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      in World Politics

      Beware of Dying Empires, an African Warns

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      Our regularly updated feature Language and the News will continue in the form of separate articles rather than as a single newsfeed. Click here to read yesterday’s edition.

      We invite readers to join us by submitting their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.

      February 25: Dead Empires

      Perhaps the most lucid commentary on the Ukraine crisis came from the Kenyan ambassador to the United Nations, Martin Kimani. Addressing the UN Security Council earlier this week, Kenya joined the chorus of nations categorically condemning Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity as a prelude to a military assault. But unlike other nations, which have been framing their judgment only in terms of international law, Kimani proposed a measured reflection drawing on a much wider historical perspective than that of disputed territories in Eastern Europe. The experience of African nation-states, “birthed” as he reminds us in the past century, helps to clarify the crisis in Eastern Europe as just one more symptom of a pathology spawned by the Western colonial tradition.

      From Repeated Mistakes to an Unmistakable Message

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      The New York Times didn’t bother to mention Kimani’s speech. After all, who cares about Kenya or the historical insight of Africans? The Washington Post offered two minutes of video excerpted from the ambassador’s six-minute speech. It was accompanied by a single sentence of commentary that gives no hint of the substance of his remarks: “Kenyan Ambassador to the U.N. Martin Kimani evoked Kenyan‘s colonial history while rebuking Russia’s move into eastern Ukraine at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 21.”

      Carlos Mureithi at Quartz Africa penned a fuller commentary that doesn’t quite get Kimani’s real point. He begins by describing the speech as “a scathing condemnation of the Russia–Ukraine crisis, comparing it to colonialism in Africa.” But it was much more than that.

      [embedded content]

      Kimani invited the Security Council to consider how the nation-states we have today were crafted by European colonial masters focused on perpetuating their own interests and indifferent to the needs and even identities of the peoples who lived in those lands and who woke up one morning to find themselves contained within newly drawn national borders. Kimani makes the surprising case for respecting those borders. However arbitrary in their design, they may serve to reign in the ethnic rivalries and tribal tendencies that exist in all regions of the globe, inevitably spawning local conflicts. But even while arguing in favor of the integrity of modern nation-states, he showed little respect for those who drew the borders and even less for the self-interested logic that guided them.

      “We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires,” Kimani urges, “in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression.” The populations on the receiving end of colonial logic know that even dead empires, chopped down to size, can be sources of contamination. They have left a lot of dead wood on the path of their colonial conquests. Not only does dead wood tend to rot, but, if the vestiges of the past are not cleared away, those who must continue to tread on the path frequently risk tripping over it.

      Kimani evokes the specter of “nations that looked ever backward into history with a dangerous nostalgia.” He sees a bright side in the fact that an incoherently drawn map may have helped Africa avoid the worst effects of nostalgia. The real paradox, however, is that his description of dead empires applies to the two still breathing opponents who are facing off in the current struggle: Russia and the United States.

      In an article on the Russia–Ukraine crisis published on Fair Observer in December, Atul Singh and Glenn Carle highlighted Vladimir Putin’s obsession with a form of nostalgic traditionalism. They described it as “a reaction to and rejection of the cosmopolitan, international, modernizing forces of Western liberalism and capitalism.” Though Putin’s wealth is as legendary as it is secret and the Russian president appears to be as greedy as a Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, he seems possessed by a pathological nostalgia for the enforced order of the Soviet Union and perhaps even for the Tsarist Russia the Bolsheviks overturned a century ago. At the same time, Donald Trump’s campaign to “Make America Great Again” reveals a similar pathology affecting the population of the US. It’s equally a part of President Joe Biden’s political culture. The “back” that appears in Biden’s slogan “America is back” and even in “Build Back Better” confirms that orientation.

      In declining empires, the mindset of a former conqueror remains present even when conquest is no longer possible. Kimani alludes to this when he affirms that Kenya “strongly condemn[s] the trend in the last decades of powerful states, including members of this Security Council, breaching international law with little regard.” He accuses those states of betraying the ideals of the United Nations. “Multilateralism lies on its deathbed tonight,” Kimani intones. “It has been assaulted today as it has been by other powerful states in the recent past.” In other words, Putin is not an isolated case.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Kimani politely names no names. But the message is clear: There is blame to go all around and it is endemic. That is perhaps the saddest aspect of the current crisis. Sad because in wartime situations, the participating actors will always claim to act virtuously and build their propaganda around the idea of pursuing a noble cause. Putin has provocatively — and almost comically — dared to call his military operations a campaign of “demilitarization,” which most people would agree to be a virtuous act. We have already seen Biden call the various severe measures intended to cripple Russia’s economy “totally defensive.”

      Empires assumed to be dead are often still able to breathe and, even with reduced liberty of movement, follow their worst habitual instincts. The two empires that squared off against each other during the Cold War to different degrees are shadows of what they once were. But their embers are still capable of producing a lot of destructive heat.

      Why Monitoring Language Is Important

      Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.

      In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.

      Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.

      Remember, Fair Observer’s Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      African migrants deported in Trump era suffered abuse on return, report finds

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      African migrants deported in Trump era suffered abuse on return, report findsA Human Rights Watch report found Cameroonian asylum-seekers forcibly flown back home suffered imprisonment, torture and rape Cameroonian asylum-seekers deported by the Trump administration suffered imprisonment, torture and rape on their return, and many were forced in to hiding or fleeing the country once more, according to a new report.In the last months of the Trump administration, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency stepped up its deportations of African migrants, especially Cameroonians. Over 80 of them were flown to Cameroon in October and November 2020 alone, amid allegations of abuse, in which Ice detainees said they had been forced to sign or fingerprint documents believed to be waivers agreeing to their deportation.US Ice officers ‘used torture to make Africans sign own deportation orders’Read moreThe deportations took place despite warnings from lawyers and human rights groups that those being sent back would be in danger. A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report published on Thursday found that almost all of those deported in 2019 and 2020 faced reprisals of some sort on their return to Cameroon, from rape and beatings to detention and extortion or simply having their identity cards confiscated.West Cameroon is still in the grip of a conflict between the government and armed anglophone separatists, with frequent reports of arbitrary killings and military patrols in the streets. Anyone without an identity card faces the risk of detention.The 149-page HRW report, “‘How Can You Throw Us Back?’: Asylum Seekers Abused in the US and Deported to Harm in Cameroon,” says that between 2019 and 2021, Cameroonian security forces detained or imprisoned at least 39 people who had been sent back by the Trump administration. Many of those were held without due process and in inhumane conditions, some in solitary confinement.HRW found 14 cases of physical abuse, 13 by Cameroonian security forces and one by armed separatists. Three women were raped in custody by “state agents”, and other detainees were severely beaten during interrogation.The deportees had all fled Cameroon to escape the conflict, in particular the government’s brutal treatment of those suspected of involvement in the separatist movement. On being forcibly returned to Cameroon, they were additionally accused of having harmed the country’s reputation by seeking asylum.The HRW report found that Ice had failed “to protect confidential asylum documents during deportations, leading to document confiscation and apparent retribution by Cameroonian authorities”.One woman who was deported in October 2020 said she was tortured and raped by government soldiers over six weeks in detention in Bamenda, northwestern Cameroon.“Every two days … they were using ropes, [rubber] tubes, their boots, military belts … They hit me all over my body,” she told HRW. “They said that I’ve destroyed the image of Cameroon … so I had to pay for it.”After initially being allowed home, another returnee was summoned to a police station two weeks later, supposedly to pick up his documents, but he was detained instead.“They said ‘you are the guys who go out there spoiling the name of the country’. That is when my second nightmare began,” he told the Guardian. He was held for five months until his family paid a CFA franc 2m ($3500) fine for his release. He has since fled the country and is hiding elsewhere in West Africa.Many of the returnees went into hiding to avoid arrest. In the case of seven of them, according to the report, the police or army targeted family members to try to force them to reveal their whereabouts. One returnee’s sister is alleged to have been shot and killed, another’s mother was severely beaten, and the 11-year-old son of another returnee was abducted and questioned by security agents.One of the deportees, known by the pseudonym Cornelius in the report, said he and others were interrogated on arrival in 2020.“Army officers were asking us why we had sought asylum, what we had told American immigration,” Cornelius told the Guardian. Some of the returnees on the same plane were arrested and taken away and Cornelius did not see them again (HRW has not been able to trace some of the deported Cameroonians). Cornelius and others were held in a detention facility for a few days and then released, but without their personal papers.Reuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Merkel’s Children: Living Legacies Called Angela, Angie and Sometimes Merkel

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      For some refugee families who traveled to Germany during the migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016, gratitude for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome them comes via a namesake.WÜLFRATH, Germany — Hibaja Maai gave birth three days after arriving in Germany.She had fled the bombs that destroyed her home in Syria and crossed the black waters of the Mediterranean on a rickety boat with her three young children. In Greece, a doctor urged her to stay put, but she pressed on, through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria. Only after she had crossed the border into Bavaria did she relax and almost immediately go into labor.“It’s a girl,” the doctor said when he handed her the newborn bundle.There was no question in Ms. Maai’s mind what her daughter’s name would be.“We are calling her Angela,” she told her husband, who had fled six months earlier and was reunited with his family two days before little Angela’s birth on Feb. 1, 2016.“Angela Merkel saved our lives,” Ms. Maai said in a recent interview in her new hometown, Wülfrath, in northwestern Germany. “She gave us a roof over our heads, and she gave a future to our children. We love her like a mother.”Chancellor Angela Merkel is stepping down after her replacement is chosen following Germany’s Sept. 26 election. Her decision to welcome more than a million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in 2015 and 2016 stands as perhaps the most consequential moment of her 16 years in power.It changed Europe, changed Germany, and above all changed the lives of those seeking refuge, a debt acknowledged by families who named their newborn children after her in gratitude.The chancellor has no children of her own. But in different corners of Germany, there are now 5- and 6-year-old girls (and some boys) who carry variations of her name — Angela, Angie, Merkel and even Angela Merkel. How many is impossible to say. The New York Times has identified nine, but social workers suggest there could be far more, each of them now calling Germany home.Migrants arriving at a registration tent in Berlin in 2015. Ms. Merkel’s decision to welcome more than a million refugees in 2015 and 2016 stands as perhaps the most consequential moment of her 16 years in power.Gordon Welters for The New York Times“She will only eat German food!” said Ms. Maai of little Angela, now 5.The fall of 2015 was an extraordinary moment of compassion and redemption for the country that committed the Holocaust. Many Germans call it their “fall fairy tale.” But it also set off years of populist blowback, emboldening illiberal leaders like Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and catapulting a far-right party into Germany’s own Parliament for the first time since World War II.Today, European border guards are using force against migrants. Refugee camps linger in squalor. And European leaders pay Turkey and Libya to stop those in need from attempting the journey at all. During the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, a chorus of Europeans was quick to assert that refugees would not be welcome on the continent.“There are two stories here: One is a success story, and one is a story of terrible failure,” said Gerald Knaus, the founding chairman of the European Stability Initiative, who informally advised Ms. Merkel on migration for over a decade. “Merkel did the right thing in Germany. But she lost the issue in Europe.”The Guardian AngelaHaving fled war, torture and chaos in Syria, Mhmad and Widad now live on Sunshine Street in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen. In their third-floor living room, a close-up of Ms. Merkel’s smiling face is the screen saver on the large flat-screen television, a constant presence.“She is our guardian angel,” said Widad, a 35-year-old mother of six, who asked that she and her family members be identified only by their first names to protect relatives in Syria. “Angela Merkel did something big, something beautiful, something Arabic leaders did not do for us.”“We have nothing to pay her back,” she added. “So we named our daughter after her.”Angela, or Angie as her parents call her, is now 5. An animated girl with large hazel eyes and cascading curls, Angie loves to tell stories, in German, with her five siblings. Her sister Haddia, 13, wants to be a dentist. Fatima, 11, loves math.“There is no difference between boys and girls in school here and that is good,” Widad said. “I hope Angie will grow up to be like Ms. Merkel: a strong woman with a big heart.”The arrival of nearly one million refugees shook Germany, even as Ms. Merkel rallied the nation with a simple pledge: “We can manage this.” Like many others, Widad and her family were granted subsidiary protection status, in 2017, which allows them to stay and work in Germany. In three years, they will apply for German citizenship.The latest government statistics show that migrants who arrived in 2015 and 2016 are steadily integrating into German society. One in two have jobs. More than 65,000 are enrolled either in university or apprenticeship programs. Three in four live in their own apartments or houses and say they feel “welcome” or “very welcome.”During the pandemic, refugees sewed masks and volunteered to go shopping for elderly Germans isolated at home. During the recent floods in western Germany, refugees drove to the devastated areas to help clean up.Angie, right, loves to tell stories, in German, with her five siblings. Lena Mucha for The New York Times“They come to me and say they want to give something back,” said Marwan Mohamed, a social worker in Gelsenkirchen for the Catholic charity Caritas.Widad, who was an English teacher in Syria, recently got her driver’s license, is taking German lessons and hopes to eventually return to teaching. Her husband, who had a plumbing business in Syria, is studying for a German exam in October so that he can then start an apprenticeship and ultimately be certified as a plumber. For now, the family receives about 1,400 euros, about $1,650, a month in state benefits.In Wülfrath, Tamer Al Abdi, the husband of Ms. Maai and father of Angela, has been laying paving stones and working for a local metal company since he passed his German exams in 2018. He recently created his own decorating business, while his wife wants to train as a hair dresser.When Ms. Maai brought baby Angela to be registered at a nursery, she could barely speak German, said Veronika Engel, the head teacher.“Angela? Like Angela Merkel?” Ms. Engel had asked.“Yes,” Ms. Maai had beamed back.Her family was the first of 30 refugee families whose children joined the nursery.Tamer Al Abdi, who has a daughter named Angela, after Chancellor Merkel, has recently created his own decorating business, after passing his German exams in 2018. Lena Mucha for The New York TimesOne boy would not allow the door to be closed, Ms. Engel recalled, while another could not bear loud noises. Angela’s older sister Aria, who was 5 when they fled Syria, became scared during a treasure hunt in the forest because it brought back memories of how her family hid from thugs and border guards during their journey through Central Europe.“These are children traumatized from war,” Ms. Engel said. “The resilience of these families is admirable. We are a richer country for it.”A vicar’s daughter, Ms. Merkel grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Communist East Germany, a background that has profoundly impacted her politics.“She was clear: We won’t build new borders in Europe. She lived half her life behind one,” recalled Thomas de Maizière, who served as Ms. Merkel’s interior minister during the migrant crisis.‘You Got Unlucky’Not everyone has agreed. The migration crisis unleashed an angry backlash, especially in Ms. Merkel’s native former East Germany. This is where Berthe Mballa settled in 2015. She had been sent to the eastern city of Eberswalde by German migration officials, who used a formula to distribute asylum seekers across the country.“The East is bad,” one immigration lawyer told her. “You got unlucky.”In 2013, Ms. Mballa fled violence in Cameroon with a map of the world and the equivalent of 20 euros. She had to leave behind two young children, one of whom has since gone missing, and the trauma is so searing that she cannot bring herself to speak of it.The first time she had ever heard Angela Merkel’s name was on the Moroccan-Spanish border.“The Europeans had built big fences so the Africans wouldn’t come in,” she recalled. “I saw the people on the African side shouting her name, hundreds of them, ‘Merkel, Merkel, Merkel.’”Since settling in Eberswalde, Ms. Mballa has been insulted on the street and spat at on a bus. Ms. Merkel is loathed by many voters in this region, yet Ms. Mballa did not hesitate to name her son, born after she arrived in Germany, “Christ Merkel” — “because Merkel is my savior.”“One day my son will ask me why he is called Merkel,” she said. “When he is bigger, I will tell him my whole story, how hard it was, how I suffered, the pregnancy, my arrival here, the hope and the love that this woman gave me.”A refugee held a picture of Ms. Merkel at a train station in Munich in 2015.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesToday, Germany and the rest of Europe have stopped welcoming refugees. Politicians in Ms. Merkel’s own party have reacted to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan by declaring that “2015 mustn’t repeat itself.” In Gelsenkirchen, Widad and her husband, Mhmad, have been treated well but realize that times have changed.“Who will lead Germany?” Mhmad asked. “What will happen to us when she is gone?”Ms. Mballa also worries. But she believes that naming her son after Ms. Merkel, if a small gesture, is one way to keep the chancellor’s legacy alive.“Our children will tell their children the story of their names,” Ms. Mballa said. “And, who knows, maybe among the grandchildren there will even be one who will run this country with that memory in mind.” More

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      in UK Politics

      Islamic State posing ‘growing threat’ in Africa, says Raab

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      Dominic Raab will warn of the “growing threat” from Islamic State in Africa as the UK commits £12.6m to tackle terrorist groups in the region.He is to set out his desire to bring about the “lasting defeat” of IS, also known as Daesh, at a meeting of over 45 foreign ministers from around the world in Rome.The gathering of the Global Coalition Against Daesh on Monday is the first to take place in person since November 2019 and will be co-hosted by Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio and US secretary of state Anthony Blinken.Speaking at the event, Mr Raab will say: “The UK recognises the continuing threat and remains absolutely committed to the lasting defeat of Daesh.“The coalition must work together to tackle this pressing threat and target the longer-term challenges that are exploited by those who extol violence and terrorism.“We must ensure there are no safe havens for Daesh.“We must keep up the pressure on Daesh, wherever its poisonous influence spreads. It will exploit any opportunity to re-establish itself.”Attacks by Isis in Africa have gone up by a third over the past year while the group has also shown signs of a resurgence in the Middle East.The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said a new conflict, stability and security fund programme will support regional military efforts to counter IS and other groups, as well as efforts to safely demobilise suspected low-level members of terrorist groups.Its £12.6m contribution will focus on efforts in the Lake Chad Basin in West Africa, which covers northeast Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Islamic State West Africa (ISWA), an affiliate of Daesh, is active in the area.Mr Raab said: “Two years since Daesh’s territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, the threat of Daesh and its hateful ideology has not gone away. Worryingly it continues to grow in Africa which is why we must work with our coalition partners to fight its poisonous propaganda on all fronts.“We stand shoulder to shoulder with our African partners to tackle the growing threat from Daesh-linked groups across Africa, particularly in the Lake Chad Basin.”Additional reporting by Press Association More

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      in US Politics

      Biden accused of U-turn over Egypt’s human rights abuses

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      “It’s a hostage negotiation and it has been all along,” said Sherif Mansour, describing the arrest of his cousin Reda Abdel-Rahman by Egyptian security forces last August as an attempt to intimidate Mansour into silence.Abdel-Rahman has been imprisoned without trial for nine months. Mansour, an outspoken human rights advocate in Washington with the Committee to Protect Journalists, has since learned that he and his father are listed on the same charge sheet, all accused of joining a terrorist group and spreading “false news”.Mansour is one of a growing number of activists, dissidents and analysts angry at the US administration’s suddenly warm relations with Egypt. They point to Egyptian officials’ escalating threats against critics living in exile in the US, including arresting their family members or contacts in Egypt, many of whom are imprisoned like Abdel-Rahman on spurious charges.Twelve members of Mansour’s family have been detained and interrogated by Egyptian security agents since Abdel-Rahman’s detention.“They ask about us, when we last spoke to them, what we spoke about,” Mansour said. “They go through their phones – and if they don’t provide passwords they’re beaten in order to find anything that connects them to us, including Facebook conversations.“It’s why we haven’t been in touch: I’ve stopped talking to my family in order not to give them any reason to harass them,” he said.Joe Biden and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, held their first official call in late May, four months after Biden took office. As a candidate, Biden promised that there would be “no blank checks” for the man Donald Trump once addressed as “my favourite dictator”. Yet when they spoke, the two leaders discussed human rights in terms of a “constructive dialogue” and “reaffirmed their commitment to a strong and productive US-Egypt partnership”, according to the White House.This followed Egyptian mediation of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, including a recent rare public visit by the Egyptian intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, to Tel Aviv and Ramallah, and Israel’s foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, travelling to Cairo – the first visit by an Israeli foreign minister in 13 years.HA Hellyer, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank, said: “The latest crisis in the Palestinian occupied territories and the Israeli bombardment reminded DC of a very clear and present reality: that there is no capital in the region that has direct and workable relations with the Israelis and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank other than Cairo.”Biden’s administration capped his warm exchange with the Egyptian president with a decision to request $1.38bn (£1bn) in annual military aid for Egypt – the maximum amount possible.A coalition of human rights groups expressed “strong disappointment” at the administration’s decision. “President Biden campaigned on ‘no more blank checks’ for Egypt’s regime, but requesting the same amount the United States has provided annually since 1987 despite Egypt’s deteriorating human rights record is, effectively, another blank check,” they said.Mansour agreed. “They abandoned the rhetoric calling publicly on Egypt to respect human rights by agreeing to this ‘constructive dialogue’,” he said. “It makes my blood boil to hear this term in many ways. Not just because it’s a repetition of what we as Egyptians, and the United States, have heard from all previous dictators, but it also underscores how naive and timid this administration is when it comes to Egypt.”Since coming to power in a military coup in 2013, Sisi has overseen the broadest crackdown on dissent and free speech in Egypt’s recent history. Tens of thousands remain behind bars for their political views or for activities as benign as a Facebook comment; Egypt’s prisons are at double their capacity, according to Amnesty International.The Freedom Initiative, a Washington-based human rights organisation founded by the Egyptian-American activist Mohamed Soltan, has tracked the increasing numbers of arrests of family members of outspoken Egyptians in exile abroad. It said that threatening phone calls and even physical intimidation were now regularly used against Egyptian dissidents worldwide.“They said they could hire someone here in the States to go after me,” said Aly Hussin Mahdy, an influencer and dissident now in exile in the US. Mahdy described how his family members were detained earlier this year as a way to stop him speaking out against the Egyptian government on social media; his father remains in detention. The threats against Mahdy escalated to menacing phone calls from someone purporting to be an Egyptian intelligence agent after he openly discussed his family members’ arrests.The Freedom Initiative described what it termed “hostage-taking tactics” involving five American citizens whose families were detained in Egypt in order to silence their activism in the US. In addition, it found more than a dozen cases of US citizens or residents whose close relatives were detained in Egypt last year, although it believes the true number to be far higher.It added that one US citizen was warned against speaking to US lawmakers on their release from detention in Egypt, and told that doing so would result in harm to their family.Yet US law contains mechanisms to curb cooperation with countries that threaten US citizens and dissidents abroad. These include the Leahy law, which stops the US funding foreign security forces that violate human rights; the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows the government to sanction human rights abusers and prevent them from entering the US; and the “Khashoggi ban”, curbing visas for those engaged in anti-dissident activities.The White House did not initially respond when contacted for comment on this issue. The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told a congressional hearing this week that “I think we’ve seen some progress in some areas” of human rights in Egypt, but that “when it comes to freedom of expression, when it comes to civil society, there are very significant problems that we need to address directly with our Egyptian partners – and we are. So we hope and expect to see progress there.”US-based activists expressed disappointment at lawmakers’ reluctance to employ sanctions against Egyptian officials, who they say more than qualify for punitive measures.“The fact that Egypt feels it can get away with taking citizens hostage, and so far it did, will continue to be a stain on the Biden administration,” said Mansour. More

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      in World Politics

      Why Is Somalia’s Political Crisis So Difficult to Solve?

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      There seems to be no end in sight for the political crisis in Somalia. On February 8, the mandate of President Muhammad Abdullahi Muhammad, commonly known as Farmajo, expired without a date set for either parliamentary or presidential elections. The protests called by the opposition Council of the Presidential Candidates in the following days were met with growing repression from government forces. In April, Farmajo extended his already overdue term by a further two years, igniting violence between the security forces and anti-government militias in the streets of the capital Mogadishu.

      In response, the international community, and the US in particular, increased pressure on Somali actors to come to an agreement, causing the states of Hirshabelle, Galmudug and South West to withdraw their support for Farmajo and call for new elections. Lacking international and domestic support, on May 1, Farmajo backtracked on his extended mandate and paved the way to new elections.

      Russia Joins the Red Sea Scramble

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      Despite optimism around recent advances, Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, who is in charge of organizing the elections, has a complicated task ahead. Armed confrontation created further distrust between political actors, and violence could easily flare up again in the run-up to the elections. Underlying constitutional, economic and international factors continue to drive this power struggle that is undermining Somalia’s already troubled state-building efforts.

      Federal Tensions

      On September 17, 2020, the federal government and the presidents of the member states agreed on amendments to the electoral process under pressure from the UN mission to Somalia, AMISOM. The agreement fell short of implementation, raising tensions between Mogadishu and the states of Puntland and Jubaland that staunchly oppose federal rule.

      There are three contentious issues on the table. The presidents of Puntland and Jubaland, Said Abdullahi Deni and Ahmed Islam Madobe, accused President Farmajo of staffing federal and state electoral commissions with his loyalists, thereby undermining their expected neutrality. Somaliland is yet another stumbling block on the path to elections. Despite its de facto independence, the transitional constitution still assigns 57 parliamentary seats (46 in the lower and 11 in the upper house) to the region. Those seats could be decisive for the election result, so Farmajo wants the federal government to appoint Somaliland MPs, whereas Puntland and Jubaland want the chairpersons of the houses to manage the selection.

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      Finally, the issue of the district of Gedo has created a deep rift between the parties. Formally, in the state of Jubaland, government forces launched a military operation in February-March 2020 to occupy the region, which is dominated by President Farmajo’s Marehan sub-clan, sparking tensions between Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. If elections took place at this stage, Farmajo could secure the appointment of loyal MPs from the Gedo district; Jubaland’s Madobe and his allies reject this scenario.

      Behind these flashpoints, however, there are two divergent visions of Somalia’s state-building. President Farmajo envisages the return to a pre-1991 centralized state with himself in the top job. On the other side of the rift, federal member states, specifically Puntland and Jubaland, want to safeguard their far-reaching autonomy within a decentralized Somali state and, therefore, reject Farmajo’s centralization project. Such fear has grown after the president managed to install his allies at the head of the states of Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West during his tenure. On top of that, the unprecedented reelection of an incumbent could strain the balance of power between the major clans which, until now, have informally rotated the top positions of Somali federal institutions.

      Growing Stakes

      Somalia has faced similar impasses among its elites in the past. Yet this crisis is proving more difficult to solve. One reason for this is economic. Thanks to the 2012 constitutional pact and AMISOM stabilization efforts, federal institutions are no longer powerless and can tap into the economic activities that have sprung up in recent years, especially in Mogadishu. This is consolidating clan-based patronage networks in what Transparency International considers the most corrupt country of the world along with South Sudan. Consequently, the federal government has become a relevant actor in Somalia’s political economy, raising the stakes over its control.

      The most notable of these activities is the housing boom. In 2015, Mogadishu ranked second among the world’s fastest-growing cities as members of the Somali diaspora and wealthy locals built new properties in and around the capital. As there is no land tenure registry, affluent people often bribe public officials to obtain property rights and forcibly evict residents. This phenomenon has also driven severe tensions between public authorities and the local population, especially internally displaced persons.

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      The oil and gas sector represents the most lucrative opportunity in sight for the Somali rent-seeking elites. Seen as promising by experts, the sector has been reorganized in recent years under the Ministry of Petroleum and the Somali Petroleum Agency and, after the delays due to COVID-19, the first bidding round is about to end. Despite the so-called petroleum law on the distribution of revenues and powers, some outstanding issues remain on the table and the current crisis might catalyze them. Consequently, the oil and gas sector might become another key arena of competition between the federal government and member states in the coming years.

      Some relevant economic opportunities for the government also arrive from abroad. China, for example, showed its interest in Somalia given its strategic location along the Maritime Silk Road and, in turn, the Farmajo administration officialy joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2018. With the move, Somali authorities hope to attract investments in the country’s infrastructure. So far, the most visible result of the China-Somali cooperation is the fishing agreement through which Mogadishu granted fishing rights in Somali waters to a group of Chinese fishing companies in exchange for a $35,000 annual fee from each. This agreement, however, risks to upset the fragile livelihood of low-income fishing communities along the Somali coast.

      Neighborly View

      While cooperation with China has future potential, Turkey has been Mogadishu’s strongest partner for the last decade, with partnerships spanning across all sectors, from humanitarian aid to military training. Critically, Ankara has helped the government to train Somali special forces and build major infrastructural projects, like the Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu. The Turkish Albayrak Group will soon manage the capital’s seaport and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is even planning to build a spaceport for the Turkish space program on Somali territory, with an estimated investment of $350 million.

      Given its extensive influence within Somalia, Turkey proposed itself as a mediator in the current crisis, with Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu conducting shuttle diplomacy in support of the September agreement. Another Farmajo ally hesitant to take sides is Ethiopia. Despite Abiy Ahmed’s embedded alliance with Farmajo, the Ethiopian prime minister is probably aware that a direct endorsement could prove counterproductive to both the Somali president and to himself as a promoter of regional stability. On top of that, according to International Crisis Group Somalia analyst Omar Muhammad, Ethiopia is busy coping with its multiple domestic crises.

      Embed from Getty Images

      During his years in office, President Farmajo has built strong ties not only with Ankara and Addis Ababa, but also with Doha. After receiving funds from Qatar and refusing to take sides in the Gulf standoff, Farmajo deepened development cooperation with Doha and offered a concession for the Port of Hobyo to the Qatari operator, Mwani, in 2019. This is the reason why Qatar has long backed the Somali president in the current dispute.

      However, as Farmajo’s chances of staying in power are narrowing, Doha is pulling its support and looking for new candidates to back. On the other hand, in reaction to Farmajo’s pro-Qatar stance, the UAE put its weight behind the presidents of Puntland and Jubaland over the past years by providing humanitarian aid, security cooperation and investments in the ports of Bossaso and Kismayo. Abu Dhabi was also the only country openly labeling Farmajo an interim president, a statement that attracted harsh criticism from the Somali government.

      Regardless of diplomatic positioning, the economic and political support provided over the years by external powers has contributed to the current crisis. Investments increased stakes in government positions, strengthened the role of the president and his regional foes, and eventually reduced their willingness to compromise. Electoral commissions, Somaliland delegates and Gedo district remain the core stumbling blocks in the rift between Somali political actors, colliding against divergent visions of governance.

      In the background, the terrorist group al-Shabaab, already in control of around two-thirds of the country, scaled up its bombing campaign at the beginning of the electoral cycle last summer. The international community has spearheaded an important step toward elections and now has to shore up a peaceful path to elections with the help of Somali leaders. Without this crucial support, al-Shabaab is likely to take full advantage of the impasse and further complicate the country’s fragile state-building project.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      How the End of the Gulf Crisis Affects Sudan

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      Sudan has been at the center of the diverging interests of wealthy Gulf states for many years. Having been close allies of former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar had longstanding business, military and political interests in the country prior to the Gulf crisis in 2017. In June of that year, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt — known as the Arab quartet — cut diplomatic and trade relations with Qatar.

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      After almost four years of severed ties, reconciliation in January led to the subsequent lifting of the blockade against Qatar and the formal restoration of relations. The resolution of the dispute is a positive regional development. However, it remains fragile because the issues that sparked the rift in the first place were never resolved.

      It is therefore unlikely that the Gulf reconciliation will usher in a new beginning or bring about a return to pre-crisis normalcy. Deep-rooted mistrust between the Gulf countries, ongoing rivalries between them, divergence in their policies and geostrategic competition in Africa could trigger the next diplomatic crisis among member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

      Sudan’s Attempt to Play All Sides

      Most Arab and sub-Saharan African states tried to resist pressure to join the anti-Qatar coalition and delicately maneuver their way into neutrality. These states were uneasy about their move because they feared that the Arab quartet would use their economic might against them. As a result, some African states cut or downgraded ties with Qatar.

      Financial influence in Africa has helped GCC states capitalize on their geostrategic location, increase their food security and advance their diplomatic and security goals. By offering substantial economic incentives, they have been able to bolster peace agreements between warring factions. Some GCC states have achieved notable success, growing influence and African allies that support their policies. Sudan is a case in point. In 2019, Saudi investments in Sudan were estimated at $12 billion, the UAE at $7 billion and Qatar at $4 billion, as per the Sudanese Bureau of Statistics. 

      Due to Saudi Arabia’s large investments, Sudan supported the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen in 2015 by deploying Rapid Support Forces and severing diplomatic ties with Iran. However, Bashir’s relationship with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi began stalling in the last few years of his rule. As part of the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s regional efforts to counter what they considered political Islam, Bashir was expected to root out Islamists in Sudan. However, since Islamists were deeply engrained in Sudan’s government, he could not risk alienating them and did not oblige.

      The Gulf dispute put Bashir in another uncomfortable position. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar were all key investors in Sudan and he could not afford to alienate any of them. Therefore, Bashir took the safest route of remaining neutral while offering to mediate between the opposing sides.

      The Sudanese leader’s reaction to the Gulf rift was not surprising. Historically, he cooperated with all regional powers, never fully aligning with any of them. His hands-off approach and ability to easily switch from the role of an army leader to an advocate of political Islam, enabled Sudan to simultaneously ally with rival GCC camps. It seems that Bashir’s key goal was to benefit economically from all Gulf states.

      Sudan Under the New Transitional Government

      Unfortunately for Bashir, Sudan’s economy collapsed, nationwide protests erupted in December 2018 and none of his Gulf allies came to his rescue. The GCC states were probably influenced by growing uncertainty regarding Bashir’s future. Their goal was to protect their investments, not Bashir. Without GCC financial support, the Sudanese president found his days in power numbered.

      In April 2019, Saudi Arabia and the UAE backed a military coup that ended three decades of Bashir’s rule and led to the creation of a Transitional Military Council (TMC). The GCC duo promptly promised a staggering $3 billion in aid to support the TMC. However, growing international pressure pushed the TMC to sign a power-sharing agreement with Sudan’s pro-democracy movement. The TMC transferred power to a sovereignty council for a transitional period. Elections to usher in a civilian-led government are planned in late 2023 or early 2024.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Saudi Arabia and the UAE have vested interests in backing the Sudanese military and ensuring it maintains control of the political transition. Consequently, they continue to offer economic and humanitarian support to Sudan. In return, the TMC has supported their war efforts in Yemen and, more recently, in Libya.

      After the 2019 revolution, Sudan temporarily cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting Islamists. Qatar had a close relationship with Bashir’s former ruling National Congress Party that drew the ire of the TMC. However, Qatar has since rebuilt its influence by supporting Sudan’s removal from the US list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST). In October 2020, Doha announced that a peace agreement had been brokered between the transitional government and rebel forces. Qatar has also provided much-needed humanitarian relief.

      Sudan remains a country of great economic and security importance to the world. It has an abundance of natural resources. The African Development Bank Group estimates that approximately 63% of Sudan’s land is agricultural but only 15-20% is under cultivation. This offers vast investment opportunities in agriculture. Sudan is also strategically located on the Red Sea just south of the Suez Canal, a key shipping passage for world trade.

      Major Challenges and Future Scenarios

      Sudan’s transitional government recently set its priorities for 2021, which include a focus on the economy, peace, security, foreign relations and the ongoing democratic transition. However, the challenges facing the transitional government are dire. Foreign debt has risen to over $60 billion and inflation has crossed 300%. The country faces massive unemployment and chronic shortages of bread, fuel and foreign currency. Sudan is in the throes of a complex power struggle between civilians and the military. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) threatens Sudan’s water security. Sudanese and Ethiopian troops have clashed at the border. If this was not daunting already, Sudan has registered nearly 32,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, as of April 9.

      In response to some of these challenges, the transitional government has instituted seismic constitutional changes. After nearly three decades, the US removed Sudan from the SST list in January, eliminating a major hurdle to debt relief and bringing an end to the country’s isolation from global financial systems. However, the transitional government remains under pressure to deliver quick economic wins. If it fails, power may shift back toward the military. In these tough circumstances, the transitional government’s success and Sudan’s democratic future depend on outside financial support.

      For Sudan, the Gulf crisis served as a minor inconvenience. The revolution and Sudan’s removal from the SST list are more significant developments. GCC states are now encountering a growing number of new regional and international players who are looking at Sudan with increased interest. This could very well cause a shift in Gulf–Sudan relations.

      Although GCC states have a shared strategic interest in Sudan’s stability, this takes a back seat to alliances that promote the individual interests of these Gulf countries. They are all trying to increase their regional influence and are turning post-revolution Sudan into another theater of GCC rivalry. Given Sudan’s fragile economic and political situation, it needs financial support. Economic forces played a major role in the fall of Omar al-Bashir’s regime and will determine the survival of the transitional government.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Macron’s Campaign to Reveal France’s Historical Sins

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      One of the worst humanitarian disasters of the past 30 years took place in 1994 in Rwanda. Approximately 800,000 people died in a genocidal campaign led by the Hutu majority against the Tutsi minority. The rampage began after Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. The Hutus immediately blamed the Tutsis and initiated a “well-organized campaign of slaughter” that lasted several months. A new French report on the Rwandan genocide has revealed some uglier truths about the role played by Western powers — particularly France.

      Since his election, French President Emmanuel Macron has demonstrated what some French patriots feel is a morbid curiosity about the history of France’s relations with the African continent. In the first three months of 2021, two reports by French historians tasked by Macron to tell the truth have been released. The first concerns France’s role in the Algerian War of Independence between 1954 and 1962, and the second, the Rwandan genocide.

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      Le Monde describes the 1,200-page Rwandan report as “solid, established by independent researchers and founded on newly opened archives.” Shortly after taking office in 2017, Macron asked historian Vincent Duclert to elucidate France’s role in the Rwandan genocide. Al Jazeera describes the report as criticizing “the French authorities under [Francois] Mitterrand for adopting a ‘binary view’ that set Habyarimana as a ‘Hutu ally’ against an ‘enemy’ of Tutsi forces backed by Uganda, and then offering military intervention only ‘belatedly’ when it was too late to halt the genocide.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Binary view:

      A prevalent mindset among leaders responsible for foreign policy in powerful nations, whose tendency to reduce every problem to a contest between two diametrically opposed points of view permits them to justify the most cynical and cruelly destructive policies

      Contextual Note

      In the aftermath of the genocide, analysts speculated about whom to blame, not only concerning the genocide itself but also the failure to prevent it from spinning out of control. As the leader of the nation whose role as “policeman of the world” became consolidated after the fall of the Soviet Union, US President Bill Clinton exhibited an apparent “indifference” to tribal slaughter in Africa. It included deliberate “efforts to constrain U.N. peacekeeping.” Canadian General Romeo Dallaire accused Clinton of establishing “a policy that he did not want to know,” even though since 1992, US intelligence had been aware of a serious Hutu plan to carry out genocide.

      French President Francois Mitterand’s guilt, it now turns out, was far more patent and direct than Clinton’s. The historians who authored the French report call it “a defeat of thinking” on the part of an administration never held accountable for its “continual blindness of its support for a racist, corrupt and violent regime.” Astonishingly, the report reveals that “French intelligence knew it was Hutu extremists that shot President Habyarimana’s plane down, which was seen as the trigger for the genocide.” Le Monde attributes Mitterand’s blindness to his “personal relationship” with the slain Hutu president.

      Historical Note

      By sneaking through the gaping cracks in the traditional parties on the right and left to be elected president, Emmanuel Macron became the leader of a new party created for the purpose of providing him with a majority in the 2017 parliamentary election that followed his historic victory. As a political maverick, Macron felt himself liberated from at least some of the shackles of history.

      He first dared to do what Fifth Republic presidents of the past had carefully avoided when, as a candidate, he attacked the very idea of colonization, which not only played an essential role in France’s past, but continued to produce its effects through the concept of Francafrique. In an interview in Algiers, the Algerian capital, early in the 2017 presidential campaign, Macron described colonization as a “genuinely barbaric” practice, adding that it “constitutes a part of our past that we have to confront by also apologising to those against whom we committed these acts.”

      Politicians on the right predictably denounced what they qualified as Macron’s “hatred of our history, this perpetual repentance that is unworthy of a candidate for the presidency of the republic.” This is the usual complaint of the nationalist right in every Western nation. Recently, columnist Ben Weingarten complained that Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project for The New York Times Magazine was motivated by “hatred for America.” Patriots in every country tend to believe that exposing any embarrassing historical truth is tantamount to hate and intolerance of their own noble traditions. Telling the truth is treasonous.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In January 2021, the historian Benjamin Stora presented the report Macron commissioned him to produce on France’s historical relationship with Algeria. Stora proposed the “creation of a joint ‘Memory and Truth’ commission.” The report also recommended “restitution, recognition of certain crimes, publication of lists of the disappeared, access to archives” and “creation of places of memory.” Suddenly, Macron realized that he had received more than he bargained for. As the website JusticeInfo.net reported, “The French presidency said there was ‘no question of showing repentance’ or of ‘presenting an apology’ for the occupation of Algeria or the bloody eight-year war that ended 132 years of French rule.”

      These two examples demonstrate France’s curious relationship with history. They also tell us about how powerful nations elaborate and execute their foreign policy. France is not alone. Every nation’s policy starts from a sense of national interest. The ensuing analysis begins by assessing threats to it. These may be military, economic or even cultural. In the case of military threat, the nation in question will be branded either an enemy or, if diplomatic politeness prevails, an adversary. When the discord is purely economic, the other nation will most likely be called a competitor or a rival. When the threat is cultural — as when Lebanon and Israel square off against each other about who makes the most authentic hummus — foreign policy experts will simply shut up and enjoy the show.

      On the other hand, three forms of cultural competition — linguistic, tribal and religious rivalries — have real implications for the exercise of power and may seriously influence the perception of whether what is at stake is enmity, rivalry or friendly competition. The danger in such cases lies in confusing cultural frictions with political ambitions.

      The two French reports reveal that the very idea of “national interest” may not be as innocent as it sounds. It can also mean “extranational indifference,” or worse. Indifference turns out to be not just a harmless alternative to the aggressive pursuit of national interest. In some cases, it translates as a convenient pretext for the toleration or even encouragement of brutally inhuman practices. That is why Rwanda may be a stain on both Francois Mitterand’s and Bill Clinton’s legacies.

      Another feature of modern policy may appear less extreme than the tolerance of genocide while being just as deadly. As Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies and others have repeatedly asserted, the imposition of drastic sanctions has become a major weapon in the US foreign policy arsenal. Sanctions essentially and often sadistically target civilian populations with little effect on the targeted leaders. Sanctions have become an automatic reflex mobilized not just against enemies or rivals, but also against the economically disobedient, nations that purchase goods from the wrong designated supplier.

      In 2012, Saeed Kamali Dehghan, writing for The Guardian, noted that the Obama administration’s sanctions on Iran were “pushing ordinary Iranians to the edge of poverty, destroying the quality of their lives, isolating them from the outside world and most importantly, blocking their path to democracy.” Nine years later, those sanctions were made more extreme under Donald Trump and continue unabated under President Joe Biden. All the consequences Dehghan listed have continued, with no effect on the hard-line Iranian regime’s hold on power. Can anyone pretend that such policies are consistent with a commitment to human rights? Do they reveal the existence of even an ounce of empathy for human beings other than one’s own voters?

      The French at least have solicited truthful historical research about their past. But politicians like Macron, who have encouraged the research, inevitably turn out to be too embarrassed by the truth to seek any form of reparation. After commissioning it, they prefer to deny the need for it.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More