Though Cowards Flinch

It is now 51 years this month that Albert Camus, French Algerian author and journalist, died in a car crash in the French town of Sens. While the French celebrate his life and works, Algerian attitudes towards him still reveal discomfort for his views about independence from France. But it is too casual to characterise Camus’ views as being merely in favour of continued colonialism; instead Camus was merely cautious of what lurked in the wings, waiting for French rule to shed its guard.

For Camus, the fall of French rule would lead only to hostility between Arab and European, an opinion for which Camus was later to be disliked from all sides – for the Arabs he was an apologist for foreign rule; for the pieds noir he was a traitor; and for Sartre, his long time friend and later enemy, he refused to bear the burden of all French people for their crimes to the Algerian people.

And yet this seemingly unpopular opinion is entertained today with uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East – as first principles go, on the question of self-determination it should not cross our lips that freedom from tyranny could open the floodgates from hostile actors waiting to dig their collective nails into the US and Israel.

It is a price worth paying for that people choose their own leaders and be culpable for the decisions they make therein.

Fortunately most agree that the threat of Islamism in these revolutionary events has been rather overstated; they arrived to the table late, they’ve since failed to reflect the mood of the events, and have been relegated to the indignity of “sound-bite for balance”.

Challenges for the freedom movement are far more profound, as events over the weekend have shown.

Algeria: the state quest against unrest and organisational problems thereof

The Algerians, so Hugh Roberts for The Middle East Channel has it, have “been in a permanent state of moral revolt against the regime for the last four or five years”. The turnout on the streets surprised many analysts’ who expected far less, owing possibly to the fact that any popular uprising is met with severe state brutality (as Paul on this blog has mentioned).

But one blogger offered a stark warning for those overoptimistic about an Algerian uprising, saying that the regime there “has something neither Tunisia nor Egypt has: piles and piles of gas money ready to be dumped on the right opposition and social players as needed.”

The state in fact has three main weapons at their disposal: money, smoke and mirrors. A general stir allows the government to suppress it with promises such as the lifting of state emergency status (19 years and counting), job growth, social stability and fair access to the media.

The challenge is there to stop the empty promises and draw in the governmental reins. Wealth disparities are obvious and feeling is tense. Yet a major spanner in the works is the conflict in direction. The Socialist Forces Front (FFS), which is the oldest opposition party in Algeria, has its rivals with Said Sadi’s party Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), who head up the 12 February movement. Religious players are split several times over and the left are a pure mess of fragments and regional actors, to say nothing of the parliamentary independents.

Unlike in Egypt, where the many faces of the Muslim Brotherhood and the slew of secular protesters are in large part backing ElBaradei after the military have fulfilled their mediator role (news tonight says to it will hold a referendum on constitutional amendments within two months) Algerian protesters face the doubly difficult prospect of facing a government heavily on the defensive, as well as being without any overarching direction, being limited somewhat to the capital.

This is not to do down the efforts of the movement for change in Algeria, broken as it is, but anything like the so-called Arab Spring is far from guaranteed; the counter-revolutionary forces are just too efficacious for now.

Egypt: The Military containment of its Jasmine

In early efforts to distance himself from US obedience, the words of ElBaradei will increasingly sing to the tune of popular Egyptian sentiments. In an interview with Der Spiegel recently he iterated his plans to remain independent from the Muslim Brotherhood, while making it clear that Israel’s peaceful past was with Mubarak, not the Egyptian people.

But before this is a reality in Egypt, the people are to endure a transitional period coloured by the military – which have left some wondering what the end result has in store.

Andrew Neil, on his twitter feed last night, told his followers that the “military controls over 15% country’s GDP — close to £140 billion! Generals won’t give that up willingly”. For those looking for a narrative that fits, it was said by Eric Lee and Benjamin Weinthal only four days earlier that “the most overlooked factor in the demise of the authoritarian Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, and the weakening of Hosni Mubarak’s grip on state power in Egypt, has been the trade unions in both countries.” (Al Masry al Youm has a must-read piece on the numbers of professional protests there were ). And just like that, the Higher Military Council move to ban “meetings by labour unions or professional syndicates, effectively forbidding strikes”.

Is it the case that the military are seeking ways to salvage their stake in power, against forces they know are on a high at the moment? One of the demands in the January 25 leadership communique stated that there be “Freedom to form unions and non-governmental organizations without government permission”. Whether one sees this move as a way of harnessing the revolution in order for the military to hand power over to a popular government, it cannot be overstated that one important demand has been sidelined, with no indication of when it will be reinstated.

Pressure from the streets of Egypt cannot rest so soon.

Yemen: the depths of Saleh’s problems

The complexities of a popular movement rising against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh are even more so than in any of the other countries undergoing a surge for change. Saleh has known power conflicts and discontent for a long time in office. From 2004 until the present day he has faced intense pressure from the Houthis – a fundamentalist wing of the Zaydis community Yemen, of which Saleh is himself a member albeit non-practising, a Yemeni offshoot of the Shiite Muslim faith – who consider Saleh’s regime illegitimate and “an ally of Americans and Jews”.

Saleh has been considered by the protesters as comparable to Mubarak; ineffective for the people, too eager to buy off revolutionary heat with brief spells of concessions, and an autocrat ruling complete failure.

Others however have warned that this is not Tunisia, with “its relative wealth, educated middle class and absence of regional or religious cleavages”. The spirit of the Arab Spring blooms at a time when in Yemen the government is fighting domestic extremism, while juggling two separate identities; one as an ally of the US, the other as collaborator with al-Qaeda to suppress further conflict with the Houthis.

Furthermore, protesters may well be tempted to wait Saleh’s presidency out; at first he U-turned on life rule, then assured the country he was against hereditary rule to put down suspicions his son would be parachuted into power after his resignation.

Chaos would ensue if the Yemeni people, in the exported excitement from Egypt, brought down their government. But this should not distract steps towards better governance. However Saleh’s continued programme of short-term concessions may just nip the fervour, already in a state of staccato, in the bud.