2013-05-22T21:19:19-04:00 Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=joe-dyke Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Joe Dyke Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1534347 2012-05-22T06:50:06-04:00 2012-07-22T05:12:24-04:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/ said it was inevitable, that the violence in Syria slips over the border into Lebanon. While there have been occasional skirmishes in the north for months, the developments in the past fortnight suggest an increase in the dangers for the Lebanese.

Last week, following the arrest of an alleged Islamist, clashes between groups of men in the second city of Tripoli left at least eight people dead, with dozens more injured. Then over the weekend the killing of a sheikh by security forces in Akkar set off a series of protests against the Syrian regime, leading to the first clashes in the capital Beirut on Sunday night.

The Lebanese are now waiting and watching nervously to see what will happen next but as we await answers to these questions it is worth asking what has already happened. Much media focus has been on the sectarian nature of the clashes, with Sunni Muslims who by and large oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad clashing with Assad's own sect the Alawis. With Alawis being an offshoot of Shia Islam and the predominantly Shia Lebanese party Hezbollah still backing the Syrian regime, it is easy to portray the conflict in binary terms as Sunnis versus Shias.

While there is undoubtedly a sectarian element to the conflict this kind of thinking is both reductive and dangerous. Sunday night's clashes in Beirut provide a clear example of the nuances of Lebanese politics. Men from the Sunni opposition Future Movement fought with those from the pro-Assad Arab Movement. However the latter group is in fact made up predominantly of Sunnis, not Alawis. In fact, as Patrick Galey has written, the Future Movement fighters knew they were predominantly fighting Sunnis at the time.

More widely the assumption that Shia Hezbollah will back the Alawis is far from certain. Their role has so far been a back-seat one, with their normally vocal leader Hassan Nasrallah conspicuous by his absence in recent days. Hezbollah has previously promised that its weapons are only to be used to fight Israel, never to be turned on the Lebanese, and bar one event in 2008 they have largely kept to that deal. Nasrallah is due to speak later this week, his first major address since the violence escalated, and it will be interesting to see where he positions the party.

Furthermore within the ranks of the Sunnis there is far from uniformity. A chasm has been growing between the Future Movement, with the party's leader Saad Hariri not having visited the country for a year due to 'security threats,' and the so-called 'Sunni street.' Many of these feel let down by their political representatives and marginalised by the pro-Hezbollah government. The rise of Salafis in Tripoli is a new phenomenon in Lebanon, and one that is pushing the Future Movement into taking a much stronger position than they have previously done.

These are nuances that much of the international media have failed to express. Too often they are using the terms pro-Assad and Shia/Alawi almost interchangeably, while doing the same with anti-Assad and Sunni. By simplifying the conflict into easy to understand but essentially inaccurate statements, journalists are in danger of misleading their audiences. The "Arab tribes fighting each other" may be an easy way of explaining the crisis but it only portrays part of the story.

Even more worryingly, the Sunni versus Shia line leaves us in danger of aiding those who want to divide Lebanon. Whether it be Assad - who likes to use the threat of Sunnis to frighten the Alawi minority in both Syria and Lebanon into blind support - or Hariri - who says Lebanon has a choice between Sunni radicalism or his return to power - by playing sectarian politics we are reinforcing the divides.

Undoubtedly sectarian tensions play a role in Lebanon but assuming Sunnis and Shias are uniform blocks will only make it harder for the Lebanese to negotiate a peaceful way out of this mess.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1142723 2011-12-12T05:27:35-05:00 2012-02-11T05:12:01-05:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/
"He had been away for two weeks and came back at 3am. I wanted to hug him but he pushed me away. He said he was sick and I believed him. But on the 16th day [after he came home] I was sleeping and he woke me up and was viciously having sex with me. He left me bleeding. I was really in pain... but it was the mental pain that destroyed me."

Yasmin is one of hundreds of women raped by their husbands in Lebanon every year. She recalls her shock at the sudden change in his behaviour, with him taking to regularly abusing her both physically and mentally.

Her story is made worse by the fact that there is little she can do to prevent it occurring again. Currently in Lebanon there is no legislation to protect women from domestic abuse and no such thing as rape within marriage. Last year the then government announced a draft law which promised to criminalise rape within marriage for the first time, a decision hailed as a huge achievement by campaigners.

Yet a subcommittee of the Lebanese parliament tasked with amending the law has announced sweeping changes that threaten to gut it of any meaning. The eight-member committee has decided, following opposition from several sectors, including the two highest Muslim bodies in the country, to remove specific references to rape within marriage, and make the law more general.

Zoya Rouhana, the director of KAFA, a Lebanese NGO which campaigns for women's rights, condemned the move. "With this stance they have trampled on women's humanity and dignity. They have allowed for the humiliation and oppression of women," she said.

KAFA's Beirut centre receives about 300 cases of marital rape per year; women forced to have anal sex, beaten by their partners or raped on their periods. Those 300 realistically constitute only a small proportion of those affected as reporting rates for rape are notoriously low, especially when there is no legal protection.

Objections to the law are based on the framework of Lebanon's constitution - which declares that family issues, which have traditionally included domestic violence, are dealt with on an intra-sectarian basis. Religious figures have claimed that the law would lead to the breakup of the family, with many believing rape is impossible between husband and wife.

Lebanese MP Imad Hout, one of the eight committee members tasked with making the decisions, told a local Lebanese newspaper: "there's nothing called rape between a husband and a wife. It's called forcing someone violently to have intercourse."

This statement has raised criticism (as well as a fair amount of derision online) from those who claim that this secretive stance benefits those in control of the family, more often than not men. One woman who had been raped by her husband recalls plucking up the courage to speak to local police but being told that there was little that could be done because it was a "family matter". "Everyone knows what is going on," she admits.

Yet the makeup of the committee, on which the majority oppose the law, means the bill will only pass if watered down significantly. It is likely that by the time it becomes law it will be stripped of all specific references to rape within marriage, making it effectively meaningless for those in abusive relationships.

Yet there seems to be a resoluteness behind the campaign, with KAFA swearing to start again and propose new legislation. One woman regularly raped by her husband has a simple message for the politicians making the decision: "Let them look [at their lives], how they are comfortable and then look at us. We will take to the streets for this."

Names in this article have been changed.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1070126 2011-11-01T16:27:10-04:00 2012-01-01T05:12:01-05:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/
Abed moved from his London home to Bangladesh in 1971 to help millions of impoverished people in the newly independent state. He established BRAC and it now operates in more than 69 thousand villages in Bangladesh and nine other countries and is currently helping around 110 million people through its development schemes.

It is the first time that an award of this size has been given to innovators in education, though the prize money is still dwarfed by the $1.4 million given to Nobel Prize winners every year. Speaking at the awards in Doha, Abed said he was humbled but refused to admit it meant more to him than receiving his knighthood from the Queen last year.

"I am obviously very delighted to be the first laureate. It comes as a big surprise to me. I really didn't know anything about it. It is very difficult for me to find the words to express the honour and the privilege of receiving this recognition."

Asked how the award compared to being knighted, Abed said he did not want to choose between them. "Of course I was delighted to be knighted. I have been a British national for 50 years so it is only appropriate that I would be knighted," he joked.

He vowed to give the prize money away to specific services that BRAC operates. "It will make a lot of difference if I set up a school in a community where there is no school [or]... if I set up a library where no books are available so girls who have dropped out of school can come and borrow books, that will make a difference to their lives."]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1022132 2011-10-20T19:00:00-04:00 2011-12-20T05:12:01-05:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/
When the war began way back in March much of the debate was whether the UN Resolution 1973, which authorised in paragraphs four and eight, "all necessary measures" to protect civilians in Libya, covered attacks on Gaddafi and senior figures in the regime. In late March the now-former British defence minister Liam Fox claimed that Gaddafi was a "legitimate target" for assassination within the remit of 1973.

Within days Nato stressed that was not their position and David Cameron was quick to say he disagreed with Fox. The Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards went even further: "Absolutely not. It is not allowed under the UN resolution and it is not something I want to discuss any further."

Yet as the war has continued it has become increasingly clear that Nato has accepted Fox's interpretation of 1973, despite publicly claiming the opposite. First there were attacks on his command and control centres in Tripoli that aimed, according to Fox, to increase "psychological pressure" of the Gaddafi family. Then there were attacks on his family home, which allegedly killed his youngest son Saif al-Arab Gaddafi and children. Since the fall of Tripoli the realistic threat to civilians has fallen significantly and while the pursuit of Gaddafi by the Libyans is legitimate, the continued use of Nato air force hints at regime change.

If Nato stepped over the line between protecting civilians and assassination attempts it is unclear exactly when this happened. International law lags behind real politik, particularly in the regulation of unmanned surveillance drones, which have been used in Libya. International law regulating assassination often ends up falling back on the Hague Convention of 1899 which confirms that it is illegal "to kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army."

But, as Kristen Eichensehr has argued, "in recent years, and especially since September 11... the United States [and others] have reframed [assassinations]as "targeted killings," defining the victims as "enemy combatants" who are therefore legitimate targets wherever they are found."

Over the course of the war Nato has gradually redefined its goals, to the extent that David Cameron is hailing the murder of a man as a victory for democracy. The lines between liberal interventionism and regime change have blurred so fast it is difficult to know whether they have strayed beyond the lines of Resolution 1973.

Policy-makers will rejoice that Gaddafi is dead as it vindicates the theory of quick and easy liberal wars. Yet if he has been killed by bombs flown by Nato airplanes it finally removes the illusion that this is a Libyan revolution. Even if he wasn't it is fairly clear that Nato reconnaissance led the Libyan rebels to him. The purpose of going to war was to protect the population of Libya. Was the killing of a deposed leader legitimate within that framework? When David Richards said "absolutely not", perhaps what he really meant was "quite possibly". ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.979326 2011-09-25T19:00:00-04:00 2011-11-25T05:12:02-05:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/
The failed revolutions of 1848 remain the most powerful example of what can happen if protests are allowed to stagnate. Those that began with protests in Italy in January and soon spread to France appeared set to alter the shape of European politics forever. A coalition of working and middle-class protesters rose up against their leaders demanding fair prices and democratic rights. In February, the French King Louis Philippe was gone and the Second French Republic formed. For months the traditional forms of European authority looked to be crumbling.

Yet it was not to be. Within a year those same autocrats pushed back the protesters, who were undermined by a lack of direction and unity. The 1848 revolutions were called a 'turning point in modern history where history failed to turn'. The revolution was finally put to bed four years later in 1852 when the French monarchy returned.

The lessons of 1848 seem all the starker as we witness the pre-Arab Spring status quo creeping back in.

In Egypt the freedoms enjoyed following the fall of Mubarak are again threatened by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has reasserted its dominance, suppressing dissent. The much-maligned Emergency Law, which the new government promised to rescind, remains in place. Bloggers and activists who cheered Mubarak's demise have found themselves less free than before February 11th, with a number arrested in recent months. Mubarak, it seems, was a straw man, propped up as a hate figure to deflect criticism of the more-powerful forces behind him.

While this may change after the coming elections it may not. As an intellectual I met last week stressed, it is important to recognise the stake held in Mubarak's rule by the Muslim Brotherhood, now widely predicted to become the biggest party in elections. They had existing, albeit fluctuating, relations with the regime and its security services, and will almost certainly rely on those links if they are to win power in elections later this year. It is noticeable that the Brotherhood has sided with the military more often than not in recent weeks.

In Libya, major change in the regime is imminent. Yet there are concerns, which I have raised before, about the type of government the National Transitional Council is planning. A population divided into different tribes also makes it harder to reach a consensus.

Similarly Libya's new government knows that the country's revolution was only secured with the help of international forces. This does not come without conditions: France, the UK and the US will want something back for rescuing the rebels in Benghazi. More oftenthan not, the priority of the West has been oil not democracy in the Middle East.

Against all the odds, in Yemen President Saleh looks set to return from exile in Saudi. His injuries, incurred during the attack on the Presidential building, appear to have slowed dissent and saved his life. Likewise Syria, Bahrain and Algeria appear to be falling into the 'nearly revolutionary' category.

There are continued reasons to believe that these revolutions will not be like Europe 1848. Believers argue that new technologies that enable protesters in Tunisia to communicate in seconds with those in Syria mean that, while the pace of revolution may slacken, lasting change is unavoidable.

Yet those protesting in the region should carry three of the lessons of 1848 with them. First, beware of the spotlight fading. In February the Arab Spring dominated the Western media, Al Jazeera ran constant coverage and all eyes were on the Middle East. Now the issue is becoming sidelined, with the global economic crisis, Western domestic politics and even the Palestinian UN bid forcing it down the running order.

The initial excitement felt for the protests is likely to wane further as the year drags on. No longer the darlings of the international media, the protesters will have to force change on their own.

Secondly, it is easy to unite around a common enemy; much harder to create a new world afterwards. In the early period of 1848, working and middle-class movements spoke as one in their common hatred of the system, only for major differences to emerge later. This division allowed the traditional elites a reprieve. Divisiveness will lead to failure; clear definition on practicable and meaningful goals is needed.

And thirdly, beware of the straw man; the fall of a tyrant does not automatically bring about real change. Michael Young has expressed this very eloquently but unless the systems of governance are fundamentally altered, a change at the top means nothing. In Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and other countries where leaders may topple, so too must the clientelist, patronage-based systems that are the real enemies of the people of the Middle East.

If the protesters of 2011 carry around the lessons of 1848 with them they can attempt to avoid the pitfalls that befell their revolutionary predecessors. If not they are in danger of wasting the once in a lifetime opportunity.

As the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, talking during the 1848 revolutions, said: "I want it to be a dedicated and earnest revolution because I want it to be the last. I know that only dedicated revolutions endure. A revolution which stands for nothing, which is stricken with sterility from its birth, which destroys without building, does nothing but give birth to subsequent revolutions."
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.948277 2011-09-04T19:00:00-04:00 2011-11-04T05:12:01-04:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/
If you are not familiar with Western Sahara that is hardly surprising; the struggle of these few hundred thousand people on the west coast of Africa receives almost no coverage in the media. Yet the region is defined by the UN as a "non-self-governing territory", with a distinct language and defined space. Numerous international law rulings have declared the continued occupation by the Moroccans illegal, leading to the region being dubbed 'Africa's last colony'.

Western Sahara is divided by a 1,500 mile wall, the largest in the world, complete with barbed wire and mines and maintained by Moroccan troops. The Moroccan authorities consider any opposition to their rule in Western Sahara as an attack on the country's "territorial integrity" so pro-independence forces are often brutally supressed. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly warned that Moroccan forces "use a combination of repressive laws, police violence, and unfair trials to punish Sahrawis who advocate peacefully in favor of independence or full self-determination for the disputed Western Sahara."

The people of Western Sahara have not been oblivious to the Arab Spring. In February and March, partly inspired by the toppling of Mubarak and Ben Ali, thousands of Sahrawis protested on the streets against Moroccan rule. This Tuesday there will be protests across the world to mark the 20th anniversary of the ceasefire between the Moroccans and the Polisario, the Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement. As part of that ceasefire the Moroccans promised a referendum on self-determination, yet the Sahrawis are still waiting.

What has this got to do with Libya? Last week the new 'liberal' government of Libya, the National Transitional Council, announced it no longer supported an independent Western Sahara. Colonel Gaddafi had, albeit inconsistently, pledged Libyan support for the Sahrawis' struggle for recognition. Now the NTC has quietly backed the Moroccans as the true and legitimate rulers of the region.

This must be recognised as hypocritical. The NTC came to life as a movement fighting for independence from Colonel Gaddafi and, most importantly, the right to democracy. When Gaddafi was set to retake Benghazi, it urged the West to act based, on these same liberal democratic principles and the right to self-determination. In March, the movement's spokesperson, Mustafa Gheriani, said that "the revolution was started because people were feeling despair from poverty, from oppression. Their last hope was freedom." Now they have assumed control, they have refused to back the legitimate demands of the Sahrawis for the same rights.

The reasons for this shift are based on regional alliances - the NTC leaders have fallen out with the Algerians because they have so far refused to recognise them as the legitimate government of Libya. The Algerians have always supported an independent Western Sahara, in part at least to aggravate the Moroccans. Therefore the NTC has made the calculated decision that to state their support for Moroccan control of Western Sahara they will bring the country on side and isolate the Algerians. It is also partly because there have been claims, largely unverified so far, that members of the Polisario were employed by Colonel Gaddafi as mercenaries to put down the protests in Libya.

Yet how alarming it is that one week into Libya's new administration 'real-politik' is already the name of the game. Even if it were the case that people affiliated with the Polisario were involved in Libya that does not mean that the Sahrawi's right to self-determination should be so summarily dismissed.

If it really wants to reshape North African politics, the NTC should be supporting the struggle of a people in a nearby region illegally suppressed by an occupying power. Instead it has put its own local and strategic interests. The National Transitional Council's stance on Western Sahara seriously undermines its claims to be in favour of national self-determination in the region. So much for the new liberalism of the Middle East.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.928711 2011-08-16T17:22:15-04:00 2011-10-16T05:12:01-04:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/
This trip is all the more important because the bid for recognition will almost certainly go before the UN in September while Lebanon is temporarily president of the Security Council. Abbas was all smiles yesterday as he posed for photos with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and today he will meet the Prime Minister and visit a Palestinian refugee camp in the south. On Monday he visited Bosnia, another current member of the Security Council. The message to the US is clear; he is working hard to ensure a majority vote in favour and force them to veto the motion.

While it is clear that the US is willing to do so it would be embarrassing for President Obama, particularly in the Arab world. Only three months ago Obama reasserted that "the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states... The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states."

This, in essence, is not so far from what the Palestinians are asking the UN to ratify. They are not, as Hamas have done, refusing to accept the existence of an Israeli state altogether, instead demanding a Palestinian state on the basis of the internationally accepted borders.

The reason that the US will not accept this deal is that in the absence of a negotiated settlement the Israelis will feel threatened. In the same speech Obama warned the Palestinians that "symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state."

Yet Obama must shoulder much of the blame for forcing the Palestinian Authority into this position. For Abbas, normally so supine when faced with American pressure, has little left to lose. A series of humiliating defeats and a complete failure to secure reasonable concessions has pushed him into this potentially self-destructive bid.

The great historian of the Middle East David Hirst wrote that Barack Obama's failure to earn significant concessions from the Israelis during his first year in power pushed Abbas away from the table. Abbas, he said, "had banked all on America and its pledges; and now he had been personally betrayed".

Hirst was talking of Abbas's threat to resign, which he never carried out, but this is a similar situation. After the spectacle of yet more Washington talks last year, where Abbas looked more and more lost, he returned home with no deal and no serious concessions. Meanwhile Hamas were happily ridiculing him as a poodle of the Americans.

Within months the Middle East was erupting, with revolutions destroying all the old certainties. For some in the party the very foundations of the PLO began to look shaky.

So in April Abbas changed tack sharply and announced reconciliation talks with Hamas as well as renewing plans to go to the UN. He has also called for widespread protests in Palestine in the build-up to the vote at the end of September. No longer so supine.

The plan may well be backfiring, Hamas has already denounced them as a "mere mirage" while even Abbas's own prime minister has reservations about the bid. Yet Obama must be held partly responsible for this.

If Abbas had not sat through three years of failed negotiations, been widely ridiculed in the Arab world and seen the PLO's legitimacy challenged, he would still be a more amiable partner. Crucially Obama failed to earn any significant concessions on the key issue of settlements, with the Israelis continuing to build in the West Bank contrary to international law. Abbas was left with nowhere to turn.

Abbas knows that the US does not want to publically veto the motion. He is trying to seize back the political momentum for the first time in years. For the 76 year-old this may really be his last throw of the dice.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.923137 2011-08-10T19:00:00-04:00 2011-10-10T05:12:02-04:00

Joe Dyke http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-dyke/
So says Adel, a mid-20s Lebanese man, speaking in the centre of Beirut where a few hundred people have gathered to condemn the regime of President Assad, the largest in the country since the uprising began. The protest begins warmly, with candles being lit, posters saying "No to silence in Lebanon" and old friends kissing three times on the cheek.

Yet within minutes the atmosphere sours when a small but vocal counter-protest arrives. This group of predominantly Shiite men yell their support for Assad, much to the dislike of those on the other side of the barriers. When one man makes an attempt to break in the nervy police, decked in riot gear, jump to attention to prevent a clash.

They have right to be nervous, the previous few weeks have seen increasing levels of violence in the city. Last week protesters at an anti-Assad march in the west of the city were attacked, with a handful hospitalised. Adel says that three months ago a Glock Gun sold for as little as $1500; now it will set you back $3000. The Lebanese are arming themselves again.

The spectre of sectarian violence is causing much concern in Lebanon, less than 25 years since the country's brutal 15-year civil war ended. Many of the causes can be traced to the implosion of Syria. The two countries are intrinsically economically linked, Syria is the only open border that Lebanon has and tightening restrictions in recent months have hit trade. But more widely tensions in Syria are beginning to trickle over the border, bringing to the fore old grievances in Lebanon.

Much of the focus resolves around the power of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia-come-political party which forms a crucial part of the government. While the Syrian leadership is officially non-partisan many of the country's ruling elite, including the Assad family, belong to the minority Alawite sect - a breakaway from Shia Islam. The Lebanese government this week made the controversial decision to be the only country on the UN Security Council not to back a resolution condemning the violence in Syria. Meanwhile Hezbollah continue to actively back Assad despite criticising Hosni Mubarak of Egypt during the Tahrir Square protests, fuelling claims in the Sunni and Christian communities they are not playing fair.

While there is little active desire for a return to civil war in much of the populace, as ever with Lebanon her future may well be determined by outside forces. If Assad is removed from power and a majority Sunni government is formed in Syria Hezbollah will no longer have an automatic route for its weapons, pushing it into a corner it may try and fight its way out of.

They are already under pressure after the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon identified four men with links to Hezbollah as suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Hezbollah have denounced the tribunal, with their leader Hassan Nasrallah labelling it an Israeli-American conspiracy. Yet there is a sense that they are, for the first time in a number of years, on the back foot in Lebanese politics and it is not a position Nasrullah will accept lightly.

Yet the alternative to the collapse of Assad is hardly more desirable. If Syria becomes a long drawn-out civil war in the mould of Libya the protests in Lebanon may continue to grow. Ahmed Tariq, another marcher and a member of Hariri's Mustaqbal movement, says he will continue to voice his anger until Assad goes, even if that means further conflict with the Shiites. "They [the Syrians] killed Hariri. Now the people want to make a revolution in Syria and I hope to add to it. He will fall in the end." Old Lebanese grievances becoming mixed with current Syrian protests.

The third alternative, that Assad successfully suppresses the protests, would probably have the least effect on Lebanon but it is also looking the least likely. Events in Lebanon, the little sister of the Levant, have long been determined by the forces around them. With the Iranians and Hezbollah backing the Syrian regime while the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia put pressure on Assad to go Syria is becoming the scene of world struggle. Lebanon's fractious political balance means the fallout will almost certainly not end on Syria's border.]]>