My 8th week interning at the State Department was a bit less eventful than the previous week, but besides the Early Alerts I met with exchange students from Hawaii and attended a conference by the Carnegie foundation on Egypt.
Early Alerts this week again centered on Libya. On Saturday, March 19th, UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was passed, which called for using "all necessary means" to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas from attack, imposed a no-fly zone, called for an immediate cease-fire, and strengthened travel bans on members of the regime, arms embargoes, and asset freezes. Allied airstrikes against Qaddafi’s forces began later that day. As a result, starting Monday we dealt with the reaction to the Security Council Resolution and the start of allied intervention. One of the main themes we covered was perceptions of the role of the US. Many highlighted that President Obama, mindful of the US already being involved in two wars in Muslim-majority countries, purposefully was “keeping the US out of the spotlight” (Italy’s Corriere della Sera).
More generally, we discussed the divides in NATO. Britain and France were the main supporters of intervention, the US eventually joined them to push for the above Security Council Resolution, and Italy reluctantly followed suit. However, alongside the ‘BRIC’ countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), Germany – a rotating member of the UN Security Council – abstained from the vote on Resolution 1973. This dramatic break from Germany’s NATO allies was widely noted – unlike the lead up to Iraq, where France and Germany took identical positions and whose leaders were very vocally against the war, today regarding Libya France and Germany, which are core of the European Union, are presently taking very different positions.
With the US seen as not stepping up to take command, and with Britain and France leading separate operations, many turned to NATO as the natural vehicle to coordinate and lead the intervention. However, some commentators worried that bringing in NATO was risky, as the organization is seen in much the same light as the US in the Muslim world. At any rate, on Friday everyone reported that “NATO takes military control in Libya” (La Razon), on the model of NATO’s role in Afghanistan. Still, if anything is clear from all the editorials and commentaries this week on Libya, it’s that the endgame of the intervention remains very much in doubt
On Monday, I met with staff and students from the University of Hawaii who were studying in Belgium. They came to the Media Hub to shoot interviews promoting the US-Belgium student exchange program. Unfortunately, as their visit coincided with crunch time for the Early Alert, I didn't get to do much with them other than introduce myself.
Tuesday afternoon I attended a conference hosted by Carnegie Europe called “Consolidating Egypt's Revolution.” It featured Amr Hamzawy, an Egyptian political scientist who is the research director and senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Hamzawy overviewed the situation in Egypt, and mentioned several major changes he sees in the country since the start of the revolution. Since 1952, Egypt’s political system was based on pushing people away, but starting January 25th citizens reentered the political process, and the fact that many millions participated in the recent constitutional referendum proposing a way forward is a hopeful sign that citizens will remain involved in politics. The Egyptian people also discovered that the Egyptian state, which was thought to be strong, in fact turned out to be quite weak – indeed, after a few days or weeks of protests the system collapsed, and only the military was able to propose a way forward. And for whatever reason, during the revolution Egyptian society was able to push aside sectarian tensions, social class divides, and other divisions to protest in a unified and civilized manner. But since pushing out Mubarak these tension are returning – between social classes (i.e. rising numbers of strikes) and between social groups (i.e. the recent violence against Christian Copts in the north). That said, while Hamzawy acknowledges that Egypt is a poor country with social and economic crises, he believes that energy unleashed by the revolution will remain a part of Egypt’s political culture and help enable solutions to these problems.
Amr Hamzawy also discussed some of the challenges that lie ahead for Egypt. A looming political question is what electoral system Egypt should adopt – should it conduct elections on an individual candidate system, which in the past produced weak legislatures and enabled corruption, or will it shift to a mixed system of party lists and individual candidates, like a simplified version of what Germany has? The second challenge is whether political groups and movements, especially those just now trying to organize and establish themselves, will have enough time to compete in the upcoming elections. That is the main reason why Hamzawy voted against the aforementioned referendum, which committed Egypt to having elections within 6 months from now. In his view, the only two parties that are ready to compete at the moment are the Muslim Brotherhood and what remains of the former ruling party, the National Democratic Party. Besides these two, parties in Egypt fall into two categories: legal opposition parties, which were limited in the past and now are finding it hard to adapt, and the new parties that are now trying to assemble. Unless these parties acquire the necessary resources and organization, then the former ruling party and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood will dominate and shape the new parliament. This is a worrying prospect, especially since the parliament will have a major role in the future constitutional assembly. As Hamzawy concluded, an imbalance parliament is bound to create an imbalance constitution.
The third challenge for Egypt over the next 6 months is navigating what Hamzawy termed Egypt’s “red lines” as the constitutional debate takes off. These are basically the “hot button” issues in Egypt, which to some are irrelevant, but for others are the most important issues. For instance, under the current constitute Islamic law, or Sharia, is officially the principle source of all legislation. Liberal Egyptians might be in favor of removing this, but other groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood, are vehemently opposed. Indeed, Hamzawy pointed out that the Brotherhood and other religious groups campaigned in favor of the referendum by claiming that if you vote no, then this article declaring Islam to be the state religion would be forfeited. That was not at all the case, of course, but according to Hamzawy it gives a sense of how tough addressing these red lines will be.
After having spent so much time writing about European press coverage of the revolution in Egypt I found it fascinating to hear from a person very much 'on the ground' in the country who is observing and to some degree shaping events there first hand. The meeting also gave me a preview of the type of conferences I might be helping to organize over the summer as part of an expected internship with a think tank in Washington.
Wednesday and Thursday weren't hugely eventful outside of the Early Alerts, and I left work early on Friday after completing the Early Alert to catch a flight to Bucharest, Romania for the weekend.
