 and his son Imam Ahmed until 1962. Southern Yemen (the area that controls the shipping) was liberated from the British in 1967, became a Marxist state and set off a 23-year conflict as millions of South Yemeni fled north. The two countries were united in 1990. Regional tribal rivalries set off another civil and separatist war which was settled in 1994 with a new constitution. Yemen was the site of the attack on the USS Cole. Currently home of a very active al Qaeda unit which makes the prospect of a failed government in Yemen very worrying for Europe and America. America provides aid, but only limited training troops in fight against terrorists. Population: 23.8 million.

Syria: Demonstrations scheduled to begin Friday morning in Damascus. Military-lead republic, de facto monarchy. President Bashar al-Assad, 45, assumed the leadership from his late father in 2000 who had ruled since 1971. Syria lies northeast of Israel, with whom they have a long-running dispute over the mountainous region known as the Golan Heights. The government is Alawite-minority-controlled with only the pan-Arab Baath Party legally recognized. It is the same pan-Arab, nominally socialist party of Saddam Hussein. Syria is a haven for Hezbollah terrorists. Once hoped to be chance for reform and elimination of terrorist havens, Assad has proven himself to be Daddy-light. Syria’s government has held itself together through the strategy of a “common enemy” – make everyone too afraid of Israel to question the way the minority government runs their lives. The principal motivation behind the demonstrations is the fact that the minority is ruling with no protections for the rights of the majority. Population: 20.2 million.

Algeria: Protests scheduled for February 12. Parliamentary Republic. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 73, inaugurated Apr. 27, 1999. Algeria’s Mediterranean coast is only slightly larger than Egypt’s, directly south of eastern Spain and France, but the interior makes it one of Africa’s largest countries. That interior is mostly Sahara desert. Parliament in 2008 amended constitution to remove presidential term limits, paving way for Bouteflika to assume “president for life” status. Former French colony. Home of the original Islamic terrorists who attacked France in the 1960′s. Islamic parties are illegal. Crackdowns on Islamic parties and terrorists have jailed thousands. Small demonstrations were held just after the Tunisian protests. Population: 34.2 million.

Bahrain: Protests scheduled for February 14. Constitutional monarchy. King Hamad bin Isa al-Kalifa, 60, styled as emir in 1999, declared himself king in 2002. Prime Minister Kalifa bin Sulman al-Kalifa, 75,inaugurated in 1970. Tiny island off the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Think of Bahrain as an off-shore oil platform with dirt. A British protectorate from 1861 to 1971, when it became independent, in both the monarchy and the government it is the private fiefdom of the Kalifa family. Natural gas production has increased as oil production has fallen off since the 1970′s. Like Saudi Arabia, most decent jobs are held by the monarch’s family or foreigners. The Prime Minister has called a meeting with any and all opposition party leaders, hopefully to negotiate new, free and fair elections. Population: 728,000.

Libya: Protests scheduled for February 17. Islamic Arabic Socialist “Mass-State” – fancy name, little relevancy to reality. Col. Mu’ammar al-Qadhdāfī. 68, has been in power since 1969. Jury still out on whether he is extremely eccentric or certifiably nuts. Either way, very unstable leader. Has funded and supported Islamic terrorists. Broke away from the Arab League to position self for leadership position in African Union, whose members were unimpressed. Modeled life on Berber sheiks, complete with palace tent, multiple wives and numerous sons. Younger son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is western educated, has lived in Europe and has been trying to start a renovation of the Libyan economy to bring it into the 21st century when he isn’t getting in trouble for his addiction to night clubs. Col. Qadhdāfī has yet to name a specific successor, but plans to establish a de facto monarchy by passing the leadership to one of his sons. Capital is Tripoli (Tarabulus), as in The Treaty of Tripoli and “the shores of Tripoli” which ended up in the Marine Corps Hymn because Tripoli was the 18th century Somali. Population: 6.3 million.

Sudan: No specific dates for protests scheduled, but organization is on-going. Volatile is an understatement. The largest country in Africa. The north is a nominal Islamic military-run republic headed by President General Omar Hassan Ahman Al-Bashir, 66., in office since 1989. The center is Dafur which has been a long-time battle ground between the government and rebel forces. The south has just voted 99 to 1 to create a new nation. The government is held responsible by the international community for the genocide and starvation tactics that have made Darfur a humanity crisis, and the Dafur rebellion and separatist movement in the south have brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Demonstrations were held last week in the capital of Khartoum. Population: 41million temporarily.

These are the countries that are currently facing the prospect of Tunisian-style protests, the regimes that need to reform or be toppled.

There has been concern in America about the impact on our oil prices of this roiling tsunami of protest in the region that controls so much of the world’s oil. Oil prices have already risen without any real disruption of the flow of oil. Now is the time for the Republicans to put aside their partisan politics and listen to the President. Revoking the billions of dollars of subsidies we give to oil companies, most of which are only nominally American, which barely pay American taxes, and using that money to fund immediate development of alternative energy sources is the best thing America can do. We are probably looking at a decade or more of political instability in the Middle East. We do not need to be bankrupted as collateral damage.

Going totally tangential here…..I once promised Barbara that I would keep her stories alive. Here goes: Her British War Department film company was staying in a hotel on a strip of beach between the Mediterranean and the Algerian highlands. When the crew decided to go inland to Bedouin and Taureg territory, it was deemed too dangerous a mission for a woman, so Barbara was left behind. One morning she answered her door to a pair of very distinguished-looking men who were there to issue an invitation from the sheik who lived on the headlands to his annual horse racing meet, sort of an Algerian Ascot. It seems that in addition to a palatial villa and a string of magnificent Arabian horses, the sheik owned a telescope and had been watching Barbara bathing in the sea. Think Omar Sharif in Hidalgo and you’ve got a fair idea of the week Barbara, the tiny Jewish girl from London, spent in Algeria.