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Thursday, 09 June 2011 23:32 |
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On Location
AT MIDEAST GATHERING, EGYPT RIGHTS WATCHERS SEARCH FOR REASON TO HOPE
BEIRUT– We’re talking revolution in Egypt, and pessimism and optimism are duking it out. For these couple of hours, a hotel meeting room in Beirut is the forum for a handful of Egypt’s human rights luminaries to assess the trajectory of their country’s chaos.
I am at the general meeting of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX). Catchy titles have never been the strong point of civil society groups, but don’t let the boring monicker fool you.
If the global human rights firing line were Hollywood, pretty much everyone here would be walking the red carpet (myself excluded). All present stand up for critical speech against great odds in Uganda, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Congo, Yemen – you name it.
And there’s something for Canada to crow about here, because this networked group of freedom front-liners is tended and nurtured between meets by their Canuck member, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. I’m one of them, which is how I got my place at the table.
But this session is for Egypt’s media rights leaders, and there are many threads to untangle. Does that country’s army have its own agenda? Will the masses stay engaged? And ominously at this confab of journalistic free expression defenders, will big-monied media be reborn as a vehicle for any of several possible counter-revolutionary scenarios?
Renowned blogger and journalist Nora Younis is the pessimist at the table. She was right there back in 2004 when web activism went beyond the chat room. While pundits hail Egypt’s internet uprising, Younis recalls how effectively state repression kept up. Now, in Egypt, the prime minister has a Twitter account, and the army exclusively uses Facebook for all its announcements.
Writing the word “military” isn’t against the law as it was before the revolution, but researching the misdeeds of the army is beyond touchy. One real danger Younis sees is that the “structures for defending press freedom aren’t yet there,” though, as a member of the new National Coalition for Media Freedom, she is certainly working on it. The soft launch of the org’s website (ncmf.info) just went up on Monday, June 5.
Gamal Eid, veteran lead defence lawyer in many of Egypt’s most important human rights cases, says current violations “even exceed what we experienced before the revolution.” Yet he’s pulling for the optimist side; the army, he says, reacts positively to public pressure.
The army’s special place in the nation’s psyche is a recurring theme, and Eid has come up with an interesting strategy to address this fact. In his current campaign, he encourages bloggers and journalists to criticize the military tribunals (in which protesters are tried) in a pro-army context.
“We differentiate between the army and the military tribunals so it doesn’t hurt the credibility of the army,” he says. It has been a success, and Eid is undaunted by the fact that 20 or 25 per cent of critics get hauled in for questioning. In a post-dictator period, everything is relative.
In fact, the defence lawyer feels that one of the problems for civil society is that the most important organizations on the ground are geared to confrontation when the situation calls for conversation and dialogue. “Some of my friends would be surprised to hear me say we have a good interior minister,” he says.
Journalist Khaled Al-Sergany sees the situation similarly and says that when sitting in on tribunals, one can witness the uncertainty of officers. “We can’t turn the government and the military into enemies,” he says. “We need to work with them and listen to them.”
Appeal lawyer Rawda Ahmed concurs, saying that because the situation is so unresolved, it’s important to be in process with authorities. Her organization was invited by the minister of communication to discuss new media laws and regulations. At the end of the conversation, in which Eid also participated, the minister confided that he didn’t know whether to push ahead in Parliament or wait until the election.
They suggested that he publish the proposed law on the internet and solicit comments. To their surprise, that’s what he did. Don’t get Eid wrong, though. He is clear that every member of civil society must keep one foot in Tahrir Square and one in the office.
Sherif Azer of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, a younger activist who remembers the military mentality from his own army days, is also not fearful about the military’s political weight. “They are very sensitive to protests and criticism,” he says. “Once people are on the streets and there is a campaign against one of their decisions, they’ll withdraw that decision.”
But there’s the rub. Younis is not sure activists will be able to mobilize endlessly. Sentiments are changing, she feels, and the populace is getting tired of the atmosphere of upheaval. The revolution needs to deliver something that really makes a difference.
Take the minimum wage. Demonstrators asked for a raise to 1,200 pounds from the current 150, she points out, but the minister of finance raised it only to 700 a month.As well, the uprising “gave a hard fist to the police,” but there is no police reform, and, says Younis, there is a security vacuum, so people will be begging for their presence.
And what role will the non-state mainstream media that is reconfiguring itself play in forming public opinion? Big dollars are heading for satellite channels. The perception in Egypt is that Gulf money is going there, says Younis, and many channels are in the offing before there is a process for vetting, transparency and a code of ethics. That is a much bigger worry at the table than radical Islam.
“Islamists are part of our society,” says Eid, “but not the majority.” He feels the worry is a Western fixation. Last Friday, June 3, the Muslim Brotherhood and military council tried to pressure people to stop the Friday protests, he says. Instead, a million came out to support civil society and democracy.
Younis’s caution is really smart, but so is Eid’s hopefulness, which is far from blind. They all expect the revolution will unfold for years to come. And yet, at the same time, every minute counts.
Despite their differing assessments, panelists agree on the role of international assistance. Eid would like to see organizations working with the European Commission become aware of Egypt’s issues so that when the EU talks to Egyptian officials, human rights can be raised.
But there are straightforward needs, too. Younis sums them up as exchange and translation – translation into Arabic not only of laws and books, but also of films, most of which are available only in English or Spanish. “Docs appeal to the younger generation,” she says, and translation “will influence not only Egyptians, but the rest of the Arab world as well.”
No one knows how the process will unfold. Reform is working in parallel with the traditional political process – sometimes very fast, sometimes slow. “We need to be working in tandem on many things. We need to be ready,” says Eid.
EGYPT WISH LIST
The transitional government of Egypt should:
• Abolish the Emergency Law, which allows authorities to detain people without charge.
• Rescind the new strike and demonstration law, which bans protests that “obstruct” state institutions.
• Abolish penal code provisions on “insulting public authorities’’ and “spreading false information.”
• Revoke the Assembly Law, which requires gatherings to disperse if ordered by authorities.
• Amend the Associations Law to allow NGOs to be established without government approval.
• Establish civilian oversight of the police force.
• Stop trying civilians in military courts.
From Human Rights Reform An Urgent Priority, Human Rights Watch, June 7 |
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Monday, 06 June 2011 23:29 |
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LIVE FROM BEIRUT AT THE INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION EXCHANGE
Okay, I'm shallow. But meeting Bashar Al-Mandalawy, the first thing I notice is how cool he looks. He'd be so at home on Queen West. But actually, he lives in Baghdad — born and bred — and there's little comfort in that.
Being here in Beirut with an international phalanx of human rights leaders is just a short reprieve. He works full-tilt for the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory and the way he quietly says he's seen a lot, speaks volumes.
Right now, the worries are piling up.
Just last February — the 23rd at 2 AM to be exact — his office was broken into. Thankfully no one was there at the time. The computers were all taken and most of the paper archives also. "They now have all our information," he says with a worried look. He feels certain the order came directly from the Prime Minister.
The docs are critical because one of their main activities involves fighting with and in the courts. A big case right now involves defending the executive director of his group, also the head of the city's media college, who uncovered ministry corruption related to the building of a sports stadium in Baghdad. The minister responded by fining the professor $1 billion dinar.
For now, they have moved to what he describes as a "safe house." They don't bring any visitors to the office, so he feels that no one in the area knows who they are — which is how they like it. And through the setbacks the organization is stronger now, he says. They observe violations and they are able offer help to journalists all over the country who need lawyers for advice and protection.
But Al-Mandalawy thinks the biggest threat these days is Iran who, through the Shia Al-Mahdi Army and the leader Mahdi Al-Sadr, have a lot of power in Parliament, controlling six or seven Ministries. And the Sadrists pull on the streets. Just last week, a demo in Baghdad's Sadr City area gathered the city's Shia in uncountable numbers. Press reports vary from 70,000 to 700,000. Al-Mandawaly says they marched in the millions.
It is all too much. Sadly and happily, Mandawaly plans to leave Iraq within the next year. It is too dangerous and now that he has a son (just three months old), he feels he must find a better life for his family. Not the best for Baghdad but...
Klein is attending the international press freedom meet as part of the delegation of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression |
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NDP win is no consolation |
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Thursday, 05 May 2011 22:12 |
Citizens kicked up a storm of change but couldn’t stop Harper without help from the leaders
Quebec tried, but the rest of Canada couldn’t pull it out of the hat.
As delighted as many of us are to be sending a historic number of NDPers to Ottawa, the fact is that this election was largely a referendum on Stephen Harper’s rights-defying prison-and-punishment agenda, and he won. The Official Opposition will exercise precious little real power.
Of course, many of us disagree strongly with right-wing Tea Party politics. But resistance to the Conservatives went much deeper. Harper took so many liberties with the basic tenets of democracy and respect for Parliament that even the country’s leading constitutional expert became an advocate of strategic voting (and projectdemocracy.ca) to defeat him.
“This is the most important federal election in my lifetime,” said Peter Russell in a statement endorsing the site. “What is at stake is nothing less than parliamentary democracy.”
Sadly, we will have years to take the measure of Russell’s frightening assessment. But in our desolation, let’s not underestimate the movement that grew up to engage in a fierce battle against a ruthless and powerful opponent. The outcome so many of us were working toward eluded us this time, but we gave the Conservatives a good run right up until the 11th hour. The unofficial Harper opposition needs to continue developing its new chops.
The voting public whipped up the winds of change. Jack has sailed to a brilliant finish, and two old, well established parties got blown out of the water in the storm. There is lots to ponder and explore in that victory and among the wreckage.
Independent of any party organization or orthodoxy of any kind, citizens thundered across the internet and into the streets with a breadth of advocacy and initiative as unprecedented as it was inspiring.
I was in the trenches and still could barely keep up with the vote mobs, the videos, the co-operation and sharing going on in the new unscripted distribut-ed election organizing. If you are one of us, please send me a note so we can stay connected.
Often said but true, our ability to build personal, social networks has enormous political implications. It all came home to me working on projectdemocracy.ca, where we went from zero to 680,000 visits, 435,000 unique visitors and more than 5.3 million page views in 20 days.
But there is another more human dimension to staying connected. Traditional politics is full of dislike and name-calling, on the left especially. The job ahead is too big for that. We need to build a tradition of appreciation and make space for those with common values to do their different work. That was a hallmark of how many of us worked together during the campaign.
I got a flash from the past earlier this week when my ultra-left high school friend from Montreal emailed me to denounce my “reactionary advocating for the Tories”(!?). In case you don’t remember, that’s the typical dysfunctional lefty way. If we want to go for a winning hand, let’s start playing with a full deck.
Cooperation builds strength and connection, but it takes character. We will need that to keep going.
As many have noted, the election has given us a more polarized left and right. The Liberal collapse was delivered by a last-minute swing to the Conservatives in response to the orange surge going the other way. But there is another polarization in play.
This election was also a battle for public opinion between old media, largely concentrated in the hands of right wing corporate heads, and new media. And old media won this round. Thirty two newspapers endorsed the Conservatives, while two, NOW and the Toronto Star, supported the NDP.
What a contrast that is to the homemade anti-Harper media mobilization online. That balance of old and new is going to shift during the term of this government. Let’s make sure to make the most of this potential.
But citizens can’t do all the heavy lifting. Leadership from the top could have swung the outcome we are now stuck with for the next five years. Some kind of non-traditional cooperation at the top could have made this happen in a heartbeat.
Pollsters are licking their wounds, since a number of them missed the likelihood of a majority in the race to the finish line. Projectdemocracy.ca never lost sight of that and did surprisingly well in the turmoil, with a success rate of 87 per cent on 84 picks. Of those 84 ridings, 25 were won by opposition parties and 59 by the Conservatives.
Of those 59, there were 23 in which a swing vote of 10 per cent or less could have changed the outcome. Fifteen of these could have been won by the Liberals and eight by the NDP. In that case, Parliament would have had 139 Conservatives, 110 NDPers, 49 Liberals, four Bloc and one Green.
A full analysis will be online soon, because most of all, we need to commit to learning from this experience. Given that we don’t hold the money or the power, learning and cooperation are our best options for stepping up to the tough challenges of this new time. |
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Don’t waste NDP surge opportunity |
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Thursday, 28 April 2011 22:07 |
Vote strategically to win the progressive government we deserve
Who’s complaining about polling now? The polls have been wild and crazy, but they’re revolutionizing this election. So what’s the message in the madness?
First and foremost, hats off to Quebec. She just can’t seem to help herself. It looks like she just might rescue Canada – again.
Remember, last time out it was Quebec that mostly saved us from a 2008 Harper majority. And it happened poetically. Francophone artists went viral and turned the tide. Once Quebeckers realized that Harper scoffed at the arts, a worrisome flirtation was off and the Conservatives stalled at the same 10 seats they got in 2006. The rest is history.
This election is poetic, too. The NDP surge in Quebec is the unexpected thriller progressives would have been praying for if we’d had the smarts to imagine it. No other scenario could have shaken the ground in this election like an orange swing in la belle province.
If it translates into the big wins suggested by recent polls, it will transform the country’s political dynamics.
Truth is, the province of Quebec is the most stalwart and reliable home of forward-thinking people in the country. The worst thing that ever happened to the political dialogue and texture of Canadian public life as a whole was losing touch with our most delightful and inspiring francophone wing.
I totally respect the right and need of Quebec voters to choose to have their own federal political party, but the unintended consequence has been a scary increase in the right’s ability to dominate the political dialogue.
Harper has used the Bloc “spectre” to vilify and exclude a huge mass of our most progressive citizens from a meaningful role in key aspects of our parliamentary system. And hiving off Quebec progressives has given more political heft to the Alberta-bred Reform view in the rest of the country.
These outcomes have helped Harper disembowel civil society and democracy on both sides of the Quebec border.
Yay for Jack Layton and his able lieutenant, Thomas Mulcair, for being such compelling warriors. Layton has embodied a caring vision in a way that inspires confidence and admiration. He deserves to be celebrated.
But if the election turns out well, let’s be sure we anglo and other multi-Canadians figure out how to show our gratitude to Quebeckers. By considering housing themselves in our shared NDP, they have planted new hope that the entire country can become more like them. Sign me up.
Still, if we want the country to do well in this election, we all have to do our part. A good outcome is unlikely if we follow Jack’s unfounded advice to forget about strategic voting. A big NDP caucus in a Harper majority government would be a monumental waste of opportunity.
Yes, most of the races in Quebec and in BC and Atlantic Canada that show the NDP as more competitive than it was at the start of the campaign are straight-up contests between two front-runners with no reason to fear that vote-splitting would unnecessarily elect a Conservative.
But there are also about 45 key ridings where informed grassroots voter cooperation is needed to break the Conservative hold on the country.
As I write this, one poll is indicating the Conservative will win only 133 seats; another goes as high as 162 (155 is a majority) for the Conservatives even though it projects 86 seats for the NDP. The strategic vote, from the point of view of defeating the Conservatives, does not favour the NDP, the Liberals or the Bloc or Greens. It varies on a riding-by-riding basis, and until the last election and this one, the only way to figure out what to do was to follow the spin.
But we live in the digital age, and it has empowered citizens to offer up new tools to each other. We now have a comprehensive source of independent information on every riding in both official languages, projectdemocracy.ca, of which I am a co-founder. (It isn’t connected to NOW at all.)
That puts me deep in the trenches of the various polling scenarios that are unfolding, and they are volatile. I can say for sure that in the next few days, it will be very important to stay in touch with how the polls roll. (Projectdemocracy.ca makes that easy and even fun.)
Basically, though, the big, determining uncertainties are confined to relatively few ridings. In most cases, choosing the candidate you like best is perfect. Even among the key ridings, most of the strategic picks are also quite clear and obvious. For the really hard-to-call ridings, we at projectdemocracy.ca are commissioning and seeking out local polls to provide the best intel. Those should start coming in on Friday.
For us in Ontario, the scenario is quite different than in Quebec. There’s not the same orange surge here. The NDP and Liberals are both holding their own (within margins of error), so many downtown Toronto incumbents will likely be re-elected. There is no chance of a Conservative win in the downtown races, so an NDP vote is great anywhere. The likeiest place to add to the orange seat count in Toronto is Parkdale-High Park, where Peggy Nash has a good chance over Gerard Kennedy.
After that, the best hopes for the NDP to score from rising support are in Beaches-East York, where NDPer Matthew Kellway could prevail over Maria Minna, and Davenport, where it’s Andrew Cash against Mario Silva.
But if we Ontario progressives want to help our brethren in Quebec swing the country toward a new progressive government, we will actually vote Liberal in the four GTA ridings the Conservatives have been pushing hard to win.
If you are an NDPer or Green, swap your vote at pairvote.ca and keep the Cons at bay by voting for Liberal Joe Volpe in Eglinton-Lawrence, Rob Oliphant in Don Valley West, Ken Dryden in York Centre, and vote for Liberal Karen Mock in Thornhill to defeat the worst Environment minister the country has ever had (and that’s saying a lot), Peter Kent.
Quebeckers have opened the possibility of sweeping change. To do that, they seem to have gone past old nationalist certainties to embrace a federal party in a completely new way. The least we can do in the rest of Canada is follow their example. Let’s take off our own ideological blinders and embrace cooperation to create the Canada we communally envision. |
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