country:algeria

Photos from Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria and from the Western Sahara — Nacho Hernandez
▻http://www.nachohernandez.net/3064/western-sahara-the-children-of-the-clouds

▻http://www.inquire-magazine.com/wp-content/gallery/issue3_clouds/nacho-5a.jpg

#photographie #sahara_occidental

Samira, the first installation of Nicola Mai’s Emborders project | antiAtlas des frontières

▻http://www.antiatlas.net/samira-the-first-installation-of-nicola-mais-emborders-project

Karim is an Algerian migrant man selling sex as SAMIRA at night in Marseille. He left Algeria as a young man as her breasts started developing as a result of taking hormones and was granted asylum in France as a transgender woman. Twenty years later, as his father is dying and he is about to become the head of the family Samira surgically removes her breasts and marries a woman in order to get a new passport allowing him to return to Algeria to assume his new role.

▻http://www.antiatlas.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen-Shot-2013-05-22-at-18.35.08-300x187.png

SAMIRA (Emborders 1) is the first of Emborders’ 4 installation/movies. It is being produced by IMeRA in co-operation with SATIS (Departement Sciences Arts et Techniques de l’image et du Son of the Aix-Marseille University). The Emborders filmmaking/research project questions the effectiveness and scope of sexual humanitarian initiatives protecting, controlling and deporting migrants working in the sex industry and sexual minority asylum seekers. In order to get their rights recognised and avoid deportation migrants targeted by sexual humanitarianism reassemble their bodies and perform their subjectivities according to standardised victimhood, vulnerability and gender/sex scripts. In the process only a minority of migrants targeted by anti-trafficking interventions and applying for asylum obtain protection, refugee status and the associated rights. The vast majority are treated as collateral damage and become either irregularly resident in immigration countries or forcefully deported against their will and in often dangerous circumstances to their countries of origin.

#migrations #asile #réfugiés

UAE’s Algeria outreach means more than just business | GulfNews.com
▻http://m.gulfnews.com/opinion/uae-s-algeria-outreach-means-more-than-just-business-1.1195786

The past few weeks have seen a number of senior-level meetings between Algerian and UAE officials. The UAE foreign minister led a high-level delegation to Algiers at the end of last month to build up on the Joint Committee meetings that were held in Abu Dhabi just two weeks earlier. Already Dubai-based DP World is managing two ports in the North African state, including the port of Algiers. In 2009, Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala started operating a $900 million (Dh3.31 billion) power plant in Tipaza with state energy giant Sonatrach. Last year, Ras Al Khaimah-based Julphar Pharmaceuticals laid the foundation stone for a factory in Algiers to serve the Algerian market and North Africa.

The signs have been positive even before the Arab uprisings began with trade between the UAE and Algeria growing at 60 per cent annually from 2005 when it was $16 million to about $173 million in 2010 — partly thanks to the 10,000 Algerians residing in the UAE. Algeria’s gross domestic product, at almost $200 billion is only about half of UAE’s this year. However, it is growing at an impressive rate and has tripled in the decade to 2011. Bilateral trade between the two countries, at $271 million in the first eight months of last year, is negligible and needs to be encouraged to grow. The size of Algeria’s sovereign wealth fund was believed to be $57 billion in 2011 (compared to Abu Dhabi’s $400-$600 billion ADIA fund), while the country’s foreign reserves are believed to be $200 billion — thanks to high oil prices.

But business is just one component of this increasingly strategic relationship. Algeria today is the last major civil Arab state, following the rise of a Shiite Islamist state in Iraq, a Sunni Islamist state in Egypt and the collapse of the state in Syria.

Algeria, despite the existence of half a dozen Islamic political parties is neither a Salafist nor a Brotherhood state. Its 36 million-strong population makes it the second largest Arab state demographically after Egypt and with an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres is the largest Arab country. Algeria also has a well-trained army and the largest military budget in Africa. In fact, Algeria is said to have “the most powerful and best-equipped military in North Africa and the Sahel”.

Algeria’s special forces are also a force to reckon with. Last January, a hostage crisis ensued at the In Amenas gas plant, lasting several days and resulting in around 40 hostages being killed and 800 survivors leading up to the rescue. One of the survivors remarked that the Algerian military ‘did a bloody good job’. Compare this with the hostage crisis of 2004 in the Beslan school in Russia in which 334 out of the 1,120 hostages were killed during the botched rescue operation.

Israel selling military wares to Mideast countries, Britain says -
By Aluf Benn

Haaretz Daily Newspaper
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-selling-military-wares-to-mideast-countries-britain-says.premium-1.5

Israel has exported security equipment over the past five years to Pakistan and four Arab countries, according to a British government report. The report, which deals with British government permits for arms and security equipment exports, says that in addition to Pakistan, Israel has exported such equipment to Egypt, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

The report was released by Britain’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees security exports and publishes regular reports on permits granted or denied to purchase arms, military equipment or civilian items that are monitored because they can be put to security uses.

Minority Rights Group International : Mali : Mali Overview

▻http://www.minorityrights.org/?lid=5319

Via @cdb_77

The Republic of Mali is a landlocked state in West Africa that extends into the Sahara Desert in the north, where its north-eastern border with Algeria begins. A long border with Mauritania extends from the north, then juts west to Senegal. In the west, Mali borders Senegal and Guinea; to the south, Côte d’Ivoire; to the south-east Burkina Faso, and in the east, Niger. The country straddles the Sahara and Sahel, home primarily to nomadic herders, and the less-arid south, predominately populated by farming peoples. The Niger River arches through southern and central Mali, where it feeds sizeable lakes. The Senegal river is an important resource in the west. Mali has mineral resources, notably gold and phosphorous.

#mali #minorités

.:Middle East Online::Algeria : Mideast’s next revolt if soccer is barometer :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=58854

Algeria: Mideast’s next revolt if soccer is barometer

there is increasingly little doubt that soccer is signaling popular discontent could again spill into streets of Algiers, other major cities.

James Dorsey, le spécialiste de la sociologie du foot arabe, verrait bien l’Algérie dans l’oeil du prochain syclone, à en croire le bruit des stades.

Pas de médiation algérienne enter le Bahreïn et l’Iran

Bahrain’s foreign minister has denied reports that he had requested Algeria to mediate between his country and Iran.
“A brother does not mediate between his brother and a foreigner,” Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa was quoted as saying when he was asked about the tension between Bahrain and Iran and the chances of Manama requesting Algiers to mediate with Tehran.

A memorandum of understanding on political consultancy that will broaden coordination was signed by the two countries during the visit.

▻http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/bahrain-denies-iran-mediation-request-1.1165750

Drone base in Niger gives U.S. a strategic foothold in West Africa - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-base-in-niger-gives-us-a-strategic-foothold-in-west-africa/2013/03/21/700ee8d0-9170-11e2-9c4d-798c073d7ec8_story_1.html

Two U.S. defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said the Pentagon ultimately wants to move the Predators to the Saharan city of Agadez, in northern Niger.

Agadez is closer to parts of southern Algeria and southern Libya where fighters and arms traffickers allied with al-Qaeda have taken refuge.

The Africa Command did not respond to questions about how many U.S. troops are in Niger, but one U.S. official said the number of Air Force personnel had increased beyond the 100 troops Obama said last month he had deployed.

#drones #niger #afrique #africom

.:Middle East Online::Algerian women march in capital to defend ‘haik’ :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=57699

Algerian women march in capital to defend ‘haik’

Around 30 women dressed in white take to Algiers streets to defend Algeria’s tradition dress against hijab, niqab.

Compliqué à expliquer à un public gaulois, mais on peut s’intéresser à cette marche d’Algériennes revendiquant le traditionnel haïk face aux variations du Golfe...

Qatar moving closer to Algeria ? |

openDemocracy

▻http://www.opendemocracy.net/mehdi-lazar/qatar-moving-closer-to-algeria

Difficile de savoir si cela relève de la réalité ou de ce que souhaite l’auteur de l’article

Qatar sees Algeria as an emerging country with a large market, many economic opportunities, and political stability, especially compared to other Arab countries. Convergence of interests around gas production also exists between the two states, and in this new energy landscape, facing existing global competition - Russia and Iran - or emerging - the United States - it is important to create alliances. In addition, Algeria remains a major strategic player in the region: the country has the largest defense budget in the African continent, is a recognized expertise in the fight against terrorism and a founding member of several forums that fight against terrorism, both regionally and globally.

So firstly, economic rapprochement between the two states could thus be seen as a way for Qatar to try to put pressure on Algeria to change its position vis-à-vis some conflicts, especially in Syria. Plus, the intensification of economic cooperation - which is very advantageous to both – might be a way to achieve a deepening of political relations, in the context of a possible evolution of regional diplomacy on the part of the two countries.

A prominent Saudi cleric and member of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, blamed al-Qaeda for international intervention in Mali and bloodshed in Algeria. The Saudi cleric, Abdullazizi al-Fouzan, called on al-Qaeda to stop intervening in Mali’s affairs or those of any other Islamic nation, saying their (al-Qaeda’s) actions open the door to “the enemies of the Islamic nation” to intervene in their affairs.

Al Arabiya

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) - Council on Foreign Relations

Un petit résumé de ce que fait Al-Qaida au maghreb

▻http://www.cfr.org/north-africa/al-qaeda-islamic-maghreb-aqim/p12717?cid=nlc-public-the_world_this_week-link15-20130125

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a Salafi-jihadist militant group and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization operating in North Africa’s Sahara and Sahel. The group can trace its provenance back to Algeria’s civil war, and has since become an al-Qaeda affiliate with broader regional and international ambitions. While many experts suggest AQIM is the primary transnational terror threat in North Africa, the risk it poses to Europe and the United States remains unclear.

AQIM’s activities have garnered heightened scrutiny in recent months, particularly after the group, along with other jihadist factions, expanded its foothold in Mali’s vast ungoverned north. In early 2013, a French-led military intervention has, thus far, halted the southward advance of Islamist insurgents, but analysts warn that the operation may fail unless followed up with a robust contingent of African ground forces. Western nations, including the United States, Britain, and Canada have provided some

#aqmi #sahel #maghreb

Algeria, Mali, and why this week has looked like an obscene remake of earlier Western interventions (Robert Fisk)
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/algeria-mali-and-why-this-week-has-looked-like-an-obscene-remake-of-e

why should we care about the Algerians when they treat our dead with the disdain we have always shown for the Muslim dead of Iraq, Afghanistan or, for that matter, Palestine? Syria, please note, is temporarily in a different category, since our desire to destroy Bashar al-Assad allows us to turn all his victims into honorary Westerners. Odd, that. For among the rebels facing the ruthless Assad are folk very similar to Mr Belmokhtar and his merry Islamists, the very men who rouse the anger of Crusader Kouchner. Do I sniff a bit of old-fashioned colonial insanity here? Carry on up the Niger? French troops battle rebels. “Terrorists” in retreat. Daily headlines from 1954 until 1962. In a country called Algeria. And I promise you, the French didn’t win that war. (...) Source: Robert Fisk

"Unintended Consequences of Military Intervention" : Roots of Mali, Algeria Crisis Tied to Libya War
▻http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/18/unintended_consequences_of_military_intervention_roots

EMIRA WOODS: Absolutely, Juan. I think this is a wonderful reminder that military attacks, military interventions, lead to awful consequences. So, clearly, what we see—and it goes, really, back to the intervention in Libya. The military intervention in Libya, ousting Gaddafi, essentially unleashed massive caches of weapons, coming both from the Libyan side but also, you know, from the Western side that was flooding Libya with weapons. Those weapons made their way to Mali and created an opportunity for ongoing conflicts in the north to really escalate. So, I think we see these unintended consequences of military intervention. And we have to underscore that, you know, often what we’re doing is breeding more enemies, breeding more extremists at every turn.

Quand on assiste aux conséquences parfaitement prévisibles d’actions que les Américains et leurs alliés ont déjà mené ailleurs, et qui dont déjà provoqué exactement le même genre d’effets, je ne comprends pas que les libéraux continuent de dénoncer des « unintended consequences ». Prévisibles, prévues, dénoncées à l’avance, mais « inattendues » ?

Sauf à colporter une forme particulièrement sournoise de la propagande officielle, selon laquelle le bordel ambiant était « imprévisible » et n’a donc pas été fabriqué sciemment par ceux qui en tirent systématiquement les bénéfices.

Choisir ses mots avec subtilité :
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/turkey-appoints-%E2%80%98wali-syrians%E2%80%99-evokes-ottoman-pas

Turkey appointed Faisal Yalmaz as “Wali of the Syrians,” a term formerly used in the Ottoman Empire, to govern the affairs of nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey.

Wali was an administrative title given to governors of administrative divisions during the Ottoman Empire but it is still used in some countries such as Algeria and Morocco.

Mosque for gays to open in France

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet
AFP photo

AFP photo
Daily Hürriyet reporter Arzu Çakır Morin has conducted an interview with an unusual Muslim man in France, who has been trying to open a “mosque for gays.”

“When I was 12 years old, I started exploring Islam and performing prayers. At first, I was impressed by the Salafists in Algeria, afterwards I became distant from them because of the terrorist attacks they performed,” Mohammed Ludovic Lütfi Zahed said, explaining his approaching to Islam.

“After my first night with a man, I realized that I was gay. I have found out that I had been pushing down my feelings with the help of Islam,” he said.

Çakır questioned the reason why Zahed felt he needed a “mosque for gays.”

“In normal mosques, women have to sit in the back seats and wear a headscarf and gay men are afraid of both verbal and physical aggression. After performing the Hajj, I realized that a mosque for gays was a must for gay Muslims who want to perform their prayers,” Zahed said.

“We will use a hall in a Buddhist chapel, which will be opened on Nov. 30th” he said, adding that in the new mosque women and men would be able to perform their prayers together in the same space.

In response to a question as to whether same-sex marriage ceremonies would be performed, Zahed said: “We will start with Friday prayers, but we will perform marriages afterwards.”

More than 100,000 people turned out Saturday across France for rallies against government plans to approve same-sex marriage and adoption, as police clashed with counter-demonstrators in one city.

Article, long et plutôt intéressant, dans le National, sur la « mort » des mouvements politiques laïques arabes : The death of Arab secularism par Faisal Al Yafai.
►http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/the-death-of-arab-secularism#full

But the secular conception of the state that animated both nationalist and pan-Arabist politics was widespread in political life. It is difficult to overstate the degree of popular attachment to a secular state among the political class. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, no country of the Arab world, from Sudan and Yemen, to Iraq, to Algeria in the Maghreb, was without its secular, nationalist parties.

It is possible to say that, from the 1950s to perhaps even the 1980s, the strongest political trends in the Arab world were secular.

[…]

The Baath Party in Iraq and Syria focused their energies on ruling their respective, but markedly different, countries: persecuting the intellectuals, who were mainly secular nationalists, as threats to the regime; persecuting political religious movements while appropriating some appearance of religion; creating, in Syria under Hafez Al Assad, the illusion of participatory democracy, and, in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, an overwhelming cult of personality that stifled real political discussion. The Baath so emptied politics of ideas that there was nothing left.

The fact that those who held the reins of Arab governments in this period were secular - and backed by business and military elites who were also secular - in fact proved to be their undoing. The great intellectual rival of Arab secularism, Islamism, had precisely the opposite circumstances. Finding themselves hunted everywhere, those movements that wished to put religion at the heart of their politics had to create a mass movement with strong support and seamless organisation.

The era of the Baath is now ending. When Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003, the Iraqi Baath Party went with him. Whatever happens in Syria, the reaction of Assad’s son to the uprising has destroyed the always fragile notion of a party for all Syrians that the Baath propagandised. While the Baath will remain a trend, like communism and Marxism exist in the Arab world today, there is unlikely to be any revival.

In the same way, secularism as an idea hasn’t died. One can see it animating the politics of young people in Tahrir Square, politicians in Tunisia, liberals in Lebanon, and in what the Syrians and Yemenis and Libyans are calling for in practice. Nor has the idea of a separation of politics and religion faded from the business and military elites of most of the republics.

But secularism as politics does not exist in any organised, large-scale political form. Secularism, like any political idea, requires a political vehicle through which to express itself. And those political vehicles have yet to revive with any large degree of political support.

Cependant :

– L’article fait reposer le très fort recul des mouvements laïcs (essentiellement, ici, le baassisme et le nassérisme) sur leurs propres insuffisances et dérives, mais occulte totalement le poids des ingérences extérieures : depuis le début du XXe siècle, tous les partis laïcs ont été considérés comme les principaux ennemis des puissances qui se sont ingérées dans la région.

– L’article me semble très léger sur le fait que les pays qu’il cite explicitement ont tous d’importantes minorités religieuses qui vivent ensemble depuis des siècles. De fait, la laïcité dès le début du XXe siècle est une question incontournable pour ceux qui imaginaient l’avenir de leur propre pays, avec une indépendance qui préserve leur unité et la cohérence de leur société. Quand l’article évoque l’alternative de faire reposer l’unité du « monde arabe » sur « la foi », il oublie le fait que c’est extrêmement dangereux dans des pays avec autant de religions différentes (ou au moins que, pour les premiers architectes du monde arabe moderne, cela apparaît comme un choix totalement illogique).

– Pas réellement d’explication sur la situation des mouvements arabes laïcs qui ne sont ni nassériens, ni pan-arabes (d’autres sont pan-syriens, internationalistes ou simplement « locaux »), ni bassistes ; la saadisme est un mouvement différent, les marxistes aussi… à peine ou pas du tout évoqués, ces mouvements ont pourtant joué un rôle intellectuel important. Ce qui fait que le recul de la laïcité ne peut s’expliquer uniquement par la responsabilité des dictatures bassistes ou le déclin du pan-arabisme.

– Pas réellement de point de vue sur les évolutions économiques et/ou démographiques.

– Malgré l’évocation de la plaisanterie de Nasser sur la revendication – par un homme – du voile des femmes, pas vraiment de questionnement sur « l’avis » de 50% de la population (les femmes). Il n’est pas réellement caricatural de voir que les mouvements laïcs arabes incluent systématiquement des femmes (avec quelques figures héroïques) ; alors que les mouvements politiques basés sur « la foi » sont assez exclusivement masculins.

Les mouvements laïcs arabes ont été désignés comme cibles privilégiées par les ottomans, les français et les anglais, sont totalement antagonistes avec le sionisme (ses murs de séparation et sa vision ethno-religieuse des sociétés), sont incompatibles avec le « choc des civilisations » américain, sont évidemment inacceptables pour les wahhabites qui sont les principaux financiers de la politique régionale ; et ne passionnent pas les promoteurs de la fitna entre chiites et sunnites. De fait, certes la responsabilité des dictatures laïcisantes est important pour discréditer l’idée ; mais ne suffit pas à expliquer l’éventuel recul des idées de laïcité (surtout dans les pays qui, eux, n’ont pas connu de dictature laïque).

Algeria puts off decision on Desertec solar project until preconditions are met - sourceOil & Gas - Zawya
►http://www.zawya.com/story/Algeria_puts_off_decision_on_Desertec_solar_project_until_preconditions_are_met__source-ZAWYA20121022035839/?lok=035800121021&weeklynewsletter&zawyaemailmarketing

Algeria has decided to postpone its decision on participating in the Sonelgaz Desertec Renewable Energy Program until 2013, and is waiting for Germany’s Desertec to approve its preconditions, a government official told Zawya.

The Algerian government would delay its final resolution on the project till the mid of 2013, as it is still unclear whether Algeria will take part in the project, the official at the Algerian ministry of energy and mining said.

“The government is reconsidering the economic gains it may acquire from participation and is testing the acquiescence of the foreign partner to its terms, which require manufacturing the project appliances and needs in Algeria, as well as involving the Algerian experts in the project,” the official told Zawya on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media. Algeria’s participation may not exceed 50%, he added.

The EUR 400 billion Desertec project intends to convert solar energy from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and export it to Europe. It is expected to supply as much as 15% of Europe’s power needs by 2050.

Christoph Partsch, the general manager of the German-Algerian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was earlier quoted as saying that the forthcoming round of talks between the German company and the Algerian government will be launched in Oran in October and some serious steps will be disclosed by the first quarter of 2013.

Algeria is facing a 1,300 MW shortfall in power supply, pointed out Abdul Rahman Mabtoul, a former senior executive at Sonatrach. The Algerian government generates 9,700 MW, while the demand is as high as 11,000 MW, he said.

“The government needs to invest USD 20 billion over the next five years to resolve the power supply crisis,” Mabtoul told Zawya.

#Desertec
#Algérie
#solaire
#énergie
#électricité

Brahimi confirmed as new UN Syria envoy
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/brahimi-confirmed-new-un-syria-envoy

The United Nations on Friday confirmed that veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi will replace former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the international mediator on Syria as the 17-month-old conflict slides deeper into civil war.

Fermer Guantanamo ? Ça n’est pas aussi facile que d’obtenir un Prix Nobel de la paix. The New Villain at Guantanamo Is Canada
►http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/the-new-villain-at-guantanamo-is-canada.html

Canada’s hesitation has had a dangerous ripple effect at Guantanamo. The chief U.S. prosecutor, Brigadier General Mark R. Martins, has wisely sought to reach plea bargains with detainees willing to testify against inmates considered higher up the al- Qaeda ladder. By leaving Khadr in limbo, Canada has jeopardized similar deals with other inmates.

One detainee, Soufiyan Barhoumi, a minor al-Qaeda figure from Algeria, is willing to testify against Abu Zubaydah, the Palestinian whom President George W. Bush accused of being al- Qaeda’s chief of operations. Yet Zubaydah, who has been held without charges for a decade and was waterboarded 83 times, has also been described by military and law enforcement sources as little more than a travel agent for the terrorist group.

Charging and trying Zubaydah could resolve the questions about his past and shed light on the torture he suffered. That seems less likely to happen without Barhoumi’s cooperation, which is contingent on repatriation to Algeria. His lawyer told the New York Times, “the fact that Khadr remains at Guantanamo beyond when he was supposed to be transferred is a significant hindrance in my client’s willingness to participate in negotiations with the government.”

►http://anarchistnews.org/content/eyes-south-french-anarchists-and-algeria
It is held in some circles that #anarchism, like Marxism, is a form of thought and praxis that originated in nineteenth-century Europe and as such is inseparably related to this social milieu; interventions and mobilizations taken outside of this geographical-historical intersection, however strongly critical they be of patriarchy, the State, and capital, are in patronizing manner considered not to be anarchist. This raises the question of ethnocentrism among self-identified proponents of anarchist social philosophy—a concern that is not without its historical basis, given that even the Spanish anarchists of the CNT and the FAI refused seriously to consider emancipating Spain’s colonies in Morocco as part of the radical socio-political program it would counterpose to feudalism and capitalism in the Iberian peninsula.1 These glaring trends are ones that anarchist academic David Porter confronts and challenges strongly with his Eyes to the South: French #Anarchists and #Algeria, an extensive work that examines the various dramas of modern Algerian history and the engagement by French anarchist observers of this. In broad terms, it can be said that Porter in this work seeks to advance a mutual enrichment between established Western anarchist perspectives with the effectively anarchist practices seen in the Algerian context after the military defeat of Nazism in Europe, in addition to challenging the reactionary tendency of residents and workers of core Western societies to identify with the colonial projects promoted by their ruling classes as well as showing the potential of anarchism’s relevance to the lives of the social majorities of the world—following in the example of the CNT-FAI in Spain.
[If we are lucky we will win 1936 all over again]

The Arab world is on fire: dialogue with a Syrian anarchist | defenestrator

What’s the significance of the flight of Ben Ali in Tunisia?

It is only the first step of the cascade to follow. It meant that people, revolting people, can defy the repression and win. It is very early to talk about the final solution yet, it is still all too complex now, but the people got to know their real power and are still in the streets, so the struggle is still open to many possibilities.

Where is the revolt spreading to? What countries are now facing massive rebellions?

Now we can say with confidence that anywhere could be next. Maybe Algeria, Yemen and Jordan are hot spots for revolt, but we have to keep in mind that an Egyptian revolution would have a great impact everywhere, beyond the worst expectations of all the dictators and their supporters anywhere.

What’s the actual implication of a revolution in Egypt, the second largest recipient of US military aid in the world?

Egypt is the biggest country in the Middle East and its strategic role is very important. It is one of the main pillars of the US Middle East policy. Even if the old regime could survive for some time or even if the new regime would be pro-American, the pressure of the masses will be always there from now on. In a word, the US, the main supporter of the current regime, will suffer badly due to the revolt of the Egyptian masses.

What’s been the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in these protests? What’s been the role of the old guard of the left?

One thing that is very important about these demonstrations and rebellions is that they were totally spontaneous and initiated by the masses. It is true that different political parties joined later, but the whole struggle was to a great extent a manifestation of the autonomous action of the masses. That is true also for the Islamist political groups. Maybe these groups think now that any election could bring them to power, but with revolting masses in the streets this is difficult, I think that the masses will actively refuse to submit again to any repressive power, but even if this could happen, people will not accept this time to be just subjects, most of all with fresh euphoric memories of the peak of freedom they won by their own struggle. No power could that easily force them to submit again to any kind of repressive regime.

Another thing you have to keep in mind is that with revolutions people will be more open to libertarian and anarchist ideas, and liberty will be the hegemonic idea of the time, not authoritarianism. Some of the Stalinist groups just represent the ugly face of authoritarian socialism… for example, the ex-Tunisian Communist Party participated alongside the ruling party of Ben Ali in the government that was formed after the overthrow of Ben Ali himself! Another authoritarian group, the Tunisian Workers Communist Party, participated actively in the demonstrations, but could only expose its contradictions: it called at the very moment of Ben Ali’s escape to form local councils or committees to defend the revolt, just to retract very soon and call for a new assembly and government. In Egypt it is almost the same happening, there are reformist left groups, such as the National Progressive Unionist Party (or Tagammu), and some other groups of revolutionary authoritarian leftists.

I cannot tell exactly about the role of anarchists and other libertarians - there is a growing council communist tendency beside our anarchist one - due to lack of communication with our comrades there, but I have to stress what I’ve said before: that these revolutions were made mainly by the masses themselves. In Tunisia, the strong local trade unions played a big role in the late stages of the revolt.

►http://www.defenestrator.org/node/2217

Un billet très intéressant de Jonathan Steele dans le Guardian, à peu près l’exact opposé de tout ce qu’on peut lire ou entendre ailleurs.

Syria needs mediation, not a push into all-out civil war | Jonathan Steele | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/17/syria-mediation-arab-league-assad

It is no accident that the minority of Arab League members who declined to go along with that decision includes Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq. They are the three Arab countries that have experienced massive sectarian violence and the horrors of civil war themselves. Lebanon and Iraq, in particular, have a direct interest in preventing all-out bloodshed in Syria. They rightly fear the huge influx of refugees that would pour across their borders if their neighbour collapses into civil war.

That war has already begun. The image of a regime shooting down unarmed protesters, which was true in March and April this year, has become out of date. The so-called Free Syrian Army no longer hides the fact that it is fighting and killing government forces and police, and operating from safe havens outside Syria’s borders. If it gathers strength, the incipient civil war would take on an even more overt sectarian turn with the danger of pogroms against rival communities.

Moderate Sunnis in Syria are worried by the increasing militancy of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis who have taken the upper hand in opposition ranks. The large pro-regime demonstrations in Damascus and Aleppo over the past week cannot simply be written off as crowds who were intimidated or threatened with loss of jobs if they did not turn out.

[…]

If that were to become a serious effort at mediation, so much the better. The best model is the agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war, reached after talks in Taif in Saudi Arabia in 1989. Although it was negotiated by the various Lebanese parties and interest groups, Saudi sponsorship and support were important.

Whether Saudi Arabia can play a similar role today is doubtful. Eagerly backed by the Obama administration, the monarchy seems bent on an anti-Iranian mission in which toppling Syria’s Shia-led regime is seen as a proxy strike against Tehran. The Saudis and Americans are working closely with the Sunni forces of Saad Hariri in Beirut, who are still smarting from their loss of control of the Lebanese government this spring.

afrol News - Students keep Algeria protests warm
►http://www.afrol.com/articles/37354

As weekly anti-government protests are planned in Algeria each Saturday, students around the country keep the movement warm during weekdays, organising strikes, sit-ins and protests.

#Algérie

#Cablegate du 22 décembre 2008 : l’ambassadeur américain en #Algérie rencontre Abdelhamid Bouzaher, directeur des Affaires arabes au ministère algérien des Affaires étrangères. Lequel a une opinion concernant le #Liban.
►http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/12/08ALGIERS1327.html

Ambassador asked that Algeria lend its weight to pressing Syria to adopt a more positive approach to Lebanon, including the normalization of relations, which was important for the security and stability of the entire region. Bouzaher stressed that Algeria had “an Arab nationalist duty” to support Lebanon and would continue to do so. He said Algeria has consistently pushed for a full investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, but in the absence of specific proof, was not eager to blame Syria outright. Bouzaher stressed that Algeria’s relationship with Syria had suffered greatly in the 1990s over the terrorism issue, but was now improving. Bouzaher believed that Syria “has intentions to normalize” relations with Lebanon, and added that Syria has to realize that the situation in Lebanon could be very damaging to Sunni interests.

L’homme trouve la « menace chiite effrayante ».

As Sunni Arabs, he said, Algeria found the Shi’a in Lebanon “frightening;” it was a situation not at all favorable to “our way of seeing things.” Bouzaher said that the core issue in Lebanon was the arming of Hizballah, “as everyone knows.”