Samtidig, i Bahrain

Erklæring fra Amnesty International. Fik jeg nævnt, at regeringen i Bahrain er en af USAs allervigtigste allierede i Golfen, og at Hillary Clinton opfordrer til tilbageholdenhed “fra begge sider”? Ifølge Al Jazeeras live-dækning er mindst 66 sårede indlagt i dag, værre tilredt end ved gårsdagens demonstrationer. Antallet af døde og sårede kan forventes at stige.

Øjenvidner fortæller, at det både er hæren og politiet, der skyder på civilbefolkningen. Herunder endnu et klip, der viser nogle af resultaterne af disse skyderier:

Næste revolution: Marokko – og bagefter Saudi-Arabien?

Måske ikke. Marokko har reserveret den 20. februar, som du kan se på videoen herover.

Saudi-Arabien virker måske stabilt, men bloggeren Saudi Woman mener, at det syder og gærer også her:

Everywhere I go and everything I read points to a revolution in our own country in the foreseeable future. However we are still on the ledge and haven’t jumped yet.

I know that some analysts are worried particularly of Saudi Arabia being taken over by Al Qaeda or a Sunni version of the Iranian Islamic Revolution. Calm down. Besides my gut feeling (which is rarely wrong), the overwhelming majority of people speaking out and calling out for a revolution are people who want democracy and civil rights and not more of our current Arab tradition based adaptation of Sharia. My theory of why that is, is that Al Qaeda has already exhausted its human resources here. The available muttawas, are career muttawas (fatwa sheikhs) and minor muttawas (PVPV) of convenience both paid by the government and do not want the current win-win deal between them and the government to sour. So it’s unlikely that they would actively seek change. Actually quite the opposite, they will resist and delay as much as they can. Fortunately the winds of change can’t be deterred by a PVPV cruiser.

(…)Another thing that needs to be done is to aggressively fight corruption and promote transparency and accountability for everyone no matter who they are. If these two issues are taken care of as soon as he gets off the plane, then I predict that things just might calm down and a lot of people won’t be so anxious for change. If not, then the campaign above will just grow bigger and bigger and many more will crop up until eventually the Saudi people will cross the revolution threshold.

Så måske der inden alt for længe kommer en dato for Saudi-Arabien, som man kan følge på Twitter – ligesom du allerede nu kan følge #feb20 for Marokko.

Undertrykkelse i Bahrain

Hærdede læger bryder grædende sammen over den rå politivold, og bøllerne går til angreb på frivillige læger og sygeplejersker, der forsøger at hjælpe de sårede. Imens opfordrer Hillary Clinton “begge sider” til at vise tilbageholdenhed.

Og hvad der det da, de væmmelige demonstranter forlanger, siden denne vold kan være berettiget? Mahmood Al-Yousif formulerer det i Bahrain-termer:

1. Bilateral Constitutional amendments which are binding to address the contentious current Constitution of 2002
2. The immediate release of political prisoners, some 450 are incarcerated many of whom are children under 18 years of age
3. Release and increase press freedoms, repeal Law 47/2002
4. Guard and increase personal freedoms and freedoms of expression
5. Investigate corruption and return stolen wealth into the state coffers
6. Repeal Law 56/2002 and bring torturers to justice

Kort fortalt – ytringsfrihed, forfatningsgaranterede menneskerettigheder, løsladelse af politiske fanger, stop for tortur, stop for korruption. Indtil videre har de ikke krævet kongens afgang. Men hvor længe varer det?

Filmklip via 3arabawy.

Update: Nicholas Kristof fra New York Times skriver, meget passende og som supplement både til Al Jazeeras dækning og Mahmoods opsummering af demonstranternes krav:

Bahrain’s leaders may whisper to American officials that the democracy protesters are fundamentalists inspired by Iran. That’s ridiculous. There’s no anti-Americanism in the protests — and if we favor “people power” in Iran, we should favor it in Bahrain as well.

Walk with protesters here, and their grievances seem eminently reasonable. One woman, Howra, beseeched me to write about her brother, Yasser Khalil, who she said was arrested in September at the age of 15 for vague political offenses. She showed me photos of Yasser injured by what she described as beatings by police.

Another woman, Hayat, said that she had been shot with rubber bullets twice this week. After hospitalization (which others confirmed), she painfully returned to the streets to continue to demand more democracy. “I will sacrifice my life if necessary so my children can have a better life,” she said.

America has important interests at stake in Bahrain — and important values.

Bahrain – optrapning, angreb på fredelige demonstranter

I Bahrain er “Perl Roundabout”, som folk håbede at gøre til Bahrains udgave af Tahrir-pladsen, blevet ryddet, mens folk lå og sov.

Mahmood Al-Yousif skriver:

Dialogue has no place in Bahrain at the moment.

And all space is left to the violence of a government that doesn’t seem to care about its citizens.

Dialogue is replaced with shotguns, tear gas and hundreds of riot police all exerting an inordinate amount of violence against unarmed civilians.

That was what faced unarmed sleeping civilians – men, women, children, old men and women – this pre-dawn residing in the Pearl Roundabout.

One would be forgiven for assuming that at least to those present there, and the families of the four more killed by riot-police shotguns at the roundabout this morning, not only the government has lost its credibility, but also the royal family.

Al Jazeera skriver, at mindst to demonstranter blev dræbt og mange såret. Og så bad den amerikanske regering i en erklæring i går “begge sider” vise tilbageholdenhed. Det er det samme, som de sagde i Egypten. Og det er da også for galt, at de fredelige demonstranter, der lå og sov med deres børn, ikke formåede at vise mere “tilbageholdenhed” …

Egyptens kristne venter bedre tider efter Mubaraks fald

Meget af de senere års forfølgelse og uro i forbindelse med Egyptens koptere var i virkeligheden anstiftet af Mubarak-regimet, der således håbede på at sikre sit eget styre ved at problematisere mindretallene og spille de etniske og religiøse grupper ud mod hinanden.

Siden revolutionen er der slet ikke de samme sikkerhedsforanstaltninger omkring de kristne kirker som under Mubarak, og alligevel har der endnu ikke været et eneste angreb eller optræk til uro mellem kristne og muslimer. Nu er der jo ikke længere en diktator, der kan profitere af at skabe sådanne spændinger, kunne man fristes til at sige. Ingen af os ved endnu, hvad fremtiden vil bringe, men Egyptens kristne har mere håb for fremtiden, end de havde tidligere. Reportage ved Al Jazeera.

Ondskabsindustrien slår til igen

Herregud, det manglede da bare. Vi lever jo i et af verdens rigeste lande, og det må da være et dårligt menneske, som ikke kan afse en ganske lille del af sin fine intellektuelle kapacitet til at gå efter organisationer der samler ind til godgørende formål.

Hvem gider at høre om banker der krakker, korrupte politikere eller magtmisbrug når man kan fokusere på folk der bruger deres arbejdsliv til at hjælpe andre? For slet ikke at tale om nødhjælpsarbejder der rent faktisk får løn for at hjælpe de fattige.

Vor herre bevares, tænk hvis vi lønnede folk der arbejdede med nødhjælp ligeså godt som folk, der lånte penge ud til ågerrenter. Eller folk der tjener millioner på at  svine den danske natur til! Tænk hvis det mest vellønnede arbejde i Danmark ikke var at styre landet i økonomisk ruin, ved at foretage økonomisk spekulationer i milliardklassen eller styre kæmpe olietankere rundt i Mellemøsten mens man støttede krige og diktaturer!
Forestil jer et land hvor det bedst lønnede job var det hvor man hjalp de fattige. Hvor det alle børn gerne ville være var at være nødhjælpsarbejder og ikke aktiespekulant?

Godhedsindustrien slår til igen..hvornår mon disse uhyrligheder stopper?

Heldigvis har vi ondskabsindustrien til at påvise fejlene der bliver lavet i ‘godhedsindustrien’. Til at påvise at nødhjælpsarbejderne bruger de bedste kampagnemetoder til at samle penge ind på den mest effektive og direkte måde. Til at forøge antallet af kroner, der går til de bedste metoder til at bekæmpe fattigdom.
Heldigvis har vi en hærskare af ‘lavtlønnede’, ondskabsfulde journalister, godt støttet op af Dansk Folkeparti, til at håne folk, der forsøger at gøre noget for de fattigste. For hvem fanden tror de, de er – dem i den dersens godhedsindustri?? Tror de måske, de er bedre end os??

Link til ondskabsindustriens frontkæmper

Bahrain – næste store urocenter?

Demonstration i Bahrain.
Demonstranter i Bahrain tirsdag d. 15. februar. Fotografi: Mahmood Al-Yousif.

Bahrain er som en lille og ganske velhavende østat i Golfen en helt anden slags land end Egypten. Men tag ikke fejl: Det ulmer, og utilfredsheden med det indspiste og korrupte kongedømme er, som andre steder i den arabiske verden, kraftigt forstærker af inspirationen fra Egypten og Tunesien.

Mandag angreb myndighederne en demonstration med tåregas og hagl, og en demonstrant blev dræbt. Da omkring ti tusind mennesker i går ville begrave ham, angreb politiet igen og dræbte endnu en demonstrant. Folk er vrede, og tusindvis af mennesker har nu slået sig ned i Manamas centrale “Pearl Roundabout”, som de har omdøbt til “Tahrir Roundabout”. Oprindelig krævede de blot reformer og en ny regering, men efter de to drab lyder kravet: “The People Want to Overthrow the Regime“, som Mahmood fortæller:

Arriving at the Salmaniya Medical Complex – the main health facility in the island and in which the mortuary is located, I noticed three police jeeps with some ten or so riot police milling about just opposite one of the entrances of the hospital nearest to the mortuary. I paid them no heed as I thought that they must’ve been there as a token force and they won’t dare do anything when the funeral cortege passes by in an hour or so. I carried on and went in to the mortuary and joined the several hundred mourners already present there, with a lot more pouring in as time went by. The atmosphere, though tense, remained peaceful with occasional political and religious chants. Once the body was brought out, the crowd galvanised and started moving in an orderly and peaceful fashion to the main exit. The plan was to bury Ali Abdulhadi Mushaimi in the nearby village of Jiddhaffs’ cemetery, just a few kilometers away.

But as we arrived at the gate to exit – and I was almost at the front of the mourners – the tear gas was fired at us and live bird-shot too was fired into the crowd, the latter was the ammunition whcih was used to kill Ali Mushaimi, the person we were carrying to his final resting place. I didn’t know it at the time, but another martyr was mowed down not more than ten meters ahead of me. Fadhel Almatrouk now joins the pantheon of fallen Bahraini martyrs. I suspect that he won’t be the last. The people of Bahrain have paid dear with their lives over decades fighting for their rights and will continue to do so until their rightful demands are met.

Unable to breath and faced with an inordinate use of force against unarmed civilians, the cortège driver decided to drive away from that exit and attempt to get out another exit on the other side of the hospital. People were scrambling about trying to protect themselves and show respect to the deceased at the same time; however, even that was not to be. The so called security forces encircled the protestors between the original exit and the one at the far end and started shooting tear gas at us inside the hospital grounds. Some protestors out of anger and frustration started lobbing stones at the police, but when I shouted at them to keep it peaceful with another phrase taken from our brothers in Tunisia and Egypt (سلميه سلميه) others took up the cry and prevented demonstrators from resorting to violence.

Tåregas mod demonstranter i Bahrain. Foto: Mahmood Al-Yousif.

The tear gas was choking us. With eyes streaming and lungs on fire, we sped off after the cortege to continue to be faced by the riot police and their liberal use of tear gas. The avenues and lanes around the hospital were saturated with people walking away in the direction of the chosen grave yard, but coughing and trying to cope as much as possible with the poisonous atmosphere. People, though, were stopping and helping each other. Some producing tissues to help wipe away eyes and others sharing their water or offering a helping hand when needed. The atmosphere, though charged, was still determined. We are going to do good by the fallen martyr.

Several international journalists were in attendance, from Reuters to the New York Times – both of which interviewed me along with several people in the crowd. Wa’ad’s Ebrahim Sharif and MPs from the main Al-Wefaq political party were in attendance and they too were interviewed by probably all journalists present. The common denominator to most of the answers were the need for real reform of the government, the constitution, addressing corruption and attending to the people’s needs.

By the time the body was interred, people streamed out of the area in the direction of the capital Manama, specifically to the Pearl Roundabout, a main landmark celebrating the unity of the Gulf Cooperation Council, but now rechristened by the protestors as “Bahrain’s Tahrir Roundabout” with people camping there under make-shift tents complete with their blankets and necessities fully intending to stay until their demands are met. From the latest pictures I’ve seen, there must be considerably more than ten thousand.

Bahrain er et lille land, og demonstranterne er oppe mod kolossale odds. Styret slår ned med jernhånd, og som overalt i regionen har regeringen forsøgt at bestikke borgerne med indrømmelser og økonomisk kompensation, og Bahrain har selv forsøgt sig med at sende en engangs-check på 2500 dollars til samtlige husstande.

Men det er ikke det, det handler om: Folk vil have deres frihed, også i Bahrain; eller, som Mahmood formulerer det: “They will not stop and they should not stop until basic demands are met: respect for human rights, better political and economic rights and proper freedoms of the press, expression and personal freedoms along with a representative government and parliament rather than the sham we currently have.” Måtte de få det snart.

Hykleren Hillary Clinton

Den amerikanske udenrigsminister Hillary Clinton har udsendt en erklæring til støtte for de regeringsfjendtlige og demokrativenlige demonstranter i Iran, skriver the Guardian her til morgen:

Hillary Clinton has sent a message of support for Iranian protesters and accused Iran’s government of “hypocrisy” for praising the protests in Egypt while cracking down on dissent in its own country.

Clinton said Iran’s protesters “deserve to have the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt and are part of their own birthright,” and that the US government “very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the people who are in the streets” of Tehran.

Æh, den Hillary Clinton, der nu beskylder den iranske regering for hykleri, er hun mon i familie med den Hillary Clinton, der i næsten to uger støttede Mubarak mod demokrati-demonstranterne i Egypten og til det sidste nægtede at opfordre diktatoren til at gå af?

Og hvordan kan det være, at hun så ikke også har udsendt en erklæring til støtte for demonstranterne i Yemen (hvor der nu på femte dag er store protester mod den enevældige præsident) og Bahrain (hvor to fredelige demonstranter allerede er døde)?

Man skal vistnok ikke beskylde andre for hykleri, hvis man selv bor i et hus med visse … lad os bare sige inkonsistenser.

Update: Arabist har også bemærket Clintons lidt svingende omsorg for menneskerettigheder i Mellemøsten.

Egypten som forbillede og inspiration

Tahrir Sq.
Hvis man ikke selv er araber, kan det være svært at forstå, hvad Egypten egentlig betyder for folk i den arabiske verden, skriver Black Iris of Jordan under overskriften “How Egypt Inspired a Generation of Young Arabs“. Opstanden i Egypten, dens fredelige, men bestemte natur og det enestående mod, almindelige mennesker pludselig fandt i sig selv i disse 18 dage, vil altid og uanset, hvordan det hele ender, stå som et forbillede for unge mennesker i andre arabiske lande:

My generation of 20-something year olds grew up in the shadow of our fathers’ heroes, predominantly the architect of Pan Arab nationalism, Egypt’s Nasser. It is still, after all these years, often considered a sin bordering on social suicide to insult the memory of Nasser, whether you live in Jordan or Iraq. And we accepted it for a long time. Because there were no heroes. We have been searching in the darkness for the light switch, for the appearance of a leader. We have even conjured up ancient heroes, romanticizing their very existence. Turning history in to legend. Because we have been waiting and no one has appeared.

We assumed that if one day an uprising emerged, it would be at the hands of a bold leader. Another strongman to replace the ones we didn’t like. Never, in our wildest imaginations, did we think this uprising would come from the people. Never did we believe that Egypt, a country that had most convinced only a few weeks before January 25th, that this was a country destined for doom; a country that would collapse under the rubble of poverty and corruption and become the very metaphor of a crumbling Arab world. And with it, place the final nail in the coffin of Nasser’s dream. Never did we think our generation, a generation we ourselves have often labeled as apathetic and alienated – never did we think this would be the generation to lead the uprising. That it would be a leader-less uprising. A secular and ideological-free revolution. A genuine uprising of the people, for the people.

Never did we imagine it would happen peacefully. Never did we imagine millions and millions gathering around a city center. Never did we imagine them refusing to leave; of finishing a journey that has so often been abandoned. Never did we imagine they would write for us a new history. For this has been the failure of the orientalist view – the failure to recognize the relationship of one Arab to another, and of all Arabs to Egypt. The failure to recognize that what happens in Egypt does not stay in Egypt, and what Egyptians did for themselves, they did for the entire Arab world. Every Arab citizen glued to a television screen these past few weeks has been thinking the same thing. They have felt it under their skin, and deep in their bones.

The Egyptian youth have demonstrated for us possibilities we never imagined unfolding within the confines of our region. They showed strength and resolve where we have grown up knowing nothing but weakness and acquiescence. They showed us peace when we have only experienced war. They showed us civility where we have been taught to pursue chaos. They persisted where we have learned to yield.

We will wait to see what future Egyptians build for themselves, and its subsequent affect on us living outside its borders but close enough to feel the heat of the fire they began. We will wait to see if Egypt’s next chapter will be as sound and as peaceful as the one it has just finished writing. We will wait to see what happens, but whatever happens, this 18-day history is something no one can take away from them, or from us. It has been embedded in our memories, replacing all others.

Læs endelig det hele.

Christine Makhamra skriver på den ligeledes jordanske 7iber om, hvordan den egyptiske ungdom har vist alle arabere, hvad der forekommer at være en styrke og en vej ud af håbløsheden, som de aldrig har kendt før. Hun forestiller sig, hvad den egyptiske kollega mon vil sige til sine kolleger, når han eller hun vender tilbage fra et par ugers ferie i Cairo: “I toppled a tyrant. What did you do?“:

Our generation of Arabs learned to be jaded very early on. We yielded to the fact that we live under dictatorships, where our opinions do not count. We got used to being called disrespectful and apathetic because of the Lady Gaga we listen to and the gel we wear in our hair. We were accustomed to being told to shut up when we wanted to speak out about the injustices that we see everyday in our own countries. Many of us lost the sense of belonging to our countries. The sense of pride we were told that we should have by our history textbooks was just a figment of the author’s imagination. How could the land that gave birth to our parents who keep putting us down whenever we want to speak up, how could it have given birth to the heroes we incessantly hear about?

We got our answer on Friday when the “Facebook Generation” achieved what our parents’ generation never even came close to achieving; what our parents were scared to even imagine. To call what happened on 11 February 2011 a revolution is an outrageous understatement; because to anyone who is familiar with the experience of today’s Arab youth, this is a paradigm shift to say the least. After being witnesses to our parents’ impotence over the years and knowing that looking up to them will bring us no answers, we decided to take matters in our own hands. We knew that what our parents lacked in courage and imagination, we make up for with passion and Facebook applications.  We knew that we did not want our children to one day look at us and wonder why their parents did not stand up for their right; why their parents did not fight for them; why their parents let tyrants get rich while they and their children are left starving. No, our children will now look at their parents with pride. They will know that the heroes they read about in their history textbooks are the same people who read their bedtime stories. They will know that their parents were willing to die just so that their children would not have to. On Friday, our generation has finally tasted what victory feels like. 80 million Salaheddins were born and none of them are pretend-superheroes that you only find in books. Today, we are all Egyptians.

Og eftersom omverdenen og især USA brugte stort set samtlige 18 dage på at fumle og lede efter sine egne ben i hele affæren, er det egyptiske gennembrud absolut ikke noget, egypterne skylder nogen. Man kunne have ønsket for den vestlige verdens egen skyld, at den havde kendt sin besøgstid, men for egypterne og araberne er det næsten bedre på den måde. Hvad de end har opnået, har de opnået selv. Men igen, læs endelig det hele.

Egypt rally, London 12.2.2011

Demonstration til støtte for oprøret i Egypten i hjertet af London. I videoens ledsagetekst læser vi:

Amnesty International’s rally in solidarity with the people of Egypt and the wider Middle East & North Africa. Was mostly a celebration of the fall of Mubarak which happened the day before. 45 other cities across the world had the same rally.

Desværre (eller selvfølgelig, kunne man næsten sige) ikke min hjemby Århus. Blandt talerne ser man Waseem Wagdi,
som vi tidligere (1. februar, faktisk) har set græde af lykke over, at folk i hans hjemland endelig havde fået nok af militærstyrets undertrykkelse og despoti.