US and its allies continue to try to limit democratisation, not help it along

You may have got the impression that Egyptians are on the road to their first democratic elections now. Unfortunately there’s no guarantee that that’s going to happen. In fact the army are still co-operating with the dictatorship to try to crush any resistance and any demands for a transition to power sharing with the opposition before elections. When the focus of most of the media shifted to Libya the Egyptian army took the opportunity to clear Tahrir Square by shooting into the air, beating protesters and tasering them (1). When Egyptian protesters raided an Interior Ministry building to get files on who had been involved in torture,  Suleiman and the army responded the next day by shooting above their heads to keep them out, while also employing the plain clothes thugs stabbing people, attacking them with machetes and iron bars and throwing bricks – the same tactics used by Mubarak in the past (2) – (4).

None of this stops the US military aid flowing or Cameron from continuing to arm the Egyptian dictatorship. The Obama administration have never once even verbally backed the protesters against the dictatorship in their demands for a transition to a National Unity government including the opposition parties.

The Egyptian SSI secret police and their Tunisian equivalent have formally been abolished by court order (5) – (6). There remains the possibility that they will turn up under a different name, just as they did in Iraq. Bush claimed that “the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever” in his speech on the capture of Saddam (7).Yet Iraqis still face US trained police commandos and “counter terrorism unit” death squads using the same methods as Saddam’s forces, including pulling out nails with pliers, rape and electrocution (8) – (10).

The democratically elected Iraqi government also initially had unarmed demonstrators shot dead by the dozen when they protested against it recently, just like the dictatorships have. The killings have not been on the same scale as in Egypt or Libya so far and shooting protesters seems to have stopped for now, but they show Iraq after “regime change” is far from fully democratic. The Iraqi government has also used the tactics of Mubarak and his successors – hiring civilian thugs or plain clothes police to attack anti-government protesters with beatings, knives and bricks (11 – (13). So Iraq as a lot further from real democracy than Blair or Bush or their blind disciples would have you believe.

In Bahrain the country’s own military and police and Saudi and UAE troops are targeting protesters and medical staff with live fire, snipers and helicopters – just the same as Gaddafi’s forces have done in Libya, but with no calls for the Emir of Bahrain or the King of Saudi to be tried by the International Criminal Court.

This underlines the fact that western governments oppose Gaddafi’s dictatorship in Libya for the same reason they opposed Saddam’s – it doesn’t give them the profits and military bases they want from it. Most of the governments who are against any kind of intervention in Libya have motives just as selfish. Italy gets over 30% of it’s energy from Libya. Russia and China are in talks with Gaddafi on replacing former British, American and French oil and arms contracts with ones for their own companies.

The Libyan rebels are in the sad position of having no-one but foreign governments and militaries to call on for assistance if they want to avoid defeat. For that reason I’m for giving them the assistance they ask for – but make no mistake, the governments calling for intervention are not doing so for democracy or to save lives – and their involvement in Libya would be a double edged sword for the majority of Libyans.

Even in Tunisia and Egypt it’s a long way from decided whether they’ll end up democracies or new dictatorships or one party states. We know that with Ben Ali’s RCD party disbanded by court order and Ben Ali’s former Prime Minister Mohammed Gannouchi having been forced to resign by further protests, the US and French governments are seeking to ensure that prominent members of the RCD are absorbed into a new “centrist” party in order to attempt to ensure some continuity with the previous system (14) – (16). So, while this brings Tunisa closer to democratisation than Egypt, as in Egypt with US backing for Mubarak’s appointed successor Suleiman, the Obama administration’s priority is not to support democratisation, but to limit it.

The best that can be said of this is that past transitions to democracy, like those in Spain and Portugal in the 1970s, show that partial transitions to democracy in which members of the previous regime retain some influence, are more likely to succeed as the previous regime have less motive to carry out a counter-coup.

 (1) = Reuters/Guardian 26 Feb 2011 ‘Protesters say Egypt military used force to disperse them’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/26/protesters-egypt-military-used-force

(2) = guardian.co.uk 07 Mar 2011 ‘Egyptians prise open secrets of Hosni Mubarak's state security headquarter’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/egypt-state-security-mubarak-cairo

(3) = Al Jazeera Egypt Live Blog 6 Mar 2011, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/middle-east/egypt-live-blog-march-6

(4) = AFP 15 Mar 2011 ‘Egypt minister disbands feared security police’, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110315/wl_afp/egyptpoliticsunrestsecurity_20110315164128 ; Protesters stormed several state security buildings early this month to retrieve files kept on the population by the powerful regime apparatus long accused of human rights abuses. In one incident, hundreds of protesters outside the state security headquarters in Cairo were attacked by armed civilians, as the army fired warning shots and used sticks to disperse the crowd, prompting Washington to voice its concern.

(5) = AFP 15 Mar 2011 ‘Egypt minister disbands feared security police’, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110315/wl_afp/egyptpoliticsunrestsecurity_20110315164128

(6) = guardian.co.uk 07 Mar 2011 ‘Tunisia dissolves secret police to meet key demand of protesters’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/tunisia-abolishes-secret-police-force

(7) = White House – Office of the Press Secretary 14 Dec 2003 ‘President Bush Addresses Nation on the Capture of Saddam Hussein’, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031214-3.html

(8) = New York Times Magazine 01 May 2005 ‘The Way of the Commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

(9) = Shane Bauer ‘Iraq’s new death squad’ in The Nation 6th June 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/bauer

(10) = Amnesty International World Report 2010 (covering 2009) – Country Report Iraq,http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=123 ;(once pdf loads, scroll down to page 125 (by PDF page number) or 178 (number marked on page); ‘Iraqi security forces committed gross human rights violations including extrajudicial executions, torture...and did so largely with impunity....Torture methods reported included beatings with cables and hosepipes, suspension by the limbs for long periods...electric shocks to the genitals...breaking of limbs, removal of toenails with pliers and piercing the body with drills. Some detainees were alleged to have been raped….In May inmates of the womens’ prison in al Kadhimiya told members of the parliament’s human rights committee that they had been raped while held in prison or detained elsewhere’

(11) = AP 25 Feb 2011 ‘12 killed as Iraqis protest in 'Day of Rage'’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

(12) = guardian.co.uk 04 Mar 2011 ‘Baghdad protesters converge on Liberation Square’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/04/baghdad-protesters-iraq-driving-ban ; Security forces around Iraq clashed with protesters last Friday in the country's most widespread and violent demonstrations since a wave of unrest began to spread across the Middle East. At least 14 people were killed

(13) = HRW 25 Feb 2011 ‘Iraq: Open Immediate Inquiry Into Protester Deaths’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/25/iraq-open-immediate-inquiry-protester-deaths

(14) = guardian.co.uk 09 Mar 2011 ‘Tunisia dissolves ousted president's party’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/09/tunisia-dissolves-ousted-presidents-party

(15) = guardian.co.uk 27 Feb 2011 ‘Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigns amid unrest’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/27/tunisian-prime-minister-ghannouchi-resigns

(16) = guardian.co.uk 27 Feb 2011 ‘Tunisians know Ben Ali was not democracy's only block’,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/27/tunia-islamists-west-elections-role-politics ; ‘France and the US are thought to be pressing for the formation of a new centre party that will absorb leading members of the old ruling party, the RCD, and provide a good candidate for the presidency.’

Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran and Christian fundamentalism in the US

One argument used by those saying a transition to democracy in Egypt would lead to “instability” is that there are too many Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt and so the US government must back a supposedly benevolent dictatorship there, as democracy would allow these irrational people too much influence over government policy, possibly leading to war with Israel.

The fact that this hasn’t happened between Israel and Iran in over 30 years since the Iranian revolution, due to Israel’s immensely stronger conventional military and it’s possession of nuclear weapons, makes this unlikely anyway.

However it’s also a weak argument as Christian fundamentalists exist in their tens of millions in the US and are very influential in US elections and on US governments’ foreign and domestic policy, so if having a lot of religious fundamentalists means you’re not ready to be a democracy, the US wouldn’t be ready for democracy either.

Pew Research found in 2003 that

‘Fully seven-in-ten white evangelicals (72%) say Israel was given to the Jews by God, a figure that rises to 77% among those evangelicals with a high degree of religious commitment.’ (1)

So 72% of white American evangelical Christians believe in the literal truth of the entire Bible, including the Old Testament – which has to qualify as religious fundamentalism.

Pew found in 2010 that “the religious composition of the electorate is largely unchanged” compared to 2004, which means that the proportion of fundamentalists in the population is likely similar too (2).

A Pew Poll of American Christians in 2009 found that 79% of them believed there would be a second coming of Jesus, which suggests, if anything, an increase in the proportion of fundamentalists (3).

Other Pew polls show white evangelicals made up about 23% of the American electorate in 2004 (4).

The US Census Bureau gives the population of the US at roughly 310 million people.

So, at a rough estimate (i.e including only white evangelicals and not other Christian fundamentalists, but assuming they are the roughly the same percentage of the electorate as they are of the population) 72% of 23% of Americans – or about 16.5% of Americans (around 51 million people) - are Christian fundamentalists.

Over the longer term the percentage of Christians in the US has fallen from 86% in 1990 to 76% in 2008, but there was only a 1% drop between 2001 and 2008, so the drop between 2003 and the present is unlikely to be more than 1% (5).

There is little debate that Christian fundamentalists were crucial in winning George W. Bush the 2004 election and they are also extremely influential in congress.

They also have great influence in the military – partly because a higher proportion of recruits come from poor, religious families with little education and few other career options.

 When US troops went into Fallujah in 2004 with orders to target civilians and ambulances, one of their officers, a Colonel Cardl, told journalists that “the enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him.” (6). Evangelical Christian Lieutenant-General William G Boykin similarly made speeches claiming that the enemy in “the war on terror” was “Satan” ; and, in reference to a Muslim militia chief in Somalia, that “I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.” (7)

The fact that American Christian fundamentalists share positions with the Israel lobby in the US on US foreign policy in the Middle East makes them even more influential in that area of policy.

(This is based partly on their bizarre belief that when the day of “the rapture” comes all Jews are meant to have “returned” to the ‘Holy Land’ and will be forced by God to convert to Christianity or be destroyed – though it’s also based on their ignorance of the fact that many Palestinians are neither Muslims nor ‘Marxists’ but Christians; not to mention the failure of right wing Christian fundamentalists to explain how God’s commands to the Israelites to massacre every man, woman and child who doesn’t follow the right religion in the Old Testament can be reconciled with the teachings of tolerance, love for all and forgiveness in the New Testament, without deciding the latter must replace the former).

Pew’s poll of Egyptian Muslims gives mixed results on how fundamentalist they are.

‘A 59%-majority of Muslims in Egypt believed that democracy was preferable to any other kind of government..... Among Muslims in Egypt, 48% said Islam played a large role in their nation's political life while a nearly equal 49% said it played only a small role.’ (8)

This sounds fairly moderate – and is reflected in Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood statements backing multi-party democracy and coalition government (9), but the poll results go on to say that

‘At least three-quarters of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan say they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion.’ (10)

This certainly sounds like a majority for a fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law based on the Quran.

Since Pew also found 94.6% of Egyptians are Muslims this majority for Sharia law is also a majority of all Egyptians, though hopefully representative democracy might moderate it a bit (11). In the UK most polls show a majority for the death penalty, but it was largely abolished in 1969 here.

However when the US made it’s declaration of independence from the British Empire many even of the founding fathers were so backwards and uncivilised that they still enslaved other people – yet no American would argue that they should have been kept under the tutelage of a supposedly benevolent foreign backed dictatorship until they became more civilised.

So it’s a bit hard to accept the argument that Egypt “isn’t ready” for democracy and requires benevolent foreign backed dictators to civilise it, even as these dictators have people tortured in horrific ways and murdered. If anything dictatorships and military occupations are the pressure cookers in which extreme fundamentalisms and nationalisms come to the boil.

Egypt would be likely to make far more progress towards civilised values and laws under a democracy than it has under dictatorships – and only democracy will stop the shift towards political Islamic fundamentalism and even worse terrorist groups.

Coptic Christians in Egypt have suffered prejudice and murders for centuries and these continue to the present day, with some police dying to try and protect them. However there is no reason to think a transition to democracy in Egypt would necessarily make minorities like Coptic Christians better or worse off, though a transition to a Sunni version of Iran’s semi-theocratic government certainly would mean they were even more persecuted.

Today Christian pro-democracy protesters in Tahrir (‘freedom’) Square were surrounded by Muslims as they prayed – the Muslims saying they would stand between them and anyone who would attack them.

In Egypt elected AKP Islamic party governments have restrained the military to some extent in it’s brutal campaigns against Kurdish separatists (though serious human rights abuses continue and the Kurds are mostly Muslims). Since the Iranian revolution anyone not of the majority Shia Muslim religion faces persecution. In India the results of democracy for the large Muslim minority in a mostly Hindu country have varied according to which party was elected. Under the Hindu nationalist BJP they suffered the Gujarat massacres, while under Congress governments they have been much safer.

(1) = Pew Research Center 24 Jul 2003 ‘Religion and Politics: Contention and Consensus - Public Opinion on Religion and Public Life’ – Part III – Contention and Concensus,  http://pewforum.org/PublicationPage.aspx?id=622

(2) = Pew Research 11 Aug 2010 ‘Much Hope, Modest Change for Democrats - Religion in the 2008 Presidential Election’, http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Much-Hope-Modest-Change-for-Democrats-Religion-in-the-2008-Presidential-Election.aspx

(3) = Pew Research 9 Apr 2009 ‘Christians' Views on the Return of Christ’,
http://pewforum.org/Christians-Views-on-the-Return-of-Christ.aspx

(4) Pew Research 6 Dec 2004 ‘Religion and the Presidential Vote - Bush's Gains Broad-Based’,http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=103

(5) = Religious identification: How American adults view themselves – Quotations - ARIS polls of 2001 & 2008. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2a.htm

(6) = BBC News 23 Nov 2004 ‘Hunting 'Satan' in Falluja hell’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4037009.stm

(7) = BBC News 17 Oct 2003 ‘US is 'battling Satan' says general’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3199212.stm

(8) = Pew Research 02 Dec 2010 ‘Most Embrace a Role for Islam in Politics - Muslim Publics Divided on Hamas and Hezbollah’,  http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/

(9) = guardian.co.uk 30 Jan 2011 ‘Egypt protests: Cairo prison break prompts fear of fundamentalism’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/30/muslim-brotherhood-jail-escape-egypt

(10) = See (7) above

(11) = Miller, Tracy, ed. (2009) , ‘Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population’, Pew Research Center , October 2009, http://pewforum.org/newassets/images/reports/Muslimpopulation/Muslimpopulation.pdf

Mubarak, the Egyptian Army and Obama all remain responsible for attacks by hired thugs and plain clothes police

The thugs attacking Egyptian pro-democracy protesters and attacking reporters are clearly not mostly spontaneous “pro-Mubarak protesters”, but mostly people paid to demonstrate for him, hired thugs and plain clothes police like those Mubarak used to attack opposition campaigners during the 2005 Presidential election and referendum – which were rigged (1) – (9).

(There may also be some pro-Mubarak demonstrators who simply support him because they have watched Egyptian state TV as their only source of information, or because they work for the government or rely for their jobs in it on the patronage of regime members or relatives in it).

The army were ordered to allow them into Tahrir Square and given no order to stop Mubarak’s brigades attacking (10).

Mubarak hopes this tactic will let him avoid responsibility for the people they injure and kill. He can’t. While the Obama administration continues to provide his government with financial aid they are responsible too. They should cut all aid until he is gone and an all party transitional government is in place.

State Department official P J Crowley said that “We reiterate our call for all sides in Egypt to show restraint and avoid violence.”, as if the attackers (many armed with guns, knives, iron bars and machetes) and those attacked or defending themselves were equally responsible for it. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement that “if” the violence was orchestrated by the Mubarak government then it would be “utterly unacceptable” pretended that there was any question about whether Mubarak organised it, even after his use of similar tactics over decades (11) – (12).

These and Obama’s vague statements differ markedly from their straightforward condemnation of the Iranian government when it similarly used Basij plain clothes militia to beat, terrify and kill pro-democracy protesters.

While early statements from the White House suggested financial aid to the Egyptian military might be cut if they harmed protesters - and this has played a very positive role - Secretary of State Clinton later reversed this, saying there were no plans to cut military aid to Egypt. The Obama administration is on the edge of giving Mubarak the impression that he can kill and terrify pro-democracy demonstrators just so long as he doesn't use the army to do it

(1) = Amnesty International 02 Feb 2011 ‘Egyptian army urged to protect protesters’,http://amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/egyptian-army-breaks-promise-protect-protesters-2011-02-02 ; ‘clashes erupted with organized groups of pro-government supporters attacking protesters in Cairo and across Egypt... …An Amnesty International fact-finding team in Egypt reported that the violence appeared to be orchestrated in part by the authorities to suppress continuing protests calling for political reform…In previous election years, Amnesty International documented how hired thugs were used by the Egyptian authorities in order to intimidate voters and to disperse gatherings of their political opponents’

(2) =  AP 02 Feb 2011 ‘Mubarak backers attack foes with firebombs, bricks’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110202/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt ; ‘The protesters accused Mubarak's regime of unleashing a force of paid thugs and plainclothes police to crush their unprecedented 9-day-old movement… They showed off police ID badges they said were wrested off their attackers.’

(3) = MSNBC 02 Feb 2011 ‘'Total mayhem': Mubarak supporters, protesters clash in Egypt’, http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/41383377/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/ ; ‘Several protesters claimed the government sent in plainclothes policemen and hired "thugs" to instigate violence….“We caught a lot of people with police IDs on them,” another witness told Al Jazeera…’

(4) = Guardian News Blog 02 Feb 2011 6.04 p.m summary of events ‘Egypt protests - live updates’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/02/egypt-protests-live-updates ; The violence of the pro-Mubarak supporters appears to be organised, with policemen and hired thugs seemingly involved.  – also see eyewitness accounts from western reporters and Egyptian protesters at 2.29p.m, 2.43 p.m , 4.56 p.m and 5.11 p.m

(5) = AFP 02 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt troops fire warning shots as protesters clash’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110202/wl_africa_afp/egyptpoliticsunrestdemoclash ; ‘A witness said organisers were paying people 100 Egyptian pounds (12 euros, $17) to take part in the pro-Mubarak rally, but this could not be confirmed.’

(6) = Human Rights Watch Sep 2005 ‘From Plebiscite to Contest? Egypt’s Presidential Election’, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/egypt0905/egypt0905.pdf

(7) = Guardian 26 May 2005 ‘Dissent quashed as Egypt votes on reform’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/26/brianwhitaker ; ‘Security forces and violent gangs cracked down on dissenters yesterday as Egyptians voted in a constitutional referendum that opposition parties have denounced as a sham….smaller groups of protesters who ventured on to the streets were set upon by security forces or pro-Mubarak gangs. In one incident, police withdrew to let a gang beat up more than a dozen supporters of the Kifaya ("Enough") movement, which is calling for an end to the president's 24-year rule.

Elsewhere, 150 government supporters attacked Kifaya members with sticks. Police looked on as Mubarak loyalists attacked a woman with batons and tore her clothes.’

(8) = Guardian 27 May 2005 ‘Egypt claims 83% yes vote for change’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/27/brianwhitaker ; In some cities, plainclothes government agents beat protesters and dozens of arrests were made.

(9) = guardian.co.uk 02 Feb 2011 ‘Supporters of Hosni Mubarak attack foreign journalists in Egypt’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/hosni-mubarak-supporters-attack-foreign-journalists

(10) = guardian.co.uk 02 Feb 2011 ‘Mubarak supporters stage brutal bid to crush Cairo uprising’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/hosni-mubarak-supporters-violence-cairo ; ‘Yesterday, army and activists staffed checkpoints to prevent violence; today, Egyptian soldiers made no effort to prevent confrontation…..At one stage, they moved out of the way to allow pro-Mubarak demonstrators to reach their opponents….Among those attacking the square were groups of armed men who appeared to be plainclothes police officers. Credible reports spoke of some of those involved in the assault in Tahrir Square having been paid by the regime….On one boulevard leading from the square, a group of men had been deployed with weapons in their hands, clearly under orders.

(11) = BBC News 02 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt unrest: White House condemns Cairo violence’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12349662

(12) = guardian.co.uk 02 Feb 2011 ‘David Cameron condemns 'despicable' violence in Egypt’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/02/egypt-transition-of-power-david-cameron