[SAUDIGAZETTE.SA] Unlike blood-soaked Syria and unlike its riven and anarchic neighbor Libya, Tunisia has survived its revolution relatively unscathed. The transition to a pluralist society has owed much to the wisdom of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, which has been prepared to compromise to produce workable governments and a constitution.
Last October Ennahda won only 69 seats in a parliamentary election against 85 to a secular grouping called Nida Tunis. Two months later, after a generally good-humored campaign, Nida Tunis founder Beji Caid Essebsi won the presidency. The remarkably sprightly 89-year-old Essebsi asked his party colleague Habib Essid to put together a government.
Now despite the success of its transition from autocracy, through the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of the general and presidential elections at the end of last year, it is widely appreciated that the country's youthful new politics is probably not strong enough for the confrontational rough and tumble of two party politicking, as found for instance in Australia or London's Houses of Parliament.
The assumption among many Tunisians was that what would emerge would be a coalition cabinet which included Ennahda. It was therefore a shock when last week, the prime minister-elect unveiled a government that was exclusively drawn from his own party.
The response from the Islamist politicians and many moderate Ennahda supporters was immediate and angry. Within hours Essid had gone back to the drawing board and on Monday produced a coalition cabinet, which included an Ennahda minister of labor and three junior ministerial jobs in finance, health and investment.
The mystery is that Essid ever imagined that his first all-Nida cabinet pick was going to work. This was a political error that suggested that the prime minister-elect has misjudged the mood in the country and was no longer thinking in terms of compromise and accommodation with political opponents. Just as worryingly, there must now be questions about President Essebsi. Did the head of state encourage Essid in the attempt to keep Islamists out of the government or if he counseled against the strategy, was he ignored?
By not seeking to work with Ennahda from the outset, Essid has deepened the suspicions that already exist among some Islamist politicians. There may yet be a political price to be paid for this political mistake. Ennahda may rightly enjoy a reputation for moderation but there are some on the fringes of the party who have little patience with the respect that it is paying the new pluralist political process. What has been described locally as "the Morsi tendency" is clearly present among some supporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2015 00:00 ||
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A writer from the leftist Salon says some things about the "New McCarthyism" failing to note that the media isn't saying anything about the war in eastern Ukraine coz no one gives a f*ck about eastern Europe. Mildly amusing for the leaps in facts that lead him to say the loopy things he says in the article.
It is time to attempt that hardest of things—to see ourselves for who we are, to see what it is we are doing and what is being done to us.
Two things prompt the thought. We have the latest news on Washington’s confrontation with Russia, and we have a newly precipitous decline in the national conversation on this crisis. In my estimation, we reach dangerous new lows in both respects. New lows? Something the left reaches for on a routine basis.
It is always difficult for the living to see themselves as suspended in history. Being up against the rock face of events, being the stuff of which events are made, allows no distance, and achieving perspective without any takes an arduous effort.
But we have to make an attempt at this field of vision now. Every moment counts as history, but some passages are bigger than others. And this, ours, is very big as of the last 10 days, maybe two weeks.
We are now invited to let this time take a place alongside the frenzied interval that preceded the American attack on the Spanish in 1898, the Red Scare of the post-1917 period and the second, very deadly (and deadening) McCarthyist scare of the late-1940s and 1950s. Join me, please, in insisting we are a better people than this. Turns out the "Red Scare" and "McCarthyism" was about real, existential threats to America.
Konstantin Sonin, a professor at a much-celebrated research university in Moscow, gave the New York Times an interesting quotation over the weekend. “The country is on a holy mission. It’s at war with the United States,” Sonin said. “So why would you bother about the small battleground, the economy?”
Think about this, and do so in two dimensions. There is the question of war, and then the question of “small battlegrounds.” What is this man talking about? What assumptions lie behind this remark? What are the implications?
In last week’s column I confessed astonishment at the recent turn of events in Ukraine and the Western alliance’s relations with Russia. Western Europe, teetering at the edge of economic crisis, adds significantly to its vulnerabilities as it acquiesces in Washington’s sanctions regime against the Russian Federation. It is a couple of short steps now from crisis to catastrophe.
Kiev bails on peace talks and instantly launches an ambitious offensive in eastern Ukraine. As those eligible to be conscripted defect in some number to Russia, Ukraine remains heavily reliant on neo-Nazi militias—a documented reality no one in Washington or the American media cares to talk about. Instead, Washington announces—just this week; read it here —that it will begin sending troops to train Ukrainian National Guardsmen as of this spring. As a note: Ukrainian commanders did not launch "an ambitious offensive" as rebels and leftists say. They launched a local counterattack which was wrecked by rebels, and now Ukraine is on the cusp of losing the functional equivalent of a rifle division to rebels at Debaltsevo.
The very latest arrives as this column gets written. Fresh reports from Moscow suggest—verbatim from one summary will do—“U.S. plans Euromaidan in Belarus to overthrow Lukashenko. Local nationalists licking their chops.” The Maidan is the square in Kiev where the Ukraine crisis started two Novembers ago. Lukashenko is Alexander Grigoryevich, who has presided in Belarus for the past 21 years. Much more reverse McCarthyism at the link, replete with falsified charges
#1
MacCarthyism: Two death sentences (for handling vital info about the A bomb to the soviets), under half a dozen jail sentences, under two hundred governement employees and about same number of employees working in the armament industry lost their jobs.
On the other side the regime the "victims of MaCarthyism" were trying to implement in America was killing or working to death an average of five hundred people a day
#2
What I've never understood was that McCarthy was a Senator but the ones going after the Communists were in the House of Representatives. Was he just the most vocal? or did McCarthyism just have a nice ring?
#3
Let me see.
You can lose your job as University president for suggesting that maybe men and women are not psychologically interchangeable. You are forced to resign from company presidency for opposing gay marriage. You are fascist racist for suggesting that Muslims who kill in the name of Allan are Muslims. Don't even think of applying for academic tenure, or public service unless you can establish your leftist bona fides.
And we are McCarthyists?
A top scholar in the field of Russian studies is denied funding for more Russia and East European studies, mostly because of his past articles about the civil war in southeastern Ukraine, published in his wife's magazine, The Nation, which appear to be sympathetic to Russian president Vladimir Putin. As an aside, I heard from other sources, that the amount Cohen wanted was around $400,000.
Recently considerable attention has been paid on this blog and elsewhere to potential threats to academic freedom posed by the undue influence of outside donors on scholarship. One thinks immediately, of course, of efforts by the Koch brothers at Florida State and elsewhere to fund academic positions that reflect their personal ideology and of the possible impact of donors on the University of Illinois’s decision to summarily dismiss Professor Steven Salaita. But yesterday an article in the New York Times made public a quite different sort of donor controversy that has been brewing in the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), which also has quite troubling implications for academic freedom.
Stephen F. Cohen is a respected senior scholar of Soviet history and politics, having taught for most of his career at Princeton and New York Universities. He is the author of several books, including a pathbreaking biography of Nikolai Bukharin, that have arguably been critical to shaping the field of Soviet studies over the past several decades. He is also married to Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation magazine. For several years vanden Heuvel’s KAT Charitable Foundation has funded, under ASEEES auspices, an annual dissertation award named for Cohen and his mentor and friend, the late political scientist and Stalin biographer Robert C. Tucker. In the wake of serious cutbacks in government and private funding available for research in Russian and Soviet studies, especially the 2013 termination by the State Department of Title VIII funding for graduate student research in Russia, Cohen and vanden Heuvel entered into discussions with ASEEES Executive Director Lynda Park about potentially funding an additional program to support doctoral research in the field.
#1
No, Cohen wasn't denied funding, he (or rather his wife) was trying to DONATE money to the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). The money was to be used to fund 6 fellowships in Russian Studies. Cohen and his wife wanted the fellowships to be named after Cohen. People in the ASEEES didn't want to name the fellowships after Cohen, and said they would only accept the money if the requirement to name it after him was removed.
The amount Cohen's wife was going to donate was around $400,000.
Apparently Cohen is so controversial around the ASEEES that they didn't want his money enough to be willing to put his name on the Scholarships.
Well, it's a free country. If Cohen and his wife want to spend $400,000 funding fellowships in Russian Studies I expect they won't have much trouble finding another organization willing to help.
#1
I don't think Michael Dell ever graduated from Texas. But 95%of successful individuals have at least at Bachelors degree. Excluding musicians and professional athletes.
#3
Considering the quality of minds coming out of Harvard I call it a feature.
Wizard of Oz: Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.
#4
If the Dems are really clueless and snobby enough to push this meme I say let them have at it.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/04/2015 5:39 Comments ||
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#5
entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
#8
The elitist left can't help themselves. Look at how they sneered down their nose at Palin. That whole SNL run was one long sneer at her supposed stupidity and ignorance. They will try the same with Scott.
#11
Wizard of Oz: Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.
#12
It would be better if he had a degree. That said, he's been proven on the field. If this were his first term something like this would leave the door open for the Left's media machine to 'define' him. Recall that Palin was in his first term as governor. Now that Walker has been in office for 6 years his record will define him, not the lack of a degree.
#14
On March 11 2014, Hillary Clinton gave a speech. One member of the media asked her what she thought were the major accomplishments of her tenure as Secretary of State.
She answered; My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I'm glad you asked. My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know. The remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused in a manner whereby they may have overlooked the bigger picture and we didn't do that. Very proud. I would say that's a major accomplishment.
And BTW, she was the First First-Lady to have a post-graduate degree.
[DAWN] IT is unfortunate that the statements made by ANP politician Ghulam Ahmed Bilour on Monday did not invite the opprobrium they merited. While most members of the house were pondering the Shikarpur tragedy, Mr Bilour chose to concern himself with Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... and offered to pay 'bounty' to the heirs of the Gay Paree attackers. Not content with this, he offered $200,000 more to anyone who took the life of the magazine's owner. Since these statements cannot possibly be explained away as condemnation of the publication's editorial choices, in a civilised polity they would have been recognised for what they are: at the very least, incitement to violence and the glorification of acts of terror. Yet why should there be any surprise? In 2012, Mr Bilour similarly offered a 'reward' for the elimination of the person responsible for a film that was that year's blasphemy flashpoint. His zeal won him "complete amnesty" from the banned TTP -- though his brother Bashir Bilour was not so lucky and was killed in a TTP-claimed attack. So whether the politician was moved by motives of religion or cynical self-preservation might be considered a moot point.
If it is appalling that such statements have come from a member of a party that is considered left-oriented and has suffered much at the hands of religious extremism, worse is the fact that they were made from the floor of the National Assembly, and that no one present saw it fit to object. Evidently, even those sitting in the corridors of power prefer to keep silent rather than voice their dissent, and thus the need for justice and rule of law go unremarked upon. Just as religious, political and citizens' groups have every right to protest peacefully against images they deem insulting to their religion, those in parliament who see little sense in calls for a violent response must also express their views openly. A craven approach further empowers the extreme right's narrative. What hope can there be if those that envision a prosperous Pakistain cannot close ranks?
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] THE divide at the Islamabad High Court when it finally resumed the hearing of Mumtaz Qadri's petition against his conviction was palpable. Those condoning murder in the name of religion stood on one side -- against those prevented from standing on the side of justice out of sheer fear.
The number of lawyers coming out in defence of the late governor Salmaan Taseer's assassin outnumbered even the security personnel deployed around the court that day. But no one was willing to appear for the prosecution.
No sight could be more decadent than lawyers led by a former high court chief justice and another retired judge standing by a self-confessed murderer. It was perhaps the most shameful moment for a nation when a killer is lauded as a 'soldier of Islam'.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2015 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
