Structured Response- Jared

In your readings for Thursday, you're introduced to the concept of 'civil society' and a case study of Palestinian civil society. What is civil society? What role can it play, if any, in broadening the space for political participation? What does the Palestinian case tell you about the challenges that MENA civil societies face?

"Civil society" is a collection of organizations outside of both government and the private sector, for instance, NGOs, interest groups and INGOs, that form a basis to a functioning society and advocate an array of issues. Civil society, however, influences both the private sector and the government. For instance, an environmental NGO that advocates solar energy may lobby congressmen/women in the U.S., causing the government to enact strict regulations on fossil fuels. This in turn, may economically force the private sector to invest more in solar energy, as it may get too pricey to afford the strictly regulated fossil fuel business. Another role civil society can play deals with revolutions, change of governments, and a change of society. For example, the Arab Spring Revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia succeeded largely because much of civil society cooperated with each other against the despots that ruled their countries. If civil society is divided among issues, a revolution may not succeed and there could indeed be conflict. Also, certain elements within civil society may want to change the mind set of society, whether it be from a traditional religious society to a Secular and/or Liberal society (or vice versa) or changing a society that represses women to one that allows women full rights. The Palestinian cause shows that civil societies within MENA have a tough road ahead of them- the civil society movements that have stayed non-violent have often succeeded. Palestinian civil society seems to have gained much more ground when using nonviolent methods against Israel. Civil societies in MENA will not only need to gain international support, as they did when ousting Mubarak in 2011, but will need to continue to be as organized as possible and make sure not to use violent methods, which will only create an excuse for oppressors to use violence against innocents and will most likely lose their international support.

Structured Response- Jared

As we finish up the semester, Egypt is undergoing serious tensions in the aftermath of last year's revolt. Drawing on what you have learned this semester, how would you explain the current situation? What would need to happen for the opposition to be successful in pushing back on President Mursi's attempts to consolidate power?

Mohamad Morsi has caused quite a stir within Egyptian civil society by- and this may be oversimplifying a bit- attempting to surpass the reach of the Egyptian Judicial branch. This, in essence, would give the Muslim Brotherhood President near absolute power, an event secular and liberal Egyptians see as a repeat of Hosni Mubarak's reign. Thousands of Egyptians have now taken to the streets in protest, and some Egyptians on both the secular/liberal side and the Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood side have been injured/killed. As some of the reports say, some of the protestors have been yelling the same slogans, like “we will not leave, let him leave,” and the “people want to topple the regime.” 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-27/egypt-anti-mursi-protesters-test-president-and-opposition-unity.html

Interestingly, most, if not all of civil society will be unified if the country is run by an autocratic leader who has stayed in power for a long time. This was demonstrated during the Arab Spring when Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, Secularists and Liberals were largely protesting together against Hosni Mubarak's government. Mubarak's rule, like most other autocrats in the Middle East, hindered each of these groups by imprisonment, censorship, and more, creating an equal dislike of the Mubarak Regime between the two ideological groups. Unification of much of Egyptian civil society against Mubarak was what drastically and somewhat peacefully changed their government's direction/leaders. 

However, now that Mubarak is gone and that both Conservative Islamists within and outside of the Muslim Brotherhood have gained control of much of the Egyptian government, a lot of the Egyptian civil society (namely the part seeking to add more traditional Islamic values to the country) will not mobilize protests against the government. In fact, they are currently and will continue do the opposite, countering protests by the secular and/or liberal activists. I don't like to be a pessimist, but a possible scenario could be some sort of physical conflict between the groups, one much worse than the clashes between pro-mubarak protesters and the revolutionaries. This could potentially be due to the fact that both sides have been fighting for their ideology for decades, and would most likely not be willing to give up their fight so quickly. Hopefully they can come to a somewhat satisfying compromise, giving Morsi a little more flexibility, but still allowing checks by judicial review and having more liberals/secularists help draft a constitution (many Liberals left the constitutional drafting out of protest against being outnumbered by Islamists in the Constitutional committee). 

In addition, for the Egyptian opposition to push back Morsi's attempts at consolidating more power, the opposition will need, in my opinion, to use more social media and to keep having protests to get more "neutral" Egyptians aware of what is happening. They should try to create a campaign to show Islamists that Morsi's grab for power will not only hurt Liberals, but will indeed hurt them as well- this can be done by comparing Morsi to an equally hated leader, Mubarak. This comparison should be effective knowing that Mubarak equally oppressed both Islamists and Liberals alike. If the Liberals manage to turn even a few of the Islamists against Morsi, this would put immense pressure on Morsi and force him to make a compromise. 

Get Pumped.

so...we have the turn-in date for the final paper coming up and we have our presentations coming up.
It's going to be a stressful time, my fellow classmates.
Just remember the words of great IR mind, R.Kelly
"If I can see it then I can do it."
Cheers.

Reflection #10

Over Thanksgiving Break I returned to my small hometown on the Connecticut shoreline. It was great to see friends and family, but at the same time, it was a strange experience to be back with friends from high school who have almost no interest in international affairs and especially the current events in the Middle East. Both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the controversy in Egypt over Presidents Morsi’s power have been in the news a lot, but my friends back home had no idea what was going on when I tried to talk to them about the issues or get their opinions. I take for granted how great it is to be at a university where so many people are interested in the same things as me and love discussing them. I found it sad that many of my old friends didn’t know what was going on and frankly did not care. It was frustrating to try to talk with them because they brushed off the issues with little thought. Being back home made me realize how many Americans, both young and old, don’t understand many of the issues in the MENA region. It seems like I’ve been spoiled at American with so many informed and interested people, and forgot that everyone else isn’t the same. I look forward to class on Thursday so we can discuss the developments in the region since we last met! 

Reflection #10- Hanna

OOO Morsi is being a trouble-maker.
I am very interested to see if this development will turn the new thought process of Prof. Hardig's friends in Lebanon once again.
The French Revolution and the Cuban Revolution, both had these same outcomes. A democratic revolution leads to the voting in of a popularly supported leader. Then power is centralized to protect the revolution and they become dictators too!
If we have seen this in history before, than why is it happening again. Why do people believe this revolution to be any different? From the reaction of the people, I am hoping that this will be different and that the people will revolt again and assure that they will not stand for centralized power.
We can see this going down two paths- Cuba or France.
If it goes down the path of Cuba, Morsi will become just another dictator. Egypt will continue to oppressed, if not further.
If it goes down the path of France, Morsi will still become a dictator. The hope of this though, is that it will not last. The mantra, "If at first we don't succeed, try try again." is fitting to the mentality in Egypt. This revolution has not been a 100% success but most never have been. Try Try Again. If the people keep pushing for complete democracy, then they will eventually recieve it, even if it takes some time.

Reflection

After doing the structured response this week, I was looking for an article to reflect on and found one about Twitter and what is being said about the battle between Hamas and Israel. On both sides, military operations are being tweeted in almost real time. The Israeli military began ‘live-tweeting’ and blogging about its military operations and Hamas has responded with its own tweets. On Wednesday, Israeli’s posted video footage of the air strike that killed Ahmed al-Jabari. Rather than hosting a press conference following this event, Israel formally announced the launch of Gaza operation on Twitter. Instead of distributing leaflets warning Palestinian civilians to stay away from areas where militants are firing, the military issued its warning via twitter, stating “We recommend no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead." Just as our readings for this week discussed, the world of social media is changing operations in the Middle East. The presence of social media is not only effecting revolutions, it is also working its way into how the military operates.  

Structured Response

I think that while the revolts would have occurred with or without social media outlets, the existence of these outlets shaped the Arab revolts of 2011 and made them more successful. I think Khondker’s idea of “cyber-civil society” is one of the best examples of how social media influenced the revolts. Since creating strong civil society groups is one of the main factors we’ve explored in creating a successful revolution, it is important to note that social media cites make organization and the spread of information much easier and more widely accessible. It has the ability to take unstructured grassroots organizations and give them a means of operation. They can explicitly state their goal and spread their message to a wider range of people, which, in the end, is the main goal of any organization: to reach and gain the support of as many people as possible.  Just the ability to spread information quickly and to many people has changed the way revolts occur. The images of Khaled Said being beaten to death in Egypt sparked angry and shock which resulted in more organization. Events that spark widespread shock or anger can now be used to organize a more structured uprising. The want and need for revolution is present, but the use of Facebook and Twitter to further these goals makes the revolts much more powerful and successful.