#What is really going on in the Middle East? (1 of 3) Yusuf al-Misry

 
It looks as if a sand storm is in its peak now in the Middle East. How can all this be understood?

I understand that my American friends look at this whole storm from their perspective and more or less within the context of the debate that has been going on in the US for some time now. But the fact is that people in the region are not aware of these perspectives and debates. They have their own motives and ideas and they are busy making their own history according to their own perceptions.

This sand storm, like some other storms, blows away layers of sand to reveal skeletons of dead animals, useless rocks and sometime hidden treasures. What is it that we will find at the end of these breathtaking events that seem to take everyone by surprise, including some of those who protest everywhere in the region now?

 

Any attempt to predict the outcome should first be based on understanding the reasons why all this is happening.  It should, second, be limited to some general trends and predictions.  Real life is green.  Our words, plans, schemes and analysis are not. They are grey. You can never predict the number of fragments of a bomb and where each will go. But, you can be sure that it will explode

We probably should go back to the last sand storm which took the region also by surprise. That was the series of military coups which changed the face of the region during the 50s and 60s.  Egypt was the first, followed by Syria, then Iraq, Yemen and Libya.  Some countries like Syria and Iraq witnessed  several coups. And some countries like Algeria and Sudan could be put in the same category at least from the perspective of this short analysis.

Those events were in general the reflection of two intertwined factors. The first was the weakness of the old colonial empires after the Second World War. The colonized peoples felt that the time was ripe to rid their countries of foreign occupation.  But the departure of the colonial powers left a political vacuum. This vacuum was filled by the one institution that was armed and relatively organized. The military.

This was not inevitable. The military could have worked in stabilizing these countries then giving power back to the civilians.  But the reasons why it happened the way it did was a combination of several factors. One of them is what is called “the oriental mode of governance.”   This is not some “genetic” or Semitic issue.  We saw have seen the same thing in many other places. But it is not our issue now.

Another factor was the interaction between the new juntas and the surrounding events.  In Egypt for example, the business community flourished during the Second World War due to the decline of imports from England, the occupier, which saw its industrial base either destroyed or busy with military production. When the war was over, England refused to recognize this fact and rejected the calls for abrogating the 1936 treaty. Businesses and workers were hurt badly with the return of British products to the markets.

Nasser was determined to end the British occupation.  Egyptian “industrialists“ were also calling for a kind of agricultural reform to widen the consumer base and increase their purchasing power through a distribution of wealth in the biggest sector of that time, rural Egypt. The first law calling for redistributing agriculture land and imposing a cap on the maximum ownership of land ( 200 Feddens- that is 210 acres aprox) was introduced in 1948 under the royal government.  Nasser did the same thing but simply by military decree which was then called a law.

The “Free”officers of the junta found that they could fulfill the aspirations of the population through military decrees. They negotiated the departure of the Brits in 1954, and nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956. The population was happy and contented with their place in the receiving end of the equation. The military was contented with the free hand they got to run the country.

The junta had a lot of capital by the end of the 50’s.  The fees of the canal, the yield of the confiscated land which was not totally distributed and the income of the state.   All of that created the idea of establishing the “public sector” which was soon to turn into the major economic sector in Egypt, hence to Nasser’s “Egyptian Socialism”.

But the one factor that is meaningful to this analysis is that “democracy” was not an issue then. The population was happy with the way it was. No one thought of the basic freedoms which were also confiscated to create the elephant of the public sector. When Nasser died in 1970 the Egyptians offered him the biggest funeral in the history of mankind.  Five million Egyptians followed his coffin in the streets of Cairo.

The second part of this analysis will focus on the reasons why Nasser’s regime, which remained  in power-in its political form- until the 25^th of this January, had to collapse in order to pave the road toward a Second Egyptian Republic and to the second major shift in the Middle East in a century.       

Yusuf al-Misry   

   

 

Comments

[J]

Colonel,

There are those who look at the money trails that tend to be both before and the after the facts regarding the 'revolutions' we're seeing in the Mideast, and to them the money trail leads to the banking family Rothschilds. And that the Rothschilds feared 'competition' from Islamic Banks sprouting up all over the place. They may have a point, as money/money motives drives most things globally these days.

Rothschild Revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt Kill Islamic Banks | Puppetworld Post

http://www.puppet99.com/?p=126

[William R. Cumming]

So your conclusion is that Egypt since Nasser was a military dictatorship?
Is it not still one?

[Yusuf Al-Misry]

Islamic Banks will not be canceled in Egypt or Tunisia. They play a role in financing the Muslem Brotherhood.(check the ties between Al Baraka Bank and the International MB). They charge interest contrary to what seems to be common - and wrong - assumption. They call it "Murabaha" which means in Arabis sharing the profits. As for the Rothschilds, they put Egypt in the 19th century in a position where British and French ministers were forced as members of the Egyptian government to guarantee the repayment of debts. That ended with the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. Unfortunately, I do not have anything to say about your assumption that the "competition" between the Islamic banks and the Rothschilds is the cause of what we see. Are you sure there is ant competition at all?. Many in the senior levels of management in Isalamic banks in the Persian Gulf came from banks in England. Take a look at the profiles of the management and skip the Arab names because they are just a decoration. It is funny that British bankers apply Islamic regulations.

[Yusuf Al-Misry]

Mr. Cumming. This is exactly my conclusion. The juntas were - and are - ruling Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Sudan and maybe I forgot one or two. They changed faces and used some unimpressive decorative items, but in essence it was and is a military rule like the one in trouble now in Libya. They seem to be unable to understand that they hane nothing to offer now but brutality and corruption. There mission was over sometime ago.

[Yusuf Al-Misry]

As for the military rule currently in Egypt, I said what I think before. That they understand that it is time for a "Turkish model". I believe they are working towards that specific end.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks Yusuf and also my conclusion.

[Paul Hartvigson, Denmark]

Even if we might not be able to fathom what's going on inb the Middle East in out terms, there are millions of Arabian-Americans and Arabian-Europeans, who'll be influenced by whats going on. Especially in Europe there has been a strong current of distrusting and maligning Mid Eastern immigrants due to a rhetoric of clash of civilization and old style xenophobia. But these immigrants also are having to act within our political framework. This will be significant.

[shepherd]

Yusuf,

Looking forward to the other parts. This is informative and appreciated.

[euclidcreek]

J - re: Rothchild Revolutions - any document that lists Eustice Mullin's Secrets of the Federal Reserve as a source is of doubtful value.