Since 2011, Arab labor organizations and left parties have been central to movements for democracy and social justice in the Middle East. Frequently overlooked in Western media coverage...they’ve carried on this fight against tremendous odds.
Democracy campaigners have called a general strike against the counter-revolutionary Supreme Military Council. The revolutionary transformation in Sudan faces a critical test over the coming weeks.
Saudi Arabia's puzzling effort to blacklist its tiny neighbor Qatar begs the question of who's really isolated in the Gulf. The attack on Qatar is part of Saudi Arabia’s aggressive new foreign policy that is being led by Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman. As Saudi Arabia’s “monarch in waiting,” Mohammed has launched a disastrous war in Yemen that’s killed more than 10,000 civilians and sparked a country-wide cholera epidemic there.
Since the military ouster of elected president Mohamed Morsi last July, followed by the brutal crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood, the security establishment has emerged re-empowered, reinvigorated and out for revenge, cracking down on its opponents with unprecedented severity. Much of Egypt is awash in conformist state worship, fueled by the shrill narrative of a war on terror and the age-old autocratic logic that trades rights for the promise of security.
Turkey’s Regional Politics – Old Wine, New Bottle – actually the bottle isn’t that new...After the Egyptian military coup, a number of reports surfaced on Turkey's indignation on the turn over the events there. Yeni Shafak the newspaper close to the Turkish prime minister published a scathing article against the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, UAE as well as Palestinian Mahmud Abbas calling them the "the axis of evil" in the Middle East.
The violent clampdown by security forces has all but ended the possibility of a rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood. A cross section of Middle East analysts discuss the implications of the latest wave of violence in Egypt (in Al Jazeera)
In sum, when it first made its debut in political discourse in Egypt, the term the "Turkish model" came to embody a vision for a political system in which Egypt's military would retain its unusual privileges and override conventional modes of accountability and transparency all in the name of preserving democratic stability.
Mohamed Mursi, though elected president of Egypt, is no democrat. Democracy for him is a bus ride; when he gets to his stop, he's getting off. Egypt's leading left-wing politician, Hamdeen Sabahi, leader of the Popular Current movement who came third in last year's presidential election, said the army had implemented the will of the people and was not seeking power for itself.
Both sides may wave the Egyptian flag, which is red, white and black. The colour of khaki is no substitute
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