I was completely ignorant about the happenings in Tunisia. If you are, too, here are some resources that I found helpful:
Where is it? Here – it’s between Algeria and Libya on the Mediterranean.
What happened? The corrupt, despotic dictator for life fled after widespread street protests.
Did Wikileaks’ cause it? Read the cable yourself, but it sounds like this had been simmering for a long time, and Wikileaks was the final straw, at best.
What’s does this tell us about Obama’s diplomatic strategy? Larison’s take:
If you are strongly committed to the idea that the only alternative to Arab authoritarian regimes is Islamist radicalism, Tunisia creates a problem for you. If you believe that Westerners’ actively promoting political reform in the Arab world is the only way that it will ever happen, the Tunisians seem to have just proved you wrong. If you have spent the last two years berating the Obama administration for neglecting democracy promotion, Tunisia offers something of a rebuke that U.S. advocacy or lack of advocacy has any impact on the internal politics of authoritarian states. Put another way, more significant internal political change has taken place in an Arab country during the first half of one term of the “negligent” Obama administration than occurred during the entire Bush administration. This is purely coincidence, and has nothing to do with Obama, but it makes a mockery of all those who have tried to pin the crackdowns elsewhere around on the world on Obama’s supposed indifference.
Keith
Send in a celebrity to save things, preferrably a Scientologist or a Sacha Baron Cohen character.
Brachiator
You missed the obvious post title, A Night in Tunisia.
Good links.
And BBC News, as is often the case, has a good story and background, including an information Q and A on the background to the riots.
And also don’t neglect this other backpager, on the collapse of the government in Lebanon.
Ash Can
Possibly, but, at least indirectly, one can’t be so sure. There’s a lot of resentment around the world directed at superpowers (not just the US) interfering in smaller nations’ affairs. When said interference is carried out in a heavy-handed way (which since the Vietnam War has been the case far more often with Republican administrations than with Democratic ones), the smaller nation on the receiving end will put off internal reform because its citizens will perceive a common enemy on which to focus their dissatisfaction.
thomas Levenson
FWIW, Ars Technica had a pretty good round-up of the role of tech in the current events in Tunisia.
JGabriel
Tunisia is where they shot the Tatooine scenes in Star Wars: The One Released In The ’70s.
.
piratedan
well it sure looks as though this is gonna reduce the number of countries that the Amazing Race can use in Africa…..
here’s to hopin that the Tunisians can find their way to peaceful self-governance
Barb (formerly Gex)
@piratedan: And then give us some tips?
JGabriel
@Brachiator:
Who is Tunisia? Is she/he another one of those reality show stars with a sex tape? I keep missing all the celebutante porn tapes.
(/snark)
.
BruceFromOhio
The United States is not the center of the fucking universe. Hard to believe, I know, but things do indeed happen with or without US foreign policy sticking its nose, fingers or other protrusions into Gaia-damned everything.
David
I think you mean Teanisia not Tunisia.
I’m sure Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Patriots will take credit for inspiring them.
Citizen_X
SHHH! Don’t tell that to a certain someone around here. Cudlips.
cursorial
Shorter Larison: We’re all Sarah Palin. When it’s not about us, we’re just not that interested.
Brachiator
As an aside, I continue to be amused at how news organizations use Wikileaks material as part of their news stories even as that organization is hounded for publishing its information.
So, here is a recent Economist story on El Salvador’s president.
And, also from the Economist, an article about Mexico’s drug cartels.
Jay in Oregon
@JGabriel:
You laugh, but when the first Paris Hilton sex tape started making its way around, I honestly couldn’t figure out why people were talking about some porn star because I never imagined that the Hiltons would actually name a daughter “Paris.”
blackwaterdog
Furthermore: If you add the election in Sudan, the weakening of the embargo on Cuba, the pursuit of free nuclear weapon and what looks like a successful international sanctions on Iran – You have to say that this president is kicking some serious diplomacy butts.
Cacti
Regime change that took place without big fluffy love bombs of democracy from U.S. air strikes.
This is unpossible!
mistermix
@cursorial: Insofar as Palin has a coherent foreign policy, I assume she’s a Bush-style interventionist. Larison is not.
Epicurus
I eagerly await the Right’s pronouncement that this revolution has been funded by George Soros. Kudos to the people of Tunisia for rising up, and good luck in establishing a truly representative form of government.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
A revolt triggered by an unemployed, 26 year old computer science graduate’s public self-immolation. It’s interesting that those initially leading the protests were mostly unemployed college graduates – using twitter, facebook and Al Jazeera news feeds to organize and keep up hope. While I hope that this can be a model for other Arab nations, Tunisians are overall much better educated, wealthier and more secular than citizens of other Arab countries.
Jay C
RLY – Brock and Larison have it right: the “Jasmine Revolution” (Jeebus on a Segway – does every political uprising have to get a color-coded tagline nowadays??) has been – unsurprisingly – back-burnered by the US media:
1. Tunisia is a smallish, obscure country not in “our” (US) “sphere of influence”.
2. The Tunisian revolt doesn’t fit any of the tidy canned narratives the Beltway Village prefers for foreign-policy issues, so it’s under the radar.
3. The Right can’t beat Obama or Hillary with anything, so never mind….
@cursorial:
whut u sed
Brachiator
@Ash Can:
Nations often use this as an excuse to rationalize their own attempts to clamp down on dissent. And many countries have a long complex history of internal and external strife that has little to nothing to do with the influence of superpowers, past or present.
Alex S.
Sometimes good things happen on their own. You don’t always need some external force to enable change. Sometimes you only make things worse with your meddling.
joe from Lowell
@blackwaterdog: I agree that this president is kicking some serious foreign policy butt…but it doesn’t appear that the development in Tunisia have anything to do with that.
joe from Lowell
@mistermix:
Why?
One thing about Bush-style interventionists: they’re really, really loud about it, and heartily enjoy running down their opponents for not being sufficiently blood-thirsty.
I’d guess her to be closer to Dole and Buchanan than W. and McCain.
joe from Lowell
@Brachiator:
Yes, and to the extent that the dictators’ finger-pointing at us appears credible to the populace, it is an effective excuse. See Castro, Fidel.
Brachiator
@JGabriel:
No, that’s Synesthesia, one of the ladies on either The Jersey Shore or Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Left Coast Tom
@mistermix: I doubt “Sarah Palin” and “coherent” belong in the same sentence.
However, one of her handler’s (Randy Scheunemann) appears to have a policy of trying to drag the US into wars started by his employer.
Judas Escargot
@Brachiator:
No, that’s Synesthesia, one of the ladies on either The Jersey Shore or Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Isn’t that the one that smells Blue?
mistermix
@joe from Lowell:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-12-22-column22_ST2_N.htm
Sarah Palin op-ed, “It’s time to get tough on Iran”.
rios anna
I am a Middle Eastern, I speak Arabic, and I have been following what’s going on in Tunisia.
– It is a big Fucking deal in the Middle East. In the span of 4 weeks one of the most corrupt regimes , a regime known for brutality and police state just fell because one young man (mohamed Boazizi) self emmulated….. sparking protests that led to a regime that ruled for 23 years to fall just like that.
– the after shocks are still felt in the ME. Oppositions parties are rejuvenated, energized and most importantly have hope that removing the dictators is hard but not that hard.
– The change didn’t come from the outside, no foreign tanks or troops were needed.
it’s a joyous day here
cursorial
@mistermix: In an attempt to be clever, I wasn’t very clear. On reading the Larison post, it just struck me that after several days of berating Palin over her self-involved response to the Tucson shooting, that this is something of a collective failing.
Our news reports events with the perspective of how American involvement or non-involvement affect them. My memory of the coverage of the Iranian uprising is obsessive focus on whether the administration support for it would help or hurt. That is, it was coverage of the U.S. in the guise of reporting on world events.
I can’t even say this is a media failing. If CNN reported at length on the situation in Tunisia, would it attract much of a viewing audience?
I’ll grant that your “insofar as Palin has a coherent foreign policy” is a much funnier line.
Joe Buck
al-Jazeera’s probably more responsible than anything else; certainly if the Wikileaks cable had an effect, the way Tunisians heard about it, and the way it was put into context for them, was al Jazeera.
Suffern ACE
@mistermix: This is really the ideal Iran, not the actual one. I recognize this one from awhile back. The one that plays an ever shifting role. If the government of Iran is still in place while a Democrat is president, it is because he is too soft on it. If it exists while a Republican is President, it is because Democrats are too politically correct and prevent the president from doing anything practical about it.
“Russia! You stop selling arms to Iran right now and you Swiss, you stop it with the shipping Insurance!”
Its the world where “Subjects” and “Allies” are all mixed up as a confused concept.
JPL
The NYTimes has an interesting article on the overthrow of the Tunisian President. There are several comments worth reading also,too. I didn’t read all three hundred but several posts were well thought out educated opinions.
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): One of the comments mentioned a country similar to Iran but that theory seems unlikely because the country is secular.
Reggie Syriac
QUESTION: Tunisian president —
QUESTION: Sorry, just one more. Yesterday, the guidance, I think, said “Reports of the excessive force by government forces.” You no longer feel like they’re reports; you are convinced that this has been excessive force; correct?
MR. CROWLEY: We are concerned about this violence and we are concerned about excessive force in recent demonstrations.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: Has Tunisian president —
MR. CROWLEY: But I would say yes, we’re concerned about government actions, but we’re also concerned about actions by the demonstrators, those who do not have peaceful intentions.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2011/01/154548.htm
How do you depose a brutal, repressive dictator with only “peaceful intentions”?
QUESTION: Are you aware that the government recently closed all schools and universities until further notice?
MR. CROWLEY: We are concerned about – we understand and —
QUESTION: It’s a pretty drastic step.
MR. CROWLEY: Well, we – to the extent that we understand the government has a very legitimate right to ensure the safety of its citizens. That said, we do have concerns about some of the steps that the government has taken, and we will continue —
QUESTION: Specifically the schools?
MR. CROWLEY: I’m not aware of that specific step, but, obviously, that would be something that – there’s a way of dealing with those who are, in fact, trying to incite violence while preserving for the balance of the population the right to assemble, the right to freely express views, and the right to have access to the internet.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2011/01/154205.htm
Again, is it possible to depose a dictator, who enjoyed enthusiastic support from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, without “incit[ing] violence”?
joe from Lowell
@mistermix: I’d forgotten that.
You’re probably right; Palin has no coherent foreign policy positions beyond a general sense of American exceptionalism, and will do what her handlers tell her – which, in today’s Republican Party, means neoconservative hawkishness.
matoko_chan
You dumb cattle, how many times must I shove the cattle prod of enlightenment up your wide bovine asses?
When muslims are democratically empowered to vote, they vote for islamic democracy….. NOT westernstyle aka judeoxian democracy.
Propping secular dictators is useless because of the consent of the governed.
See, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, and watch what happens after Mubarek goes in Egypt.
the Muslim Brotherhood will be the majority party, like Erdogans AKP (the islamic party) is the majority party in Turkey.
isnt it interesting, mistermix, that islamic democracy is often liberal, while judeoxian democracy is mostly conservative?
its that fucked up anti-intellectual evangelical protestant heritage.
Joe Buck
OK, I’ve read the cable, and I don’t get it. That cable wouldn’t tell an educated Tunisian anything new. They already know they live in a police state, and they already know about the corruption and the split-the-difference approach to foreign policy.
How could it have been a factor at all?
Brachiator
@joe from Lowell: RE: Nations often use this as an excuse to rationalize their own attempts to clamp down on dissent.
Or a mind-numbing irrelevancy. See Mugabe, Robert, June 2008.
matoko_chan
@JPL: it will be like turkey, that is my prediction. and turkey and iran are similiar in some aspects.
matoko_chan
@Joe Buck: Assanges mission statement explicitly defines the incremental release of the diplocables as designed to induce paranoia reflex in the security state.
only about a thousand have been released so far…out of 250k.
it is a slow drip intended to cause crackdowns on the population which (in Assanges theory) lead to more leakers and possible revolutionary actions.
Assanges system-killer is not revolutionary itself….it is evolutionary.
Slow and inexorable, like glaciation.
He postulates the system-killer will gradually lead to NLS (nonlinear system) collapse.
scav
@Joe Buck: Well, it worked an easily digestible meme into the article and could serve as cheap proof than the reporter put some “research” into a complex topic.
kdaug
Also that kid who set himself on fire and died because he couldn’t get a permit to sell fruit.
I think that was the final, final straw.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: Islamic Democracies are only ‘liberal’ in comparision to theocratic Islamic monarchies.
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: false.
Erdogan’s AKP islamic government is more liberal than most judeoxian democracies.
read something and learn, big white christian bwana.
the consent of the governed
Yutsano
@matoko_chan: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to compare and contrast the revolutions of Kemal Ataturk and Ayatollah Khomeheni. Then get back to me as to why the similarities between Iran and Turkey is a laughable concept. And no saying neither are Arabs doesn’t count.
gnomedad
Thanks for calling attention to this and the Larison post. Good stuff.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: Uh, walk into their party HQ and state (or better off, write it out & send it to them as a Turkish citizen) that the Turkish state is responsible for killing millions of Armenians back in the day.
Fun times for that person will shortly ensue.
Another fun thing, go up to any statue of Attaturk (not hard to find one, they’re all over the place) and throw a rotten tomato at it. Note: Must be done in daylight when citizens/police can see you.
Hope that person has their track shoes on.
matoko_chan
@Yutsano: wallah. Kemal Ataturk imposed a secular military junta that lasted for 90 years, and is now evolving from a Kemalist dictatorship to a representative islamic democracy. Ataturk actually outlawed the turkish alphabet in his maftoon posturing.
Sayyid Ayatollah Khomeheni overthrew the American puppet tyrant Shah who was installed in the wake of operation Ajax, the CIA MI5 coup against Mossadegh the DEMOCRATICALLY elected prime minister of the Republic of Iran.
the way both countries are the same is they are representative majority islamic governments, like Iraq, like Egypt will be after the Muslim Brotherhood takes power, like Lebanon since Hizb’ took the majority.
Too much feedlot drench of murrican exceptionalism, Yuts?
overindulging in scarfing down recycled conservative cowshit will give you cudlips mad cow disease.
get a clue. we arent the good guys. we arent even the better guys.
we are the stupid guys.
America fucking created OBL and ‘Nejad. we own them.
take it away, Priss.
joe from Lowell
So, in other words, you’re absolutely sure that Islamic democracies are more liberal than western democracies, but you can’t point to any actual Islamic democracies that are more liberal than any western democracies, because the Islamic democracies are merely “evolving” into liberal democracies.
Thank you so much for that.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
Cudlippian piffle. Everyone knows iran tastes much more like chicken.
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: oh fuck you.
the south killed more american citizens in the civil war too by treasonously seceding from the union.
aint our bidness cudlip.
and now we will pay the piper…America built the reavers that attacked us on 911. that is indesputable. and every day we stay in Iraq and A-stan just makes more spare parts for the jihaadi factory
Sure turks revere Ataturk. im agnostic..i think outlawing the alphabet was over the top. he possibly did the only thing he could to protect his country from western missionariism, colonialism, and imperialism.
But he was STILL a dictator.
matoko_chan
@morzer: im not the cudlip here old person.
keep chewing that murrican exceptionalism cud and lowing about westernstyle (jesushumper) democracy.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: Methinks I got you on that last one!
morzer
@Paul in KY:
The screeching rather gives it away, doesn’t it?
That Other Mike
@matoko_chan: Wat
Seriously, can we get a matoko translator-in-residence?
matoko_chan
@joe from Lowell: SOME i said.
for example the AKP is AGAINST torture.
unlike the GOP which SUPPORTED torture, and the Bush admin which suborned the AMERICAN judiciary to redefine it.
morzer
@That Other Mike:
I wonder if there’s an unoccupied monkey that would like to play with a typewriter for reasonable pay?
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: you stupid cudlip.
how is reciting judeoxian heartland murrican propaganda “getting” me?
can you fucking read?
Yutsano
@matoko_chan:
You skipped a bunch of steps in there. When Ataturk forced the Ottoman emperor to abdicate thereby abolishing the empire he did indeed start a dictatorship with the express purpose of establishing a secular Muslim state. The abandonment of the Arabic alphabet for the Roman one (modified) was as much to increase literacy as the adapted Arabic alphabet didn’t work well for Turkish (vowels are highly important in the Turkish language and are mostly side notes when written in Arabic) and to impose a more Western view. Ataturk was indeed a tyrant no doubt (I know a bunch of Armenians who will back me on that) but after his death Turkey established democratic and highly secular institutions that have allowed for Erdogan to even get to where he is. Erdogan is religious from a religious party, but he was almost deposed by the Turkish military (this has happened five times in the past when the secular state gets threatened) a couple of years ago because many of his reforms were suggestive of imposing religious institutions. Erdogan didn’t get everything he wanted since he decided power was more important than Islam. Amazing how that happens when you’re in the big chair. And the AKP’s majority in the Turkish Parliament is around 47% last time I checked, but Erdogan also campaigned as much on economic issues as well as religious ones. So saying that Erodgan and the AKP won just because they’re Islamists is lazy and dishonest.
And don’t get me started on Iran.
Paul in KY
@morzer: It’s a tell.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
It’s the originality, wit and lucidity of your prose style that I admire so greatly. I thought you’d like to know.
arguingwithsignposts
@That Other Mike:
Hmmm, let me see if I can try.
You are all white olds whom I assume are evangelical christians (despite all evidence to the contrary) who hate teh mooslim, and we (teh mooslim) have evolved our religion to resist your evangelical entreaties, and it’s all the CIA’s fault, and I am smarter than all of you oldsters, which is why I speak in l33t hax koans. I hate ED Kain and although Cole continues to allow him to post, I will not go away, because I iz a troll.
I think that covers it. Oh, and also, too – cudlip.
ETA: the OODA loop is WAI. (slipping in my M_C speak, sorry)
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: Look ‘Matako’, you didn’t shoot down my Turkish examples of them not being the shining beacon of liberal freedom (at least not now).
You only sputtered on about some of our shortcomings & included a ‘fuck you’.
I can flowchart it, if necessary.
matoko_chan
@That Other Mike: i already linked translators.
encyclopedia dramatica and the UD.
the big problem is that you need an IQ > room temperature to get me, an alsotoo, not be older than god.
;)
morzer
@Paul in KY:
Superb. Your “flowchart” comment made me chortle.
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: I POINTED OUT that the AKP is against torture while America TORTURES.
isnt that enough?
one counter-example disproves the thesis in mathematics, retard.
arguingwithsignposts
@Paul in KY:
pics or it didn’t happen. I don’t think you can flowchart bullshit. I am willing to be proven wrong, though.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
**.
Just sayin’.
matoko_chan
@morzer: if you dont liek me old person, why not pie me?
all you have are adhoms.
none of you can debate me on substance.
arguingwithsignposts
@matoko_chan:
because geopolitics is *exactly like* mathematics.
face/palm
Yutsano
@Paul in KY:
Five military takeovers since Ataturk’s death. No real other evidence necessary.
arguingwithsignposts
@matoko_chan:
Lolz, cudlip.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
‘Twas scribbly and the cudlip modes
Did swive and gibber in the maze
Matoko were the babblegroves
And the whackchan poutgave.
Yutsano
@morzer: Dr. Charles Dodgson called. As soon as he gets those little pedophilia matters settled he said to speak to his lawyer.
(Too soon?)
morzer
@Yutsano:
Well, it’s what you get if you put a recommendation to seek professional help into the matoko translator. I agree it does seem oddly familiar, but I hope we don’t need to go to Vorpal One over the matter.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: Nobody this side of N. Korea explicitly states that they are ‘pro-torture’ (whether they do it or not). That’s like saying a political party is against baby raping.
All the regulars think you are 16 or something. How old are you?
matoko_chan
@Yutsano: AKP is the islamic party, but they are ALSO the liberal party.
that is my point. they are pro-human rights, against torture, pro-business and pro-civil rights.
the secular party is the conservative party in Turkey, because they mostly want to conserve the old ways..
Turkey is 99% nominally muslim.
when it has a democratic representative government that is govenment is islamic.
you simply cannot change that.
there are no secular democracies.
because of the consent of the governed.
Paul in KY
@arguingwithsignposts: Oh, you’re just pissed because you didn’t think of it ;-)
I actually don’t know enough about posting stuff to get a flowchart in here. Don’t block quote, etc. etc.
Typing words is as complicated as I get when posting in these threads (same for Salon).
2wrongs
Did Wikileaks cause it?
You have got to be kidding.
So you are saying that an average Tunisian minding his own business looks online (which is heavily regulated so he probably wouldn’t see it but lets go with this) sees this thing called wikileaks, finds out that there is a cable from the US saying that Tunisia is a Police state. The scales are lifted from his eyes and he riots?
It is as if Tunisians didn’t know that they were living under a dictatorship until they were told it by the US. This is culturally and intellectually insulting in the highest order.
Look, I’m in favour of wikileaks but claiming that they had ANYTHING to do with this is like saying that Sarah Palin or the movements of the moon had more to do with this.
I remember when there was a revolution in Lebanon and the right thought that it was all about the Iraq war. Don’t be idiots like them.
Not everything that happens in the world is about the US.
matoko_chan
@arguingwithsignposts: you cant.
i have pwned each and every one of the old harpy patrol.
Mark S.
@matoko_chan:
Bullshit.
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: AMERICA TORTURED PRISONERS.
that is indisputable, cudlip.
empirical evidence.
Yutsano
@matoko_chan:
This is wrong on so many levels that I could write a doctoral thesis on it. As it is I need to think about packing up and getting on the road. But consider this: Japan has two major religions. Which religion is the Japanese government?
matoko_chan
@Mark S.: name one.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
You see yourself as an old harpy? Strangely enough, you’ll find a solid consensus agrees with half of that. Better than your normal cudlippian ravings get, eh?
arguingwithsignposts
@matoko_chan:
Yes, when you deny reality, you can claim victory every time. Worked for Bush too, cudlip.
Yutsano
@matoko_chan:
To quote an infinitely greater man than me:
(word highlighted for clarity)
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: I know we have (and I’m very pissed off & embarrassed about it). What does that have to do with our bantering about Turkish ‘democracy’?
matoko_chan
@Yutsano: what is the majority religion in japan?
but we are talking about the ME.
majority muslim countries will have islamic governements.
because when muslims are democratically empowered to vote, they vote for islamic government.
Consider Iraq. Shariah in the constitution, all the major parties are religious, and the mullahs and imams still call the shots.
and it only cost us 3 trillion dollahs and 5k dead soljahs
That Other Mike
@morzer: I think they’re all too busy translating Shakespeare into Matokoese:
Now is the winter of our exceptionalism
Made glorious summer by this sun of Murica;
And all the cudlips that lour’d upon our judeoxian house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
2wrongs
Actually, re-reading the post. I know that it is novel but perhaps people who are so ignorant about a country that they don’t even know where it is on the globe then perhaps they shouldn’t be talking about what or what doesn’t cause internal unrest lest they look like cultural ignoramuses.
Yes I know that this is what the internet is based on but we can dream.
Again, Wikileaks had NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.
Wikileaks only works in freeish societies.
matoko_chan
@arguingwithsignposts: /sigh
we LOST in Vietnam.
didnt you try to debate that with me?
morzer
@matoko_chan:
This is matoko for “dunno”. Slowly the creature’s lexicon is becoming clearer.
arguingwithsignposts
@Paul in KY:
I’d suggest uploading it to another web page and just linking. like so.
Perhaps you should apply for a grant for your research. ;)
That Other Mike
@matoko_chan: Oh, great. So, essentially, Matoko, you’re telling us you’re a /b/tard, and we shouldn’t listen to anything you say?
grumpy realist
…back on topic….the FT has been covering what’s been going on in Tunisia (so has Solly). It also looks like the whole mess blew up so quickly that trying to figure out what was happening from daily reports was just a little too slow. I don’t think anyone figured that the President would run away so fast. (One day: major riots. Next day: firing of cabinet. Next day: Head honcho has vamoosed the country on an airplane. WTF?) Which makes me think that there was a lot going on behind the scenes we don’t know about and still don’t know.
The FT has been running commentary on what effects this will have on places like Egypt. There’s a lot of Mid-east rulers that are probably finding it a little harder to sleep tonight.
arguingwithsignposts
@matoko_chan:
Um,
a) who is we, kemo sabe?
b) I don’t think I argued that with you. I could be wrong, or you could be confused.
Mark S.
@matoko_chan:
US, UK, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, etc.
But I suppose your definitions of “secular” and “democracy” are completely different to what 90% of the world thinks they are.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mark S.:
you and your “facts.” pwned! cudlip! ;)
licensed to kill time
I just wonder if matoko_chan has any success communicating with the non-olds/presumed peer group or if her massive IQ gets in the way there, too.
Paul in KY
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m sort of like Dr. Einstein in that I don’t like cluttering my brain up with stuff I don’t need (probably my only similarity, besides being male, with the good professor).
I think I get my points across well enough with the words only. I do thank you for taking the time to provide that link.
Lot of cool people/cudlips here.
morzer
@licensed to kill time:
Well, she normally sits on her massive “IQ”, so I doubt that’s the problem.. unless she’s communicating via her nether orifice… and I don’t know why anyone could possibly think that.
arguingwithsignposts
@Paul in KY:
That is a cool link, eh? I use it in classes before talking about legitimacy and credibility on the Internetz.
That Other Mike
@Mark S.: If we’re being scrupulously fair, it bears mentioning that the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway all have established state churches and thus are technically non-secular, even with massive numbers of non-believers within the populace.
Stillwater
Christ people. I don’t even know the subject ya’ll are arguing about here, but when Matoko said ‘there are no secular democracies’ she was referring to Islamic countries. She says this stuff all the time: when Islamic countries vote, they vote for Islam.
licensed to kill time
@morzer:
She talks about IQ/her massive IQ all the time, so I presume she was overly praised about it at some impressionable point in her development.
Mark S.
@That Other Mike:
All right, in that spirit I’ll concede that those countries also have monarchs (except Finland, I think) so they are also technically not democracies.
arguingwithsignposts
@Stillwater:
So, i’m just curious, is M_C willing to cede the fact that most of these countries are artifacts of western hegemonic rule (e.g., Iraq)? This is a non-controversial question as far as i’m concerned. most of the ME was drawn up by WECs.
Yutsano
@Stillwater:
Big exception, and one we’ve been mentioning: Turkey. They have voted for secular governments since Ataturk stepped down except this last time, and even when a religious party finally won they voted as much with their pocketbooks as their faith. The AKP also ran on a platform of economic reform and expansion as well as lining up Turkey’s laws to gain admission into the EU. But that interferes with her world view so that is conveniently ignored.
Paul in KY
@arguingwithsignposts: Impeccable logic there. I bet you get a good laugh in your classes when your students see that one.
scav
There’s some stellar poetry here: a honors. My favorite mokoism is her (and, in a vain stab at fairness, esteemed others) scuttling around the bottoms of abandoned threads, winning arguments in their own minds by posting last and loudest. It’s oddly like watching those new critters we find in the abyss, living on nothing but whale bone.
Stillwater
@Yutsano: @arguingwithsignposts:
I’m not defending her views or trying to speak for her. Just thought the level of ridicule was getting a bit out of hand, especially since some of it was based on a misunderstanding.
That Other Mike
@Mark S.: Eh, this is going to look like I’m nitpicking, but monarchies and democracies are not mutually exclusive, whereas established churches and secularism are by definition.
freelancer
@morzer:
It’s like reading Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, slowly the droog-speak makes more and more sense. Only with m_c, once you translate it, it makes less sense.
And I’m in my twenties you nattering, neuronally-shuffled bint. Oop, atheist, WEC, cudlip torture-loving, Reaver-Building, Empire of Evil cow brought the dreaded Ad HOM!
morzer
@freelancer:
Matoko does seem to be her own only droog.
Mark S.
@That Other Mike:
whatever windsorian cudlip
Also, too, wouldn’t Indonesia qualify as a Muslim, mostly secular democracy?
Paul in KY
@Mark S.: The world’s most populous, I believe.
Also, Pakistan is technically a parlimentary democracy.
freelancer
@morzer:
No one knows what it’s like
To be the Kwisatch
To be the Haderach
Behind droog eyes
No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
But my dreams
They’re just as batshit
As my comments seem to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is Sci-fi
Not Gibson free
No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
When my acronyms puzzle, crack it open
Before I haxxor and lose my cool
When I spite, tell me some real news
And then I laugh and act like a fool
eemom
still know nothing about Tunisia, but this thread has been a fun read.
morzer, you are in fine form, you cuddly old cudlip you…..
licensed to kill time
@freelancer:
Bravo, freelancer! ‘before I haxxor and lose my cool’ {{snargle gasp}}
Paul in KY
@freelancer: Major props on getting Kwisatz Haderach in there.
May you always best the gom jabber.
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: did you know the Kwisatch Haderach was modelled on Muhammed and the lLine of the Imam? there is a lot of speculation that Herbert was a revert to al-Islam.
He studied arabic and sufism you know.
;)
matoko_chan
@freelancer: only oldfags use haxxor.
we speak chanese.
for example….i haz moar desu.
freelancer haz no desu.
morzer
@eemom:
There speaks my sweet snuggle-puss. Shall we prod matoko-cudlip and make her hop up and down some more for our entertainment?
That Other Mike
@matoko_chan:
And only newfags use desu. GTFO my B-J, cancer.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: When I first read the series back in college, I could see the parallels between the Fremen & Bedouin Arabs & the Fremen’s subsequent jihad across the empire was like the great Islamic conquests of the 600s.
Hadn’t thought about the parallels between Muhammed & the Kwisatz Haderach, but I can see what you are talking about.
Although, I must state, I don’t think Muhammed (peace be upon him) had some of the mental/physical abilities my future descendent/namesake apparently had.
Nice to get an email from you that doesn’t make me think you were cursing me as you pounded out your comments :-)
freelancer
@matoko_chan:
You used it 2 months ago, oldfagz.
Ash Can
@rios anna: Your comment is by far and away the highlight of this entire thread. Thank you very much for taking the time to report in here, and I for one hope you feel free to do so again in the future. :)
Al the Arabist
Interesting how the talk veered away from Tunisian sights and sounds. Details matter more than generalizations and debates (about Turkey and its republican adventures.)
Tunisia has laws and institutions aplenty. Lawyers, soldiers, bankers, famous professors, and local mayors will either stand and fight or just go along with the status quo and external pressures. It is a small country in the not so flourishing southern Mediterranean, think mini-Greece…
Of course culture matters, but it’s not sufficient to explain what’s going on.
You may want to read this short informational summary for some key facts.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/ccr/country-7290-8.pdf
Jay C
Sorry to have to drag the thread back to Tunisian affairs – I know, flaming each other is so much more fun – but it looks like the Jasmine Rev ain’t gonna be a cakewalk – there has been another change in government overnight. Exactly “who’s in charge?” seems an open question…
@rios anna:
What Ash Can said @ #129 – —
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Jay C: That’s because according to Tunisia’s constitution, the prime minister taking over from the president is illegal. Many of the protesters immediately called for him (Ghannouchi) to step down. Assuming the speaker of the parliament (now acting president in place of Ghannouchi) follows the constitution and holds elections in 60 days and opposition parties participate, Tunisia could be well on its way to being a functioning democracy.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@rios anna: thanks for providing the link to info on Mohamed Boazizi. I’d heard about the unemployed graduate who committed suicide and sparked the protests but didn’t know his name.
Caz
We ought to just stay out of it completely. Not one American dollar should be spent with regard to Tunisia. Let them deal with their own problems, and the U.N. can help if they want (although U.N. “help” often results in a worse situation, rather than a better one). Unfortunately, the U.N. takes advantage of the U.S. to such an extent that U.N. efforts necessarily involve the spending of U.S. dollars.
I don’t think Obama has done anything wrong concerning Tunisia. I simply think the U.S. has poor foreign policy in that we spend far too much time, effort, and money getting involved in other countries’ messes.
We have enough problems here at home to be worrying whether an election in Tunisia was conducted properly and whether those in power have fairly gained it.
I understand that Hezbollah is a major problem in Tunisia, but if we focus on protecting our borders and direct interests, we don’t need to set one foot or one American dime inside Tunisia’s borders.
The most we might consider doing is making a public statement in support of the good Tunisians.
Want to cut spending here at home? How about getting rid of the $50+ billion we spend on foreign aid and the umpteen billions of dollars we spend to scatter our military resources far and wide around the world.
Viva BrisVegas
It’s where a large number of American war dead are buried, near the site of the battle for the Kasserine Pass in WWII.
Lest we forget.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Caz: Hezbollah in Tunisia? I’ve now heard it all. Perhaps you’re mixing up Lebanon and Tunisia.
THE
Sorry. I posted this on another thread; maybe it really belongs here.
I suspect this is a dynamic we’re going to see more and more in the years ahead.
Tunisia was a dictatorship. It isn’t a member of OPEC. It is not a major oil exporter.
In some recent years it has even been a net petroleum importer.
A large part of its economy relies on trade with the EU and tourism.
Consequently the European part of the “Global Financial Crisis” has impacted it very heavily.
I think this, more than anything else, has delegitimized the old dictatorship leading to riots.
Also there has been a sharp rise in agricultural prices worldwide in the last year that has been putting major pressure on the lower classes.
Combined with the high unemployment that has flowed from the GFC, you have your recipe for an explosion.
Next door Algeria has also had riots recently for much the same reasons.
The economic factor makes me think that things may not improve much in Tunisia, no matter who is in government.
THE
It is interesting that various agricultural food price indexes are now showing that food prices are back up to the crisis levels they reached in 2008.
You will all recall that this caused hoarding and riots across the world at the time.
miwome
It baffles me that what people do when faced with this news is focus on the role that Wikileaks and/or Twitter might have played (cf. the Iranian Green almost-Revolution). Of course there is no way this could have happened without North American/European technology and revelations, for thus has it ever been. Barf. (Not referring to your post, just punditland.)
Revolutions always happen under the same general conditions and for the same general reasons. Technologies simply facilitate. They can be very important in terms of the revolutionary public being a step ahead of a by-definition conservative and repressive regime that hasn’t yet learned how to control the use of newer technologies, but that’s been true for centuries. The new rail system was instrumental in the Russian Revolution in 1917; trains would probably not significantly help anybody out in a revolt today. The key thing is not the nature of the technology’s linkage abilities, but rather its newness. The best things I’ve read on the role of media in these events are this piece by Ethan Zuckerman, and this one by Marc Lynch. Surprise, Al Jazeera still matters.
The Wikileaks thing I think is laughable. The cable did not say anything that Tunisians didn’t already know, and I can’t plausibly imagine why that of all things would send it over the top. Even the Tunisian who specifically thanked Wikileaks in a tweet thanked it for exposing the regime’s corruption “to the world,” not to Tunisia itself. As I understand it, the catalyst was this young man, a university graduate who could not find a job, tried to operate a fruit stand and was unable to because he did not have the proper permits–which are not so easy to get. He suicided by setting himself on fire. That, again, as I understand it, was the spark to the tinder.
Places to look for more detailed, expert-type commentary include Marc Lynch, Juan Cole, Qifa Nabki, and Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel. These are all commentators and analysts I’ve read for a long time, and they know what they’re talking about in a serious and nuanced way. If you want a multidimensional take on the events in Tunisia–not just “was it a Twitter revolution” or “what does this mean for Egypt” and so on, but also the implications for the media ecosystem of the Arab world, what will happen in the next few weeks and months in Tunisia (after the ruckus here has died down and people stop paying attention), what it’s like on the ground (oddly enough, this Gawker piece has some excellent on-the-scene reporting), etc…then there are no sites I can better recommend as somebody who studies this kind of thing.
miwome
@miwome: Oops. I meant to include this link regarding “the human scale”: 70 protesters already died leading up to this (it’s near the end of the article). Those are actually pretty good numbers on the relative revolutionary scale (I think), but lives lost are lives lost, and those people had family.
I try to make an effort to remind myself of this kind of thing, because as somebody who studies political history I can get a little too caught up in the wonderful and/or fascinating historical implications of an event without remembering how it always sucks for someone.
miwome
@Brachiator: This may not be quite as big a deal as it seems, as the government has been completely and hopelessly paralyzed for months. Most parliamentary systems dissolve and re-form their governments in the face of such total dysfunction. The circumstances are obviously a bit more hair-trigger than that, but it’s not as if Hizballah stormed the government buildings and raised a new flag.
miwome
@Caz: Um. Hezbollah? In Tunisia?
Perhaps you’re thinking of when the PLO leadership was exiled to Tunis? Those are not at all the same thing. Also, that ended almost forty years ago.
This is not quite as good as the people who believe that Hizballah is sending operatives to Venezuela, where they learn to pass as Latinos, before moving them on into Mexico where they illegally enter the US by sneaking through the border.
But good try!
bob h
Presumably all this has been noted in Tehran.
matoko_chan
@freelancer: 2 months IS a looong time ago.
@That Other Mike: lol. whales hav no desu.
@Paul in KY: the sufi believe that the Wali (friends of god) are born “open channel” to Al-lah. the line of the Imam predicates an inborn genetic ability to be a pure reciever, absent crosstalk and noise. the Kwisatch was bred for and born with an ability to percieve the future– a reciever for the future signal, like the sayyid (literally “of the line of Muhammed”) is born and bred to percieve Al-lah…a finely tuned reciever for Al-lah.
matoko_chan
Oh! there is my avatar!
matoko_chan
freelancer has Jeebus for an avatar?
splains a lot.
matoko_chan
@Yutsano: let us return to Japan, which is a false analogy for the ME.
in Japan, we decimated their population, invaded, occupied, and then reconstructed.
that might have worked in Iraq….but what we did was an EPIC FAIL.
it failed because Bush was a WEC and he thought muslims would embrace jeebus style democracy, and sent in the missionaries with guns. stupid cudlip.
al-Islam is EGT immune to proselytization in situ.
implanting/standing up “westernstyle” (aka judeochristian) democracy simply cannot be done.
when muslims are democratically empowered to vote they vote for islamic democracy.
see Iraq for empirical data.
THE
@matoko_chan:
There’s another very important difference between Japan and Iraq.
In Japan the USA wrote the constitution, it was written by US constitutional experts, and I believe it was their finest hour; and the Japanese parliament really just rubberstamped it (if I recall, they asked for a few small changes which were allowed).
They had already forced the Emperor to renounce his divinity. etc. The Japanese were treated at all times like a defeated nation. The USA inserted the bans on future military aggression, etc. into the Japanese constitution.
In the main the USA-written Japanese constitution has served Japan very well in the post war era.
In Iraq the Iraqis were allowed to choose their own constitution. Naturally they included Sharia.
The Iraqi people were treated like a liberated people – liberated from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. They were not treated like a conquered nation.
They had a national referendum etc on the constitution.
The Iraqi constitution is an Iraqi instrument.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: Appreciate the info, Matoko!