Let’s start this New Year out with a success-story: Tunisia. Famously, this is the land that, so far, has emerged in best shape from the Arab Spring. That is not to say that it is not making some peculiar-looking political choices.

The fellow you see in the picture there is Mohamed Beji Qaid Essebsi, sworn in just last December 31 as Tunisian President after having won a free and fair election for the post in November. He does have links to the regime of ousted dictator Ben Ali, but that was only as Tunisia’s ambassador to Germany, and then one year as as President of the country’s lower house of parliament.

Indeed, even before that Essebsi worked closely with Habib Bourguiba, considered the father of the modern Tunisian state as it emerged independent in 1957 from French colonial rule. This fact indirectly points to what is the main questionable thing about President Essebsi for the outside observer: he 88 years old. That has to be some kind of record for the age of a head of state freely chosen by a general election.

But OK, so the people of Tunisia chose a President who might soon turn out to need replacing, from sheer natural causes: the important thing is that they did choose him. The point of the tweet is not really about the new Tunisian President, Mr. Esebbsi, but rather the proposed new Prime Minister, and this official is not chosen directly by the people but rather by the party that forms the government, which presently is called Nidaa Tounès. The vice-president of that party just announced its choice, a certain Habib Essid, 65 years old. “What we have here is an independent personality,” the VP told the press, “with competences and experience,” particularly “his knowledge in the area of security.”

A Torturer’s Knowledge of Security?

Well I should say so: Mr. Essid was the number-two official in the Ministry of the Interior of ex-dictator Ben Ali at the time of his overthrow in 2011! Just as a reminder, that is the Ministry in charge of the police, and all that the police were allowed to do to people back during what was President Ben Ali’s repressive, authoritatian state.

Now, the fact that Ben Ali was overthrown – in fact, relatively quickly and easily, especially when you compare his situation with Bashar al-Assad’s in Syria – might indicate that Mr. Essid was not so effective in his job. Of course, this Le Monde piece also notes that he was also the first Minister of the Interior right after the Revolution succeeded, so he was obviously acceptable to the new regime for some reason – perhaps he played some double-role from his powerful position within the Ministry of the Interior to help it succeed.

For now, we don’t know: there’s no further background here on just what was Essid’s role in the Revolution. All we are left with – for now – is a new Tunisian state getting off the ground democratically while having to rely so much on pre-revolutionary governing expertise that its two most powerful positions are likely to be filled by, on the one hand, an 88-year-old, and, on the other, a former high-ranking policeman in the service of the deposed dictator.

So the European Union has finally hit Bashar al-Assad’s Syria regime where it hurts, with an embargo on the oil that country sells. But the Berliner Morgenpost warns us not to get too carried away:

Syrien: EU hat es mit dem Ölembargo nicht eilig http://t.co/NOKM6Jq

September 3, 2011 7:33 am via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@BMOnline

Morgenpost / BERLIN

You see, these sanctions take effect only on November 15! Yes, no new contracts for oil delivery can be concluded effective immediately, but the old ones must be adhered to until then.

The villain here is Italy, which demanded this delay citing “a technical requirement.” Meanwhile, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja had it right with his observation: “If we really mean it, we should act immediately.” Sure, in the same announcement the EU added 54 further members of the Al-Assad regime’s inner circle to the “no-travel” and “assets frozen” lists. But the embargo is the truly meaningful blow to Assad, and there are Syrian protesters still being killed daily – at least 17 yesterday, according to opposition reports. How long can they hold out? How long can those many thousands continue to take to the streets, knowing they are likely to encounter gunfire from the authorities, as their national economy collapses around them?

Heard about that so-called “Arab Spring” that has been going on recently (Egypt, Yemen, etc.)? Maybe it deserves a bit more of your attention – a little dog just let me know it’s gonna be BIG!

LuxembourgRTnews Demokratie-Bewegungen “Arabischer Frühling” hat Folgen http://ow.ly/1cuZ1W

May 5, 2011 9:24 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@luxembourg_news

news luxembourg

OK, not really a “little dog” but rather the Luxembourg-based German-language newspaper Tageblatt, in an article (“Arab Spring” has consequences) lacking any by-line other than that of the (surprisingly-new) German press agency dapd.

Actually – apologies for pulling your chain here – this is really the contention of a very smart man, namely William Hague, currently the UK’s Foreign Secretary, a former Conservative Party leader, and McKinsey management consultant when he isn’t involved in politics. According to recent public remarks from him, the wave of revolutions and related unrest in the Arab World that we’re currently seeing is bigger than September 11, 2001, bigger even than the ongoing worldwide financial crisis. This Arab Spring – if fully successful – would be “the greatest advance for human rights and freedom since the end of the Cold War” and could very well carry on to wash over the rest of the globe.

Now check out where the piece goes from there:

At the same time Hague called for support for those seeking to escape authoritarian regimes in Arab states. He also advocated stronger economic incentives for countries to choose for democracy. That way Europe could include the region in a free-trade zone or even a customs-union, he declared.

Whoa! Does that “support for those seeking to escape” extend to opening Britain’s borders (never part of the Schengen area) to the very many cross-Mediterranean refugees with whom Italy and France are now struggling to cope? And what about Syria? There, Hague promises only to pressure strongman Bashir al-Assad to stop using violence, not to “choose for democracy.”

Just after Christmas (“Boxing Day”) in 2004 it was “Surf’s up!” throughout South Asia as a tremendous tsunami hit lands as widely-separated as Indonesia and Tanzania. Then only a bit less than three weeks ago another tsunami washed over most of northeast Japan, devastating many coastal habitations and setting off certain nuclear problems.

Here in the Netherlands we can only sympathize and send assistance, financial and otherwise (which I understand we’ve done to a great degree). However, something similar might very well be in store for us soon, according to today’s article in the Algemeen Dagblad with the pleasing title Tsunami wipes out Netherlands population in 2012. That at least is the message of doom being put forward by the “Watchers of the Night,” a religious group out in the provinces who are already preparing for catastrophe by making themselves economically self-sufficient, laying in substantial stores of food and water.

What is their reasoning? you may very well ask. Well, it seems to involve some combination of Revelations, Nostradamus, and that Mayan thing you might have heard of that predicted doom for the planet in 2012, and they are by no means the only ones thinking along these lines. Many of this ilk see Japan’s earthquake/tsunami together with the widespread Middle East unrest as a sure sign that the prophecies are correct and there will be even worse to come next year. Even for the Netherlands.

Wow – check out this article from Le Monde entitled “Syria: ‘There’s no reason why the popular will won’t triumph.'” Anyone following the news lately knows very well that serious, often violent demonstrations have been happening for about the past week in various major Syrian cities, including the capital Damascus. Is the regime of famed optometrist Bashar al-Assad (that last name means “lion” in Arabic, by the way) destined to be the latest to topple in the Arab Spring?

This quite excellent article – structured as a moderated chat in which names like “Mazen,” “hakan,” “Jack,” and “Heisenberg”* pose a series of questions – is pretty much a one-stop briefing on what is going on over there and the historical background that has led events to this pass.
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