The fate of multiculturalism in France

The unprecedented electoral success of the far-right shows the resonance of extremist and nationalist discourses.

Paris, France - What if the destiny of multiculturalism and free movement of people in Europe was being played out in France? If Nicolas Sarkozy wins the presidential election on May 6, he will have to fulfil a political promise unthinkable for a moderate European right-wing party just five years ago. How did France get here?  

The results of the first round of the presidential election on April 22 came like an electric shock: Marine Le Pen, candidate of far-right National Front came third, with the most important results ever achieved by an extremist party in France since the Second World War. With 80 per cent of citizens taking part in the vote, there is undoubtedly a notable presence of extremist and nationalist feeling in the ideological and political landscape throughout Europe. Germany recently allowed the re-release of the controversial Adolf Hitler book, Mein Kampf, and Norway is currently witnessing the trial of Anders Breivik, accused of murdering 77 people last year with overtly racist motives.

These events reinforce the widespread fear that the old continent is increasingly giving the floor to far-right ideas. An initiative by the Rights, Equality and Diversity European Network (RED), co-funded by the European Union, displays the atlas of racism and discrimination in 17 European countries. The assessment states that, in spite of efforts, “almost everywhere there is a disturbing trend of increase of organised groups’ far-right extremist hate speech and violence/crime. Similarly, there is increased internet hate speech and diffusion of stereotypes and xenophobia into [the] main political public sphere.” Sure, Europe is currently undergoing economic and social crisis. But are those the only reasons for such increase?

Let’s focus back on France, where Marine Le Pen can actually thank the current president of the republic, who, for five years, has been preparing the ground for extremist thoughts to freely spread in the public space.

Trivialised xenophobic speech

When elected in May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy promised he would be the gravedigger of the National Front. But this son of immigrants – his father arrived in France from Hungary during the Second World War – has made the fight against immigration the cornerstone of his mandate and his re-election, often against the economic interests of France.

It all started with the creation of a “ministry of immigration, integration and national identity”, whereby immigration was erected to the status of an “issue”. A series of anti-immigration laws were subsequently adopted.

The first ones targeted mixed couples who dared to marry. According to President Sarkozy and his government, a foreigner is obviously not in love with the person he/she has decided to marry. In the name of the fight against “white marriages” – also known as marriages of convenience – mixed couples who decided to legally bind themselves had to undergo embarrassing and somehow humiliating controls to prove that they actually share their lives together and love each other. This process could involve answering questions on intimacy, telling how you met your beloved one, and all kind of personal memories one wouldn’t easily share with an administration. Figures that prove “white weddings” represent such an overwhelming threat for the country have yet to be published.

Citizens who may not appear to have French nationality also have suffered from stigmatisation. When it’s not their religion that allegedly prevents them from fully integrating French society, they see the sacrosanct principle of equality of all citizens suddenly stop at their door. In a July 2010 speech in Grenoble, Sarkozy said that any French citizen with foreign origins who was found guilty of a murder of someone working for the public authority should be stripped of their French citizenship, in addition to the penal condemnation.

Last but not least, a 2011 decree signed by Sarkozy’s minister of interior, Claude Guéant, recently caused national and international stupor by making it increasingly difficult for foreign students who had graduated from a French university to obtain a work permit, and thus pursue a first professional experience in France. The justification given was that employers should hire French citizens before foreign ones. Mr Guéant probably wasn’t aware of the fact that the country has a great need for engineers, for instance, but fails to produce a sufficient number of engineers with French nationality. The measure, which is economically illogical, forced numerous French employers, who hadn’t found qualified French nationals, to part with these foreign recruits to whom they had given contracts.

What is striking with the anti-immigration rhetoric in France is that it is filled with stereotypes, which aim to scare the average voter and fail to show reality. For one, France is only the fifth country of the European Union in terms of number of foreigners living on its territory. And you’ll never hear Marine Le Pen or Nicolas Sarkozy admit that, although immigrants cost the state 47.9bn euro annually, their contribution to the public finances reaches 60.3bn euro, according to a recent study commissioned by the minister of social affairs from a group of researchers at the University of Lille.

Ideological victory

France is the only western democracy where a minister of interior, Brice Hortefeux, close friend of the incumbent president and godfather to one of his sons, remained in duty in spite of his condemnation for racial offences. During a political meeting, talking about the Arab origins of one of the participants, the minister stated, in front of cameras: “He doesn’t correspond to the prototype. We always need one [Arab]. When there is only one of them it’s alright. But it becomes a problem when there are too many of them.”  

On Thursday April 26, Marine Le Pen proclaimed an “ideological victory” of the right wing in the French political landscape. Some 64 per cent of Nicolas Sarkozy’s voters want a political alliance between their candidate and the far-right party. The campaign platforms of the latter include, among other proposals, the restoration of the death penalty, leaving the euro, leaving the common defence policy, the repeal of Schengen agreements, and the prevalence of French law over European law. Sarkozy no longer appears to think that Le Pen’s policies are so incompatible with the progressive values traditionally upheld by the French republic.

Growing concerns

The reason for the growing worry over the future of Europe is not simply related to the crisis. Contrary to what some politicians were quick to explain on the evening of the first round, it seems that the French who gave their vote to extremism do not suffer that much from the immigration scourge. French analysts have found that, while the latter represents a major concern for 62 per cent of National Front voters, areas where the party has received a significant number of votes do not have a particularly high immigration rate.

Yet, a real European hope remains, whose scope will be confirmed or refuted by the result of the French election. Like the tens of thousands of Norwegians who gathered yesterday to sing “my rainbow race”, the song hated by Anders Breivik, in these troubled times “it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness”.

Planned Parenthood vs the NRA: Contrasting models of freedom

Economics, not culture wars, may determine this election – but culture wars need to be understood on their own terms.

Many Republican-sponsored bills have targeted women’s health issues, prompting large protests  [EPA]

In the 1960s, progressive movements in the US made unprecedented breakthroughs in achieving formal freedom and equality for women, blacks and other minorities, shattering long-standing moral frameworks of subjugation. The powers of subjugation did not go away, of course, but their instinctively presumed morality had been shattered. 

In reaction, the right began serious mobilising during the following decade, aimed at reclaiming the “moral high ground”, in what would come to be known as “the culture wars”. The National Rifle Association was a key organisation in promoting a rival libertarian definition of “freedom”, while the anti-choice movement claimed it was “pro-life”, not anti-freedom. Both were deeply inflected with racism, largely unrecognised by millions of their followers. This election cycle brings potential harbingers of a long-brewing shift.

On the one hand, the killing of Trayvon Martin highlights the NRA’s paranoia-driven promotion of vigilantism, undermining the very foundations of the social contract that secures the totality of all our liberties against just such violence. On the other hand, the anti-choice shift of focus to birth control, trans-vaginal ultrasound and the like, makes the pro-choice perspective inescapable: the basic issue really is: who will control womens’ bodies – themselves? Or remote, unaccountable male power-wielders of church and government? Connecting the two is the question of which organisation represents and defends the more authentic and robust model of freedom – the NRA, or Planned Parenthood?

The NRA’s paranoid hysteria - dramatically played out last week thanks to national board member Ted Nugent – may finally be drawing the sort of negative attention it so richly deserves. On the other hand, Planned Parenthood – long a target of similar paranoid hysteria – is overwhelmingly a service organisation, much like the NRA prior to 1977. As such a service organisation, Planned Parenthood has long enjoyed support from both parties – as demonstrated, for example, by Mitt Romney’s past support. The recent spate of attacks on it directly threaten the health, well-being, and yes, freedom, of millions of women in ways that the country’s political elite has been remarkably blind to. A realignment of moral authority between these two organisations would be long overdue. The NRA’s recent political activities have pushed it increasingly into fringe positions that even its own membership does not support (as revealed in a 2009 poll by Frank Luntz) – but without adverse consequences, so far. While the NRA claims to only be protecting gun rights of virtuous “law-abiding citizens”, it opposes crucial provisions to weed out dangerous individuals – provisions its membership strongly supports. It does this largely by promoting a paranoid vision of “gun-grabbing” others who cannot be given an inch, even to keep guns out of the hands of potential terrorists, convicted felons or those with potentially dangerous mental problems.
We may indeed be seeing the first temblors of a seismic shift in the US culture wars, which would also be in step with rapidly changing views on equal rights for gays and lesbians. These potential shifts run directly counter to Ron Paul’s emergence as an anti-choice, gun-loving paleo-libertarian, which in turn raises the question of where a progressive vision of economic freedom fits into the mix, something along the lines of Franklin Roosevelt’s “freedom from want” as part of his “Four Freedoms”, something along the lines of Occupy Wall Street. There is much more at stake here than the presidential candidates themselves.

Contested visions of freedom

Two very different books on American freedom make the same point – that “freedom” is a highly contested word. InThe Story of American Freedom, historian Eric Foner makes this point by exposing a succession of the most dominant or dynamic views of what constitutes freedom, all the way from the colonial era to the present day. InWhose Freedom?, cognitive linguist George Lakoff explores to major variants – liberal and conservative interpretations based on different ways of filling out a shared common schema, which he grounds in the physical experience of the freedom to move. Both books also agree on a further point – that freedom in the US is predominantly a progressive idea, but that conservatives over the past few decades have done a better job of claiming it for themselves.

“It’s not just that conservatives are opposed to womens’ freedom, they genuinely can’t even conceive of it… women are non-persons.”

This year, however, the right seems to have overplayed its hand. Enraptured with their pet narrative of Obama’s “war on religion” they completely blinded themselves to their own attacks on womens’ reproductive freedom. It’s not just spin on the GOP’s part. They literally cannot see their own war on women. It is invisible to them, in the same way and for the same reason that women as rights-holding political beings have always been invisible to patriarchy. It is this utter blindness to women as subjects, not authors of their own destinies, which lies at the core of the GOP’s war on women.

It’s not just that conservatives are opposed to womens’ freedom, they genuinely can’t even conceive of it. That’s the ultimate reason why no women were allowed to testify before Darryl Issa’s committee, when Sandra Fluke was specifically excluded from testifying. Conservatives simply don’t see the point. Women are non-persons. They have nothing to do with discussions of freedom – unless, of course, they want to buy a gun.

Race, guns and Reagan’s grand flip-flop

For a better understanding of what’s involved, some history may be in order. As explained by historian Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, the NRA’s current strong association with the Second Amendment, interpreted to support an individual right to gun ownership, is a relatively new development. Throughout most of its history, the NRA supported gun control legislation – even helping to write it – and viewed the Second Amendment as unconnected with its concerns. What the NRA now portrays as a defining eternal right, its own history shows to be nothing of the sort. 

Indeed, Winkler’s whole point is to illuminate gun rights as part of history, with quirks and surprises on all sides – for those who naively believe that today’s political alignments reflect eternal truths. Nothing could be farther from the truth, Winkler shows, particularly since black Americans – from the Southern Freedmen of the 1860s to the Black Panthers of the 1960s – have been among the strongest advocates of an individual right to bear arms. In their case, jackbooted thugs actually were out to get them, and had racked up a considerable body count. When the Black Panthers showed up in Sacramento on May 2, 1967, carrying loaded guns, they were not treated like the Tea Party in 2009/2010. Their guns were not viewed as emblems of patriotism – but of potential terrorism and revolution.

‘Just as the threat of violence threatens the security of all other rights, so, too, women’s lack of autonomy over their own childbearing threatens all their other rights and freedoms’ [GALLO/GETTY]

Indeed, Winler says in an Atlantic magazine article based on his book, that their “invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement”.  And the man who signed the first gun law passed by the movement was Ronald Reagan, governor of California at the time. Thirteen years later, with the NRA firmly embracing the Second Amendment for the first time in its history, that very same Ronald Reagan became the first presidential candidate the NrA ever endorsed.

From one perspective, this was one of the greatest flip-flops of all time. From another perspective, not so much: Reagan kicked off his general election campaign at the county fair in Neshoba County, home to Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town nationally famous for just one thing: the law enforcement/KKK vigilante murder of three civil rights workers in 1964, at the beginning of “Freedom Summer”. It’s not so terribly hard to figure out what the “eternal principles” involved here really are. If anyone’s still wondering, Reagan used his speech to endorse the principle of “states rights”.

My general purpose here is to distinguish between shifting historical and political tides and the underlying, unchanging right and principle. That principle is the right to be secure in one’s person, so that all other rights are secured.  Sometimes a gun is indispensable in securing one’s rights – sometimes it is an instrument of destroying them. More precisely, my purpose is three-fold: First, to show that claims about “eternal”, “God-given” or otherwise privileged rights in the realm of guns need to be taken with more than a few grains of salt. Second, to highlight the role of race as one of the most significant historical factors in how the rights discourse shifts. Third, to clear the way for a deeper understanding of the logic of self-defense and how it fits into the intellectual framework of liberal political rights.  

Locke vs load

In Locke’s social contract theory, the source of the concept that legitimate government rests on “the consent of the governed”, people in a “state of nature” have all their rights and freedoms in theory, but none of them are secure in practice, because of the threat of violence. Legitimate government comes into existence to secure these rights – and that necessarily entails a limitation in the individual’s right to use violence to settle disputes. The right to armed self-defence in one’s home is clearly supported by this logic, just as claiming this right in public runs into trouble, because conflicting interpretations and claims can readily lead us back to the “state of nature” in which no one’s rights are secure. 

Selective licensing and other forms of regulation – which the pre-1977 NRA supported for more than 100 years – are the logical way to provide for individual armed self-defence when plausibly necessary, with minimal immediate risk to innocent others and without the long-term risk of slipping back into the state of nature. This is the framework that truly sensible gun laws would be guided by, if we were to follow the logic of the political philosophy on which our nation was founded.

As with the Lockian logic of self-defence within the social contract, there is a tension-balancing logic undergirding women’s reproductive freedom as well. Just as the threat of violence threatens the security of all other rights, so, too, womens’ lack of autonomy over their own childbearing threatens all their other rights and freedoms. Just as a core absolute right to self defence in the home co-exists with regulated rights outside of it – where other concerns come into play as well – the same logic applies to reproductive rights.

“The Bible places no value on infants less than one month old (Leviticus 27:6) and does not even count them as persons (Numbers 3:15-16)… but for some, the Bible was never meant for reading – it was meant for beating people over the head.”

An absolute core of self-determination in controlling one’s own childbearing can be seen to co-exist with regulations beyond a certain sphere – a sphere that Roe v Wade, for example, defined primarily in terms of a trimester framework. But for those opposed to reproductive rights, the issue has never really been Roe, but rather the decision that preceded it, Griswold v Connecticut, the decision that legalised birth control for married couples.

And the contest over Griswold – which the vast majority of women (and men) in the US have long considered settled, is what actually stands at the centre of today’s War on Women. That is how the anti-choice forces want it. Deep down, it’s what they’ve wanted all along.

Race again: Origins of the anti-Biblical anti-choice movement

From the beginning, the Catholic Church was not just opposed to abortion, but to birth control as well. Evangelical Protestants, however, were initially not so interested. After all – despite four decades of propaganda to the contrary – the Bible says almost nothing directly about abortion, and the most relevant passages make it clear that fetuses are not considered persons. If a woman is injured so that she miscarries, the Bible says it’s a property crime, not murder (Exodus 21:22-23). 

Furthermore, the Bible places no value on infants less than one month old (Leviticus 27:6) and does not even count them as persons (Numbers 3:15-16). Moreover, in several passages, God commands abortion (Numbers 5:21-28) or even the death of infants (2 Samuel 12:14) as parental punishment. In contrast with countless passages about the poor, Jesus says not one word about abortion. All of this is generally compatible with the pro-choice position, and not with the anti-abortion one. But for some, the Bible was never meant for reading – it was meant for beating people over the head.

In a Nation article published after religious right leader Jerry Falwell’s death, Max Blumenthal explained that “WA Criswell, the fundamentalist former president of America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, casually endorsed” Roe v Wade when the ruling came down, saying: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” Given the Bible passages cited above, there’s nothing remarkable about Criswell’s position, regardless of how it might seem to evangelicals today.

Blumenthal further noted that rightwing Catholic activist Paul Weyrich “took a series of trips down South to meet with Falwell and other evangelical leaders” hoping to “produce a well-funded evangelical lobbying outfit that could lend grassroots muscle to the top-heavy Republican Party”, but “his pleas initially fell on deaf ears”.

What finally did ignite the evangelical right was segregation, Blumenthal reported:

“I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed,” Weyrich recalled in an interview in the early 1990s. “What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter’s intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation.”

Of course, there was hardly any highly motivated mass support for fighting rear-guard segregationist battles by that time. Abortion and school prayer were much more saleable issues to rally around. They were not the reason why the religious right was formed. They were its product lines, nothing more. What the Bible said about either was irrelevant. All that mattered was what people could be convinced that it said. (Note that as far as school prayer is concerned, Jesus was the first recorded advocate of separation of church and state: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”, he famously said, “and unto God that which is God’s”.) And so the seed of lies was sown at the very founding of the religious right.

False witness and the demonisation of Planned Parenthood

This is not to say that abortion isn’t a troubling moral issue for many millions of women and men. But the highly organised anti-abortion movement has remarkably little connection to that fact, and is much, much more of a political movement than it is anything to do with religion or morality. Perhaps that’s why the anti-abortion movement as a whole is seemingly so comfortable about bearing false witness.

“Abortion providers are labeled not just an industry, but an ‘abortion-industrial complex’. Abortions are not something women seek out, but something they’re tricked into… flying directly in the face of what the pro-choice movement is all about.”

Really believing that abortion is murder would mean painting tens of millions of women as murderers. Whether they know it or not, virtually everyone in the US knows someone who has had an abortion. But murderers are clearly a social “other”, beyond the pale. Ergo, it’s not the women who get abortions, but the doctors who provide them – and those associated with them – who are targeted for “otherisation”, making them, in turn, fair game for all manner of lies – and ultimately, even murder.

This is the process through which Planned Parenthood has become subject to increasingly vicious and irrational attacks over the past few years, as the anti-choice movmeent has shifted its focus from abortion to contraception, while simultaneously shifting its anti-abortion focus to increasingly direct control over women’s bodies. Abortion providers are labelled not just an industry, but an “abortion-industrial complex”. Abortions are not something women seek out, but something they’re tricked into, or that’s forced on them. Or so the anti-abortion narrative goes. But of course, it’s entirely false, flying directly in the face of what the pro-choice movement is all about.  

At the same time, there’s been an intensification of malicious false propaganda about birth control, most commonly claims that birth control doesn’t work, and most notably false claims tying birth control pills to breast cancer, and all manner of other ills. In reality, teenage pregnancies are now at an all-time low, and increased use of birth control is directly responsible for the most recent gains. There is no relation between taking birth control and getting breast cancer. To the contrary, Planned Parenthood is vital in early detection of breast cancer, right alongside providing birth control information and services.

Malicious, mendacious attacks on Planned Parenthood have escalated to the level of absurdity since the 2010 mid-terms, capped by the antics of Lila Rose, an associate of James O’Keefe, whose misleadingly edited videos played a central role in the destruction of ACORN. Planned Parenthood is more centralised organisationally, and has far more experience fending off such attacks than ACORN did; so when Rose’s accomplices approached Planned Parenthood offices in several different states trying to trap them into seemingly aiding individuals involved in child sex-trafficking, Planned Parenthood was all over it, sending a letter about it directly to Attorney General Eric Holder, and calling on him to investigate – exactly the opposite of “aiding and abetting” the cover-up behaviour Rose accused them of.  

Lies and deception are practiced by elected anti-choice politicians as well as activist organisations. Under the Hyde Amendment, no federal funds have gone to fund abortion since 1979. Everyone in Washington knows this. Yet, escalated attempts to defund Planned Parenthood in recent years have repeatedly relied on misrepresenting these funds as going to fund abortions. Most dramatically, Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) claimed on the Senate floor that abortions are “well over 90 per cent of what Planned Parenthood does” – as opposed to the real figure of three per cent. When challenged by CNN, Kyl’s office responded by saying, “his remark was not intended to be a factual statement.” Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had a field day with Kyl. “Kyl just rounded up to the nearest 90,” Colbert explained, adding: “You can’t call him out for being wrong when he never intended to be right.” 

This is not to say there aren’t anti-choice activists who are troubled by all this lying. There clearly are. And for good reason, noted Sarah Morice-Brubaker at Religion Dispatches (“Lila Rose Targets Planned Parenthood with Lies”). Lying doesn’t just violate the Ten Commandments, but also the Catechism of the Catholic Church), which goes on at considerable length. Lying, she writes, “is a sin. Always. Even if done for a good reason. And no, you can’t commit a sin to bring about a greater good. That point was made in oh, say, the 1968 papal encyclical reaffirming the Catholic Church’s ban on artificial birth control. ‘Neither is it valid to argue,’ the encyclical states, ‘that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one… [I]t is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it[.]‘ (Humanae Vitae II.14)”. Rose is a Catholic – or at least she claims to be. But lying doesn’t really seem to trouble her at all.

Elections and culture wars 

As top-down contests between two political parties, presidential election campaigns are not designed or intended to serve the same sort of purposes as social movements. And yet, the forms that social movements ultimately take are often profoundly influenced by their engagements in presidential politics. Most famously, Abraham Lincoln did not run as an abolitionist in 1860, and yet the abolitionist sentiment that helped elect him was ultimately vindicated in the aftermath of the war that Southern secessionists started in response to his election. 

Although not so clear-cut or so dramatically, a similar story seems to be unfolding with the culture wars of the US today.  The campaign-shaped electoral issues are not the same as the culture war issues – they are a customised adaptation blended with other concerns. But in the long run, the election will be over, and culture wars will continue in somewhat altered form. It could be radically altered, if it comes down to a clarifying clash between two different models of freedom. There is no guarantee that it will. But there is the potential – and that is rather rare in a US presidential election.  

Rarer still would be a serious discussion of money, power and class, the sort of discussion that Occupy Wall Street initiated last August. Ultimately, that discussion will be part of the mix as well. More on that in columns to come.

 

 

A ‘multicultural GOP’ as magical thinking

Romney knows his campaign is doomed among Latino voters, but will that determine who he chooses as his running mate?

Not long ago, the Republican Party gazed deep into the future and shuddered with dread.

By 2050, white Americans are expected to become a minority in the United States, while current minorities will become the majority. This does not bode well for a major party that for 50 years coddled the anxieties and fears of white Republicans, particularly Southerners, evangelical Christians and Old Right conservatives. 

This is why Republican Party leaders have been increasing outreach among Hispanic voters, whom they believe are kindred spirits “by reasons of faith, industriousness and patriotism”, says George F Will. That is, culturally speaking. President George W Bush took the idea of a “multicultural GOP” seriously, but his efforts ground to a halt when the US Senate killed his immigration reform bill in 2007. The problem wasn’t Democrats. They mostly wanted it. The problem was Republicans. They saw it as wholesale amnesty. 

Bush might have been the last Republican whose vision of the party’s future wasn’t staggeringly shortsighted. Since he left office, the bigotry and xenophobia that killed his reform bill has only intensified. And it’s not just aimed at the president. The most galling, for instance, might be from the Conservative Political Action Committee earlier this year - in which a white nationalist group hosted a panel to discuss the “failures of multiculturalism” as public policy. Neither Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum blinked. 

Mitt Romney might be the party’s best hope, because he knows his campaign is doomed without the Hispanic vote.His words. He’s trailing by as much as 40 points behind President Barack Obama in polls of likely Hispanic voters. Romney, whose sweep of five primaries on Tuesday made him the de facto nominee of the Republican Party, has yet to name a running mate, but the smart money, if you’re a Republican, is on Cuban-American Marco Rubio, the US Senator from Florida. The thinking? Like attracts like.

A typical Republican gambit, I’d say. It doesn’t matter that Rubio’s policy positions are in fact antithetical to the interests of most working-class Hispanics. Culture – ie: “faith, industriousness and patriotism” – trumps concrete and debatable things, such as policy and power, in the world of conservatism. Fingers crossed no one notices his biggest asset is his ethnicity.

Immigrant mythology

I say this while appreciating Romney’s doozy of a dilemma. He must appease the GOP’s anti-immigrant base as well as appeal to moderates in swing states such as Ohio, where voters fondly remember, and often celebrate, their immigrant heritage. Romney is already facing the scepticism of gimlet-eyed hardliners. For Romney, Rubio embodies the US immigrant mythology, and so represents a kind of ideological hair-splitting. He’s an acceptable Hispanic among conservatives. But will he be so among Hispanics? 

Maybe. The question begins with the problem of perspective. For many conservatives, not just those on the fringe, race influences whom they vote for. An extreme example is South Carolina. White Southerners voted for Newt Gingrich in record numbers during the state’s primary, because Gingrich expressed implicitly: “I am one of you”. Can Rubio do the same with Hispanic voters? Probably not. The fact that he’s Cuban-American will likely attract some, but assuming he can pull mass votes assumes Hispanics vote for the same reasons that white conservatives vote. That’s not the case.

Many in the Republican Party believe, or want to believe, that Hispanics are natural “family values” conservatives. While this may be the case sometimes, it is far from clear that it is most of the time. According to a small survey by Latino Decisions, 43 per cent said they support gay marriage, while just 35 per cent of non-Hispanics do. Religion doesn’t determine voting behaviour as much as it does for non-Hispanics: 53 per cent said it had no impact at all. Moreover, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that only 17 per cent of Hispanics rejected the idea of changes to the structure of the nuclear family, compared with 35 per cent of whites rejecting them (42 per cent of Hispanics accept changes to family while only 30 of whites do). 
For conservatives, culture is an animating force. Recall the game-changing power of 2004′s “Gays, Guns and God”. Let’s not talk about the Iraq War or the stalled economy or other topics deleterious to Bush’s interests. Instead, let’s argue about topics that are ipso facto unarguable, such as evolution. But culture doesn’t animate Hispanics. Concrete things such as policy and power do, and this poses difficulties, even for a Cuban-American conservative.

No substance

Rubio supports laws legalising racial profiling in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah. Heopposes providing a path to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants through the DREAM Act. He opposed the nomination of US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He has since offered a modified version of the DREAM Act, but his modifications are meant to mitigate right-wing ire, not mediate real policy disagreements.

As USA Today columnist Raul A Reyes noted, before rumours of Romney-Rubio ticket took flight:

“The problem is that Republicans are assuming Hispanics will be attracted to Rubio simply because he’s Cuban-American. But trust me, Latinos don’t vote based on ethnicity. We vote on policies. And Rubio’s on the wrong side of too many issues that matter to the Hispanic community.”

Even so, Romney has to do something or else, as the man said, he’s doomed. 

Now that he has the GOP nomination in the bag, Romney is moving to the political centre. While vetting Rubio as a possible running mate, Romney has been distancing himself from anti-immigrant conservatives, such as former Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce, who endorsed Romney, believing that he’d use the Arizona law as a model for national immigration policy. If he can pivot without outraging – and hence losing his base – Romney will have performed an incredible balancing act and signal whether his party has a viable long-term future.

The IMF and oil: It’s the politics, stupid!!

Producer nations should take serious steps to mitigate against volatility and economic disparity among their citizens.

This is the second in a two part series on how the International Monetary Fund should interact with the global oil industry. Read part one here. or copy and paste this link http://wp.me/p2DA6-Sr to the address bar in your browser. 

Berlin, Germany - There’s virtually a petro-politics story a day right now. If it’s not the two Sudans on the verge of war, it’s a sudden resurgence of economic nationalism in Argentina, where the government gave Repsol 15 minutes to pack their bags, or economic growth slowing in India because there’s not enough coal, or even arguments over whether an independent Scotland would be oil-dependent or not.

There’s no escaping the geopolitics of energy. This has got to be the single biggest axiom for the IMF, now reviewing its ideas on how to advise governments on oil and other extractive industries, to take on board. It’s the politics, stupid. Counterintuitive, perhaps, for an institution whose whole raison d’etre is to eschew politics and achieve technocratic nirvana. But, perversely, any policymaking for the oil industry that fails to take into account the specific nature of rents - money for nothing and the things people will do to get near it - is doomed to perfection on paper and irrelevance, at best, in the real world.

So here are a few generic policy approaches to oil and extractives, which start from the simple premise that the peoples of producing countries must be persuaded that the benefits from the development of these global industries be made to outweigh their real total cost, including social capital and environmental degradation, and that the benefits of extraction will be fairly allocated, and lead to real human and economic development, rather than to corruption and conflict. Call that political if you like. In fact, ownership of sub-soil natural resources by the entire people is recognised by law and in many cases by constitution, in most producing countries.

• Human Stabilisation Funds - resource-rich countries with many poor people could pool resources to create emergency response funds.
• Citizen Dividends - since the people own the resources they should see some of the rent directly, in the form of a flat universal dividend, Alaska-style.
• Sousveillance - systems such as satellite imagery and real-time metering are cheap and can be put in the service of public scrutiny.
• Embrace Dutch Disease - recognise the systemic effects of rent so that policies are framed specifically as antidotes. Paul Collier’s “Investing in investing”, human capital development and gender programmes are three such generic approaches.
• State-sponsored exploration - the end of neo-liberalism and the “Risk Versus Reward” mantra touted by Big Oil.

Human stabilisation funds

Because commodity markets are volatile, thinking on how to manage petrodollars normally focuses on the huge ebb and flow of earnings. Iraq’s income, for example, increased 60 per cent between 2007 and 2008, then dropped 40 per cent between 2008 and 2009. That’s not an Iraq issue: any government in the world would have trouble managing that level of uncertainty. So experts debate the pros and cons of financial stabilisation funds, revenue smoothing, and sovereign wealth funds.

Meanwhile, the world outside carries on. Nations burn, vested interests seize the state and the billions of dollars it offers, insurgents and secessionists oppose them and, when they succeed, tear up agreements. Because this layer of policymaking doesn’t explicitly address politics, the resulting instability often renders such technical assistance mechanisms null and void.

As more new oil producers come online, we need human, not financial, stabilisation funds. Producing countries could pool petrodollars into regional emergency response funds. International financial institutions could manage them and provide matching funds. It is intolerable to have a situation such as we have in parts of Africa, where populations languish in desperate poverty while petrodollars sit in the bank and humanitarian response relies on appeals by Save the Children or the World Food Programme.

If extractive industries were clearly identified as providing the ultimate insurance to their populations, the wherewithall for effective locally owned response to crop failures and natural disasters, the dynamics of human-generated conflict around rent would start to shift dramatically – for the better.

Citizen dividends - give it back

If states manage natural resource wealth on behalf of the people, why don’t they give some of it back to them directly? Not as welfare state; means tested and administered by a bureaucracy, but as a flat universal citizen dividend.

Ironically, this idea has been been vehemently opposed on ideological grounds by large sections of both the left and the right. The right are repelled by the decadence of giving away something for nothing. The point that natural resources actually belong, legally, to the people in the first place, so no-one is giving away anything, eludes them.

Parts of the left sometimes see it as a sinister libertarian plot to undermine the state, making an unfortunate and imported equation between the legitimacy of a state and the amount of money it has. The mental paradigm generally invoked is of throwing bundles of dollars off the back of lorries into a refugee camp.

In fact, in the 21st century a citizen dividend would be more likely to take place by digital transfer over mobile phone. Harnessed properly, it would be a massive asset for social and economic development - multiplying the tax base, a key IMF concern, transforming the local finance sector, putting the small business sector on steroids and, in many countries, coming close to eliminating absolute poverty.

Sousveillance - let’s watch Big Brother

If you ever go to an oil trade show and approach the stand for Schlumberger or Halliburton, it won’t be long beforesomeone tries to sell you an oil meter. Twelve different grades of crude, each with their own specific gravity, flowing down a trunk line? No problem! For a few hundred thousand dollars you can buy meters which measure the amount of crude flowing through pipelines to within a fraction of a per cent, and transmit the data to a collation center in real time. So your company can check to within 0.15 per cent the amount of oil the other company is transferring to you.

There are also companies which can sell you satellite and aerial surveillance – able through a variety of techniques to capture the smallest of spills of oil, or produced water, or toxic chemicals, fluctuations in the water table, and a whole lot else, for less than $100 a square kilometre.

Any fiscal regime must consider enforcement: if and how it is possible to assess property rights and values. In this case, an industry worth billions can be monitored relatively cheaply if a range of technologies already in standard commercial use are adopted for the public benefit.

No country in the world has yet put a system which could comprehensively monitor the nation’s wealth online, but in 2012 there is absolutely no reason why they couldn’t. Best candidate to take that step? Brazil, where Lulu and now Dilma Roussef drove progressive use of oil revenues and state-owned Petrobras is one of the most innovative companies in the world, bar none.

Embrace Dutch disease

Recognise the symptoms and you can provide the antidote. The development of natural resource wealth often withers other economic sectors, and affects specific demographics. Since this is well understood, it should be factored into planning.

The IMF call for comments on its policies recognises that many countries may be better served investing surpluses in their own development than in global financial markets. And yet the history of oil producing countries is littered with failed prestige and white elephant projects. The question is how to ensure a new surge of commodity rents doesn’t lead to a re-run of this kind of paternalistic and grandiose modernism?

One approach is what Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion, calls “investing in investing”, the creation not of industries but of the infrastructure to support them, that infrastructure being partly physical, such as roads and utilities, and partly social, such as developing trading and legal systems which encourage private investment.

Some countries, such as Libya and Iraq, are so rich they could consider using their wealth to carry them through a decade of massive investment in training and education to emerge sometime in the 2020s as knowledge economies. There is also the uncomfortable fact that oil-led economies have a gender dimension, as so ably outlined by Michael Ross in his new book The Oil Curse. Of its nature capital intensive, it fails to absorb large numbers of people, and the revenues it produces often spawn huge government bureaucracies, both of which disadvantage women.

The end of neo-liberalism?

The IMF makes two surprising observations in its consultation document, albeit in carefully coded language. The first is that oil and mining companies might be “under-taxed” relative to their profits and internal rates of return. The second is that “in some cases, governments might benefit from separating exploration from extraction - for example, by auctioning known deposits to the highest bidder”.

Behind these mundane words lies scope for a considerable shift in thinking. The time-honoured argument of Big Oil in response to its huge profits is the “Risk Versus Reward” mantra, the insistence that the company has taken huge risks, drilling one dry well in deep offshore can cost $100 million, and so on. Like Big Pharma, the claim is that what appears to the outside world to be massive windfall profits from this or that particular field, or drug, are in fact only the bets that came good, disregarding all the human and financial risk invested in other ventures which failed.

But there’s only so long you can maintain you’re “just an engineering company” – a phrase I recently heard from an earnest VP of a Big Oil firm - if you keep posting ginormous profits. The claim could be fairly easily tested in fact: how do internal rates of return on projects compare with other industries? What does the return on investment in share price and dividends look like, averaged over decades and continents? One preliminary indicator: In the past ten years, ExxonMobil have posted seven out of ten of the largest corporate profits in history.

But what if governments could use the wealth of geological data now acquired, and the exponentially increasing power of the processing of that data, to mitigate exploration risk? What if a government simply decided to do its own exploring and then engage the oil companies in a Dutch auction to produce what they found? Sounds like an insane throw-back to state-planned economy? In January the Canadian province of Nova Scotia landed $900 million of investment from Shell after launching a bid round based on $15 million of public funds it put into exploring offshore areas hitherto ignored by the companies. As Sandy McMullen, the engineer who led the initiative, said: “When we said we wanted to do the exploration ourselves, the companies said you can’t do that. We said ‘No, no, no. It’s our oil. You want to produce it. Let’s start from there’.”

Low risk, low reward - no rent. Now if that started to happen, Shell really could become “just an engineering company”. And oil just another industry. And the world would be a better place for it.

What the IMF should say and think about the global oil industry

In over 50 countries, local production in the oil extractive industries plays a major role in politics and the economy.

This is the first in a two part series on how the International Monetary Fund should interact with the global oil industry.Get Part 2 Here: or copy and paste  http://wp.me/p2DA6-Sp to your browser address bar.

Berlin, Germany - The US and Israel are threatening to bomb Iran, and, even without and before that, petrol prices are nudging back towards the historic highs of 2008. Brent already stands at $125 per barrel, and we know from the last commodity boom that it can’t go much higher before a lot of poor people get hurt – because we now understandthe linkage between high fuel prices and high food prices that afflicted hundreds of millions of people around the world in the middle of the last decade. 

In such times, even if you follow the cut and thrust of energy politics, you might think news of a public consultation this month by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on how they should advise governments around the world to tax oil and natural resource economies is a little marginal. It might have a certain novelty value. After all, when does the IMF, bastion of technocracy, ask anybody for advice about anything? But ultimately beside the point. Dull, even. 

While many long-time major oil producers have long managed everything about their industries, thanks to the wave of nationalisations that ended the stranglehold of the Seven Sisters in the 1970s, many more marginal and new producers are not so sure of themselves. And in fact, their number is growing.But the devil is in this detail. The neo-liberal Washington Consensus has enjoyed unchallenged supremacy these last 20 years which means the IMF and its sister organisation, the World Bank, have enjoyed a virtual monopoly on advice to governments about public finance, fiscal probity, and a whole lot else.

Borrowing programmes

As the world gets used to the end of Easy Oil and the industry has to search wider and deeper, some 15 to 20 countries in the global South are just coming “online” now, countries the oil world has never heard of – Ghana, Uganda, Mozambique, Timor, Liberia, Colombia, Vietnam and Cambodia to name just a few. There are now over 50 countries where local production in the extractive industries plays a significant role in politics and the economy. 

For these countries, the orthodoxy created by the IMF and the World Bank is best practice. A version of their better selves. What the ministers and civil servants of these countries should do with the first flush of new revenue flows, and the changing geopolitical dynamics they bring, to be proper and correct, is to stand tall and tell their grandchildren what they did at the office.

Even if they are not obliged by actual borrowing programmes to obey the Bank and the Fund – and this will vary greatly from country to country – Bretton Woods’ advice carries some kind of moral force. This stuff matters. The economic future of hundreds of millions of people in middle and lower-middle income countries depends on it. In Africa, extractive industries already generate six times as much inward money flows as aid, and yet bad management and corruption still plague these sectors.  

If you know how to read between the lines, implicit in the IMF consultation papers is an acknowledgement that all has not necessarily gone well up until now. That’s good. 

One paper suggests traditional methodologies for handling oil wealth “need to be amended” because they have been focused on trying to create permanent income from petrodollars – turning every producer into a Norway, in other words, or a pre-1990 Kuwait. Whereas, if you’re DRC or Chad or Liberia, it may turn out you’d be better off putting your oil money into schools and highways back home than donning a mental pin-striped suit and investing in clever index-tracking funds on world markets.

Now that sovereign wealth funds are a thing, everyone wants to have one. But as Oxford academic and leading economist Paul Collier maintains, the opportunity cost of playing the market looks pretty different if a third of your population can’t read and thousands of newborns die every year because they lack access to basic amenities. 

A second paper suggests, radically for the IMF, that some oil and mining companies may be under-taxed and that some countries could benefit from taxing resource rents more. Yes, really! Integral to this is a recognition that rent is different to normal profit. These discussion papers make the case, from the IMF’s point of view of strict capitalist rectitude, that extractive industries are different to the factory that makes widgets or service industries.

Rent disputes

ExxonMobil is different from the Body Shop or Ikea, or even McDonalds, because they generate rent above and beyond profit as normally defined – such as Exxon’s $45 billion profits in 2008 ($1,400 a second), the largest profit ever recorded by a company. 

The conclusion the IMF then draws from this is the safe economist’s one, falling strictly within the paradigm and mandate of a technical expert seeking to stay within capitalist orthodoxy. Because of the peculiar nature of rents, oil, gas and mining industries can be taxed differently without creating market distortions. Nigeria could shake Shell down for a higher “take”, or Ghana Tullow, and all would still be right in the free market firmament. This neutrality to a new wave of contract negotiations and rent disputes now happening around the world on the part of the IMF is new, and appropriate. It may also have something to do with the new director Christine Lagarde. This is the very heart of it.  

But welcome as it is, it misses a still bigger point. Once you recognise rent as the essence of the global oil and the mining industries, you must recognise that everything about them is as much political, and geo-political, as it is economic. That is how historically mismanagement of those industries has led to such massive corruption and conflict. Nobody ever went to war over car manufacturing or internet service provision. When it comes to bananas or silicon chips, or intellectual copyright, the term “trade war” is, thankfully, a metaphor. 

Maybe the IMF feels it can’t follow the consequences of its own point because it would exceed its mandate. But it should. Because if the architects of the fiscal and monetary policies of Nigeria or Brazil or two score other countries are not, in fact, isolated from the political economies they operate in, it stands to reason that any technocratic mechanism is only as good as the political will that enforces it. With oil, business is politics and politics is business, whatever anyone says. Technocratic solutions can only pick up where broader political questions have been settled. 

Nigeria, after all, has all the apparatus of good governance – sovereign wealth fund, “consumption smoothing” policies, EITI compliance – at the same time, being hopelessly corrupt. Billions of dollars of loan guarantees from the World Bank ensured good governance in Chad’s oil industry until the first oil flowed down a pipeline to the Atlantic Ocean. And we now face the prospect of famine across the Sahel at a time when at least two of the governments in the region, Mauritania and Niger, are experiencing mini-oil booms and have the money, in theory, to handle the emergency.  

In the next article, we’ll look at what the IMF should think and say about the global oil industry and how it should be taxed if it recognises its truly political nature.

 

Mitt Romney and the Mormon factor

What is Mormonism and what would a Mormon in the White House mean for US politics and the world?

Mitt Romney is the favourite to become the Republican Party’s candidate in November’s US presidential election. But in what could be a tight race with Barack Obama, Romney’s Mormon faith might be a deciding factor.

While the majority of US voters will be unconcerned about Romney’s religious beliefs, a significant minority say that they would think twice about voting for a Mormon as president. Evangelical Christians are especially concerned, with some believing that Mormonism is more a cult than a mainstream Christian creed. Others fear a Romney administration would be unduly influenced by the church’s attitude to such matters as polygamy, gay rights and abortion.

So what is Mormonism and what would a Mormon in the White House mean for the US and the world?

The biggest challenge Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney faces in locking up his party’s nomination for president and defeating Barack Obama in the general election could well be his Mormon faith. According to a Gallup poll, one in five Americans would not vote for a Mormon for president, and it is not just Democrats, but Christians who are a key component of the Republican base.

In the Republican primaries, Evangelical Christians oppose Romney and support his main opponent Rick Santorum because they do not think Mormonism is Christian, but rather a cult. Meanwhile, the practice of polygamy remains a negative characteristic commonly associated with the Mormon faith and Romney, although his church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the LDS church) banned the practice more than 100 years ago.

Mormonism is a truly American faith. It was founded in the 1830s by Joseph Smith, a charismatic American frontiersman who grew up in an area of New York State known as the Burnt Over District because of an intense period of religious revival there.

Smith’s family was poor and made a living as money diggers, going out to look for buried treasure. Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni – whose golden image now adorns the top of Mormon temples – came to him in visions and guided him to golden plates buried in an earthen mound. Smith translated the plates with the help of scribes and published the Book of Mormon in 1830. It tells the story of ancient Israelites who left Jerusalem before the Babylonian conquest, traveling to the Americas and building an advanced civilisation before it was wiped out by warfare.

Smith proclaimed himself a prophet who was going to restore the uncorrupted Christianity practiced by this Nephite civilisation and bring God’s government to the world.

In Mormon theology, America occupies a special place. According to Smith, Adam and Eve settled in Missouri, near the small town of Gallatin, after they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Smith also revealed that Jesus will return to Missouri to plan for his second coming.

Historian Will Bagley, who has written more than a dozen books on Mormonism, points out that “in the Mormon sacred geography, America is essentially God’s favourite place in the world. God helped create the constitution and the American Republic so the gospel could be restored under Joseph Smith”.

These sentiments are echoed by Mitt Romney, who has said that he believes the American constitution was divinely inspired, and who speaks often of American exceptionalism, the unique destiny and role of the US in the world.

Although Mormonism is an American religion, Smith and his followers, many converts who had arrived from Europe, encountered hostility wherever they settled. As a result of clashes over land, political power and religious beliefs they were forced to move from Ohio to Missouri and then to Nauvoo, Illinois. In Illinois, Smith began preaching the radical doctrine of plural marriage, or polygamy. By some accounts, he married more than 30 women.

Plural marriage became a huge scandal, and Smith shut down a newspaper that exposed his practice of polygamy. In the controversy that followed, Smith was arrested for treason and put in a jail with his brother in Carthage, Illinois. The jail was stormed by an angry mob that included members of an Illinois militia that was supposed to be guarding Smith, and he was murdered.

Many thought that with Smith gone, Mormonism would vanish. But instead, as Bagley says, the mob “created an American martyr”. Today, the LDS church has some 14 million members worldwide and is the richest per capita in the US. It sends out more than 50,000 missionaries a year to convert people to Mormonism.

Richard Hinckley, an emeritus member of the LDS Church’s General Authority, says that Mormons place a high value on proselytising because they believe they are helping to save mankind. About 70 per cent of American Mormons are supporters of the Republican party, reflecting a church leadership that Bagley says “sees the world in corporate American terms, because they’re attorneys, they’re executives”.

Although the LDS church excommunicates those who practice polygamy today, there are some 40,000 fundamentalist Mormons involved in plural marriages in the US. Joe Darger, who lives with his three wives and 18 children about 30 miles from Salt Lake City, says that the church would prefer he did not exist, but he believes many members of the church still subscribe to the view that there will be plural marriage in heaven because “it is still in their scriptures and still part of their doctrine”.

According to the original Mormon theology revealed by Joseph Smith, Darger says, men also have the ability to progress and become gods living with God in heaven.

Evangelical Christians in the US have had a long competition with Mormons for converts. Philip Roberts, who served as the head of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for over a decade, says many evangelicals now fear that the election of a Mormon president would give the Mormon faith additional legitimacy around the globe, aiding the missionary efforts of an ‘un-Christian’ faith.

Evangelicals regard the idea that humans can progress to godhood as blasphemous, and take issue with many Mormon practices and doctrines, such as so-called endowment rites. In these temple rituals Mormons pass between rooms representing different stages of the eternal progression they believe all humans participate in – from the Garden of Eden to the earthly world to celestial heaven.

Mormons also practice proxy baptisms, or baptisms of the dead, to save deceased ancestors who passed away without being baptised on earth. Despite warnings from the LDS Church, Mormons have stirred controversy by baptising dead celebrities and Jewish Holocaust victims.

James Garfield, who was elected president in 1881, served as a Methodist preacher. If Mitt Romney captures the White House he will be the only other president to have held such significant positions in his church. The LDS church does not have any paid clergy, relying instead on bishops, or lay pastors, to lead local congregations. So-called stake presidents oversee several congregations. Mitt Romney served in both capacities in the Boston-area over a 12-year period, after finishing studies at Harvard Business School and beginning a career in finance.  

Mike Moody, who attended Brigham Young University with Romney, thinks he is running for president to help establish “the Kingdom of God. I think that’s the foundation of his personal ambition. He’s kneeled down and taken what’s called the oath of sacrifice. He’s promised his talents, his abilities, and everything that he is to the church”.

Moody believes that Romney is also influenced by a Mormon tradition known as the White Horse prophecy that goes back to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormon migration to Utah. The prophecy says that there will come a time when the US constitution “hangs by a thread” and Mormons will ride in on a white horse to save it.

Today, Romney faces the same challenge John F. Kennedy did in 1960 - convincing voters that he will not be beholden to leaders of his church. One in five voters said they would not vote for Kennedy because they were afraid he would take orders from the Pope - the same percentage who now say they would not vote for a Mormon for president.

Richard Hinckley says there would not be discussions between a President Romney and LDS church leaders over policy. “It won’t happen,” he says. “First of all he’s too smart to do that. Secondly, our leaders are far too smart to engage in that.”

Romney has done his best to avoid all discussion of his Mormon faith in the 2012 race. According to Phil Barlow, a professor of religion at Utah State University who was a counselor to Romney when he was a bishop in the Boston area, Romney and his campaign regard any speech about his faith as a “lose, lose situation”.

Pollster Robert Jones, head of the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington, DC, argues that Romney has a more difficult challenge than Kennedy did in 1960. “In 1960 it was enough to say I believe in the separation of church and state,” Jones says. “Today the American public does really want to see, ‘Okay that’s great. But what will you be doing with your faith?… I think that’s the question Romney is still working his way toward answering.”

Jones believes that if Romney is the Republican nominee for president, which seems likely, his Mormonism could be “the x-factor” that costs him the election in a tight race against Barack Obama for the White House in November.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood in crisis?

As Egyptians rally to ‘rescue the revolution’, we ask if divisions are emerging among those once united behind it.

Thousands of Egyptians have rallied once again – this time under the banner of protecting the revolution. But as moderates, Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, are the divisions beginning to show between the groups that were once united behind the revolution?

“The Muslim Brotherhood is part of the revolution …. We [the Muslim Brotherhood] are not alienating ourselves. Actually, we are going through a course of change here in Egypt.” - Nader Omran of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party

And as the presidential election looms, have the Muslim Brotherhood and the ruling military council misjudged the political landscape?

It was not so long ago that it seemed that the Muslim Brotherhood would be the main beneficiary of last year’s revolution in Egypt. Indeed, the parliamentary elections saw the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party installed as the most dominant force in the chamber, and the party’s voice was growing in influence across the country.

But in the months following the elections, the party has been accused of an inconsistent and indecisive political strategy – one that has put it at odds with both the ruling military and the other parties behind the country’s revolution.

Among the factors that have affected the Muslim Brotherhood’s fortunes, is the fact that in March, the group reversed its position on the presidential election. Initially, it had said that it would not field a candidate. But then the Brotherhood decided to take part, and when its candidate of choice was disqualified, it selected another.

“The Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t been participating in the revolution. They have been the last to show up and the first to leave every time. We’ve seen them running after seats in the parliament and now the presidential elections and only coming back out onto the streets when they don’t get what they want as far as political gains. We haven’t seen them advocating any of the actual demands of the revolution.” - Sherif Gaber, an Egyptian activist

Accusations of hypocrisy also followed Brotherhood demands that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) amend Article 28 of the constitution. That clause gives immunity to the elections commission. The Brotherhood had previously supported SCAF over the constitution.

Also, earlier this month, a Cairo court ruled that the Muslim Brotherhood’s dominance over the committee that would draft a new constitution was unconstitutional.

So, is Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood going through a crisis? And is it alienating itself from some of the other parts of the revolution?

Joining Inside Story with presenter Teymoor Nabili to discuss this are: Nader Omran, a representative and co-founder of the Freedom and Justice Party, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood; Sherif Gaber, an activist and advocate for housing rights who has been taking part in some of the protests over the last year following Egypt’s revolution; and Abdullah al-Arian, an assistant professor of Middle East history at Wayne State University and a scholar specialising in Islamic movements.

“We’ve seen the Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, at a certain point in its time espouse a certain revolutionary ideology, but I think over time the trend has been to try and seek more accommodation with the regime. And we’ve seen that from the 1980s going forward, especially in its growing relationship with the Mubarak regime as kind of the chief, sort of semi-accepted opposition.” Abdullah al-Arian, an assistant professor of Middle East history

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FACTS: EGYPT’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

• Protesters have rallied under a banner that read ‘rescuing the revolution’
• Voting in Egypt’s presidential election is due to start on May 23
• The election commission has released a list of those running for the presidency
• The list confirms that Ahmed Shafiq is included among the 13 candidates
• The Muslim Brotherhood is against allowing Ahmed Shafiq to run for the presidency
• Many of Egypt’s voters are thought to be undecided over who to support in the election
• If no candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the vote, the election will go to a second round
• The winner of Egypt’s presidential election is to be declared on June 21
• Mohamed Morsi is running as the Muslim Brotherhood candidate
• Morsi took Khairat al-Shater’s place as presidential candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt cuts off gas supplies to Israel

Top official insists decision was not political as Israel says it overshadows peace agreement between the two countries.

The head of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company has said it has terminated its contract to ship gas to Israel because of violations of contractual obligations, a decision Israel said overshadowed the peace agreement between the two countries.

Mohamed Shoeb, the gas company’s top official, said Sunday’s decision was not political. “This has nothing to do with anything outside of the commercial relations,” Shoeb said.

He said Israel had not paid for its gas in four months. Yigal Palmor, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, denied the claim of not paying.

Critics charge that Israel got bargain prices, and Mubarak cronies skimmed millions of dollars off the proceeds.The 2005 Egypt-Israel gas deal has come under strident criticism from leaders of the popular uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, the longtime Egyptian president, last year.

The sale of gas to Israel, which signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, has always been controversial in the Arab world’s most populous country. It was the largest trade deal between the two former foes.

Egyptian radicals have blown up the gas pipeline to Israel 14 times since the uprising.

The country’s military ruler was quoted by the MENA news agency as saying that the Egyptian armed forces would defend the borders with Israel if necessary.

Addressing troops in the Sinai Peninsula during annual field exercises on Monday, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi said: ”Our borders, especially the northeast ones, are inflamed. We do not attack neighbouring countries but will defend our territory. We will break the legs of any trying to attack us or come near the borders.”

‘Great concern’

Tantawi’s statement came apparently in response to remarks the previous day by Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s finance minister, that the Egyptian announcement was of “great concern” politically and economically.

“This is a dangerous precedent that overshadows the peace agreements and the peaceful atmosphere between Israel and Egypt,” Steinitz said in a statement.

Israel relies on Egyptian natural gas for 40 per cent of its supplies to produce electricity, the chairman of a government holding firm said on Sunday.
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Cairo, said the row would have major political consequences.The Israeli side said the decision was “unlawful and in bad faith”, accusing the Egyptian side of failing to supply the gas quantities it is owed. The dispute is under international arbitration.

Israel insists it is paying a fair price for the gas.

“At the base of it, this is a commercial dispute, which has in reality been under international arbitration since September last year,” he said.

“But when this agreement was reached in 2005, it was subject to government approvals of Israel and Egypt, many believe under pressure from the government of the US.

“So although this maybe a commercial situation at the moment, this is an issue that will have immense political, international fallout in the days to come.”

However, Al Jazeera’s Cal Perry, reporting from Jerusalem, said that the Israeli government had been downplaying the dispute.

“Everyone here is downplaying it. In fact we just heard from the prime minister’s office that the deal is not off, that this is just a commercial issue between the israeli and Egyptian gas companies,” he said.

“It is not surprising that they’re downplaying it if you look at the implications this could have.

“If this deal falls apart the concerns I think many people have is that the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which was signed in 1979, could be in jeopardy.”

Mubarak defended

In January, a lawyer defending Mubarak told a Cairo court that there was not a shred of evidence linking the deposed Egyptian president to the controversial gas deal.

Farid al-Deeb said Egypt’s spy agency negotiated the deal in line with international norms.

“There isn’t an ounce of evidence that Mubarak was involved in the deal to import gas to Israel,” costing the state $714m  in losses, Deeb told the court.

Among the shareholders of East Mediterranean, the joint Egyptian-Israeli company that carries the gas to Israel, is Hussein Salem, a close friend of Mubarak.

After the many disruptions to the supply of gas over the past year, Israeli ministers have urged the speedy exploitation of recently discovered gas fields off the country’s northern coast.

Israeli officials believe that exploitation of two major natural gas fields could compensate for the loss of Egyptian gas.

Israel has already moved to begin exploiting the fields, signing a deal with Cyprus to mark out maritime borders, but it faces challenges from Lebanon, which claims that the gas fields lie in its territorial waters.

Al Jazeera’s Perry said that the attacks on the pipeline had become a major problem for Israel in the past 14 months, and as a result the country had to purchase gas supplies from other countries as far away as Mexico. 

“The price of electricity has gone up 20 per cent and the cost of living continues to go up as well,” he said.

Understanding Iran’s diplomatic strategy

Iran has been developing nuclear capacities in order to obtain leverage in diplomatic talks with the United States.

In January 2009, just before Gary Samore left his position as Vice-President for Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, he summed up his rather cynical view of how Iran would conduct negotiations.

“The logical position the Iranians are bound to take,” he wrote in a post on the Council’s website, “is: ‘We’re happy to talk forever, as long as we can keep building centrifuges.’” 

A few days later, Samore was named President Barack Obama’s top adviser on nuclear proliferation, making him one of the most influential figures in the administration with regards to diplomacy toward Iran.

The strategy he attributed to Tehran of using negotiations to “play for time” while advancing to the goal of enough enriched uranium for nuclear weapons has been clearly expressed in recent statements by Obama and other senior administration officials in anticipation of new nuclear talks with Tehran.

‘Coercive diplomacy’

For Obama’s advisers, assuming Iran was simply “playing for time” justifies a heavy reliance on “coercive diplomacy”, which combines a boycott of the country’s crude oil exports and hints that an Iranian failure to come to agreement would open the way for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. But that conventional wisdom, which the Obama administration inherited from the Bush administration, ignores the accumulated evidence that Iran’s diplomacy strategy is to accumulate centrifuges, not in order to support a weapons programme, but rather to negotiate a larger bargain with the United States.

That strategy, gleaned from sources in direct contact with Iranian national security officials and from Iran’s actual diplomatic record, can be summed up in three principles:

1. Iran should negotiate with the United States only when it has achieved sufficient negotiating leverage to achieve substantial concessions.
2. The objective of negotiations with the United States is to end US policies of overt hostility to the Islamic Republic and have them accept Iran’s legitimate role in the regional politics of the Middle East.
3. Iran’s primary negotiating chip in any talks is a stockpile of enriched uranium.

Contrary to the convenient argument that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resists agreement with the United States, he and leading officials on the Supreme National Security Council have long viewed negotiations with the United States as the only way that the Iran can achieve full security and emerge as a full-fledged regional power.

But Khamenei has very decided views about the timing of such negotiations. The proposal by then President Mohammed Khatemi to engage the United States in a political dialogue in January 1998 was sharply criticised by Khamenei. However, Khamenei’s argument was not that negotiations with the United States were unacceptable in principle, but rather that Iran was not yet in a strong enough bargaining position to achieve a favourable outcome.

Soon after George W Bush demonised Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil” in late 2001 and early 2002, Khamenei again denounced the idea of negotiations with the United States under those conditions as useless. But a series of seismic changes over the next year altered the Supreme Leader’s strategic assessment.

Increased bargaining power

The first such change was the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In the short run, US military presence on Iran’s border posed the threat of a possible US invasion of Iran. But if Iran had only been afraid of such an invasion, it would certainly have mobilised public opinion to prepare to defend the country.

Instead Khamenei prepared for a complex diplomatic engagement with the United States on the assumption that Iran now had new diplomatic leverage. The proposal Iran made to the Bush administration in May 2003 clearly assumed that the United States would be unable to gain control over Iraq without Iran’s help. It offered “Iranian influence for activity supporting political stabilisation and the establishment of democratic institutions and a nonreligious government”.

The Iranian national security elite believed two other developments in 2002 and early 2003 gave Iran bargaining chips it could use in negotiations with Washington. One was the Bush administration’s need for Iran’s cooperation in interrogating al-Qaeda leaders who had been detained in Iran after fleeing from Afghanistan. But the biggest source of leverage, the Iranians believed, was the Bush administration’s dramatically increased concern about Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, which had taken US intelligence by surprise. After the first IAEA visit to the uranium facility at Natanz in February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed alarm, saying Natanz showed that “Iran is much further along, with a far more robust nuclear weapons development program than anyone said it had”.

Despite the Bush administration’s refusal to even acknowledge it, that proposal reveals the broad outlines of what Iran hopes to accomplish in negotiations with Washington. It offered to establish three parallel working groups to negotiate “road maps” on the three main areas of contention: the nuclear programme, “terrorism and regional security”, and “economic cooperation”. On the issue of its nuclear programme, the Iranian proposal offered to accept much tighter controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including the adoption of new IAEA protocol that would guarantee the IAEA access to any facility, whether declared or undeclared, on short notice – in return for “full access to peaceful nuclear technology”.The convergence of those three new developments convinced Khamenei that the moment had come to engage the United States diplomatically. Khamenei approved a secret proposal to the Bush administration in April 2003 for negotiations on the full range of issues dividing the two countries.  

Iran’s negotiating document also offered to accept, as part of a “grand bargain” with the United States, the March 2002 Arab League declaration embracing the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Beyond that diplomatic position, Iran offered to stop “any material support to Palestinian opposition groups [Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc] from Iranian territory” and to put “pressure on these organisations to stop violent actions against civilians within borders of 1967″.  And it even offered to “take action on Hezbollah to become a mere political organisation within Lebanon”.

The 2003 proposal thus made it clear that, in the end, Iranian support for Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel represented valued bargaining chips to be played in ultimate negotiations with the United States.

Finally, the secret proposal revealed what Iran hoped to obtain in return for giving up its negotiating chips. The list of Iranian aims included an end to US “hostile behaviour and rectification of status of Iran in the US”, including its removal from the “axis of evil” and the “terrorism list”, as well as an end to all economic sanctions against Iran. It also sought “recognition of Iran’s legitimate security interests in the region” and Iran’s right to have an “appropriate defence capacity” – presumably meaning the deterrent capability conferred by ballistic missiles.

Ultimate aims

The demands for an end to official US enmity towards Iran and for a seat at the table in future regional security discussions have continued to be the ultimate aims behind Iranian efforts to manoeuvre the United States into serious negotiations.

The Bush administration remained hostile to serious negotiations with Iran. Negotiations with the British, French and German governments could only advance Iran’s interests if the Europeans were willing to press the United States on direct talks. But the Europeans offered only narrow economic benefits in return for ending Iran’s uranium enrichment and refused, at the insistence of the Bush administration, to talk about Iran’s broader security interests.

By mid-2006, after Iran had resumed uranium enrichment, Khamenei and his advisers were convinced that Iran’s diplomatic leverage had increased significantly. Khamenei’s top foreign-policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s foreign minister from 1981 to 1997, offered a rare glimpse of Iran’s strategic assessment at a seminar in Tehran on May 18, 2006. Addressing the evolution of Iran’s bargaining position in relation to the United States, he said: “We have at no time until now had such powerful means for haggling.”

Velayati referred specifically to “the influence we have now in Iraq and Palestine”.

What he did not say was that Iran was seeking to rapidly increase the number of centrifuges at Natanz in order to create “facts on the ground” that would give the US a motive to come to the negotiating table. As top officials of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council told one observer in Tehran, the stockpile of low-enriched uranium Iran would be accumulating were bargaining chips to be used in the eventual negotiations with Washington.

Velyati was not coy about drawing the policy conclusion. “Now that we have the power to haggle”, he said, “Why don’t we haggle?”

Failed diplomatic triumph

The Obama administration’s failure to grasp the logic underlying Iran’s negotiating strategy ensured the failure of the first round of US-Iran negotiations in October 2009. The US proposal for a swap of roughly three quarters of all the low-enriched uranium Iran had accumulated to fuel Iran’s Tehran Research Reactor was aimed at stripping Iran of most of its low-enriched uranium.

For the United States, that was viewed as a diplomatic triumph. But all of Iran’s political factions united in objecting to the demand on the grounds that it would deprive Iran of the leverage it had gained from its LEU stockpile. Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s rival in the June 2009 presidential election, expressed that complaint indirectly, observing that if Iran agreed to give up so much of its LEU, the efforts of thousands of scientists would “go up in smoke”.

After no agreement was reached on a fuel swap plan, Iran began enriching uranium to 20 per cent, to serve as fuel for its research reactor. That was regarded by the West as a big step closer to weapons grade enrichment, partly on the ground that Iran could not fabricate the fuel rods needed for the reactor. But Iran was really accumulating more bargaining chips for the negotiations it still hoped to have eventually with Washington.

In the present negotiations with the P5+1, Iran is still pursuing the same objectives with the same hope of cashing in its accumulated negotiating chips. That is why Syed Hossein Mousavian, who was spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team between 2003 and 2005 and foreign policy adviser to the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, has warned that the “piecemeal approach” so dear to the hearts of US officials is a formula for diplomatic failure. 

Iran “needs to know the entire game plan, including the end goal, before committing itself to anything”, Mousavian wrote. The history of Iranian efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement supports Mousavian’s warning. It is time for the United States to shed its shallow propagandistic view of Iranian strategy, and accept the necessity for real bargaining with Iran on fundamental issues.

Is Netanyahu misleading Israelis over Iran?

As members of Israel’s security establishment criticise the prime minister, we ask if a growing rift is emerging.

Israeli security and military commanders have criticised Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, accusing him of misleading the Israeli people on important policy issues.

“[Diskin's] words represent his own opinion but the Israeli public overwhelmingly supports Netanyahu’s policies and history teaches us that the supreme leader is the elected leader not the more junior officials. So with all due respect to Diskin’s words, the public stands very strong behind every decision [Netanyahu] might make viz a viz Iran.” - Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli chief of staff

Does this signal a rift between the prime minister and the country’s security establishment and how might it affect Netanyahu’s chances of re-election?

Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, has become the latest member of the country’s security establishment to openly criticise Netanyahu.

He said Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, his defence minister, should not be trusted to lead policy on Iran and that attacking the Islamic Republic might accelerate Iran’s nuclear programme. 

“I don’t believe in either the prime minister or the defence minister,” Diskin said. “I don’t believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings.”

Diskin is not alone in his opposition to the prime minister.

In comments that contradict those of Netanyahu, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, Israel’s military chief of staff, told the Haaretz newspaper that he does not think Iran has already made a decision to build nuclear weapons. 

“Iran is going step-by-step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb,” Gantz said. “It hasn’t decided yet whether to go the extra mile.”

Gantz added that he believes the Iranian leadership is composed of “very rational” people who will not take the risk of building a nuclear weapon.

Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service, Mossad, has also joined the fray, calling military action against Iran the “stupidest idea” he has ever heard.

“[Diskin] was closer to [Netanyahu and Barak] than anybody else and he was really the guy that knew everything. He was there until a year ago so you cannot dismiss any word he says and the headlines in the Israeli press show a division among decision makers ….” - Daniel Ben Simon, a member of the Knesset

But, despite the many current and former high-level members of Israel’s security and military establishment making similar statements, Netanyahu continues to stick to his hard line.

On April 18, he said: “The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to the state of Israel. The truth is that a nuclear Iran is also a potential threat to other countries in the region and a serious threat to world peace. And the truth is that it is necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is the duty of the world. But first of all, it’s our duty.”

Netanyahu’s domestic popularity has also suffered in the face of last year’s mass protests when more than 100,000 people took to the streets in protest against the state of their country.

So, is public opinion turning against Netanyahu? And do the mixed messages emerging from Tel Aviv reveal a growing rift between the country’s prime minister and its security and military establishment?

Inside Story, with presenter Teymoor Nabili, discusses with guests: Naftali Bennett, a former chief of staff to Binyamin Netanyahu; Daniel Ben Simon, a member of the Knesset; and Rami Khouri, the director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

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ISRAEL’S POLITICAL CLIMATE:

• Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, says he does not fear the prospect of early elections
• An Israeli poll published in the Jerusalem Post newspaper said Likud, the party Netanyahu leads, would still fall far short of securing a parliamentary majority if early elections were called and would once again be forced into a coalition
• But Netanyahu has said: “I won’t remain subject to extortion by coalition partners”
• The poll of 500 Jewish and Arab Israelis said that if Netanyahu brought forward a general election scheduled for October 2013, Likud would take 31 seats in the 120-seat legislature
• That tally would be well ahead of that of Labour and the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, one of Likud’s current coalition partners, which would each secure 15 seats
• The centrist opposition party Kadima, which is currently the largest party with 28 seats to Likud’s 27, would, according to the poll, shrink to 13 in early elections

Israel starts building wall on Lebanon border

Israel starts building wall on Lebanon border

Israeli army begins constructing wall, set to stretch for more than 2km, to “avoid frictions on the border”.

The Israeli army has begun building a wall that will run several kilometres along part of its border with Lebanon, a military spokeswoman has said.

“This construction, which began on Monday, is being carried out in co-ordination with UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) and the Lebanese army,” she said. “The wall is intended to avoid frictions on the border.”

Israeli public radio said the wall would be several metres high and was intended to protect the Israeli border town of Metulla from fire coming from the Lebanese side. It is expected to take several weeks to build.

It said the wall would be more than 2km long and 10 metres high.

In an interview with Lebanese daily, Al Akhbar, last month, the Lebanese army said that as the wall would be located beyond the border on the Israeli side, [the army] adopted a position of neither accepting nor rejecting the wall, but deeming it to not be of its concern.

Israel’s military announced the project in January, saying it would protect recently-constructed apartment blocks in Metulla from sniper fire coming from the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war but military officers from the two sides meet regularly under the auspices of UNIFIL to co-ordinate security along their joint border.

Israel fought a devastating war against Lebanon in 2006, which cost the lives of 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Never Forget that Romney Believes You Are Just Envious of Rich People

 According to Mitt Romney, the nation’s growing focus on income inequality is all about envy.

“You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare,” the leading Republican presidential candidate said Wednesday on The Today Show.

When asked if there are any fair questions about wealth distribution, Romney replied, “It’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like.”

Romney has accused President Obama of promoting the “bitter politics of envy.” The president is ramping up his talks about the nation’s growing income divide and the shrinking of the middle class. He is focusing on the tax benefits afforded to millionaires and executives.

Romney, who is one of those millionaires, is taking a different path. He says he’s distancing himself from what he calls “a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach.”

Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh: Egypt’s future

One of the leading candidates in Egypt’s presidential elections shares his views on religion and foreign policy.

In less than a month Egyptians will head to the polls to elect a new president – another monumental step in the Egyptian revolution.  
 
After months of uncertainty the final list of candidates has now been announced, but who will win?
 
Not only the Egyptian people, but the entire Middle East and the world beyond is taking stock and closely evaluating the candidates in the race.

What are their priorities domestically? How do they view the role of religion? And what will happen to Egypt’s relationship with the US and Israel?
 
Today on Talk to Al Jazeera we put those questions to one of the leading candidates. Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh is a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he is now running as an independent candidate for president. The 61-year-old doctor has attracted the support of many Muslim Brotherhood youth who have grown weary of the group’s structure and hostility to liberalisation and change.

Aboul Fotouh says he disagrees with the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood because he is “against the Muslim Brotherhood’s participation in party politics. The Brotherhood should not become a political party nor should it have a political party. Because its founder, Hassan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood as an Islamic social welfare movement which raises awareness of Islam without competing for government…. It is wrong to mix this missionary and awareness-raising work with party politics….”

Aboul Fotouh talks to Al Jazeera about his expectations for the upcoming elections, the country’s revolution, and Egypt’s relationship with Israel and the US. Who are Egypt’s natural allies? And how will a new government impact relations with Israel? Aboul Fotouh says that the peace treaty with Israel would continue, “but it will be revised. The articles in it which are in Egypt’s interests will be kept, those which are detrimental to Egypt’s interests will be taken out.”

He says his vision for Egypt is a civic state on an Islamic basis, but what does this mean and how will it impact minorities in Egypt, for example the Christians or atheists?

“A civilian state according to Islamic thought must have a constitution written by the people which defines the roles and responsibilites of all authoritative bodies. You can call this a modern state, a civilian state, a democratic state…. Islam does not discriminate based on gender, religion, colour and the new constition must not either. The appointment of people to office or other government jobs must be based on merit and capability and not gender or religion or even political inclination.”

The Liberian Conflict and the birth of ECOMOG(1)

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:
By E.K.Bensah Jr
Last week, former Liberian president Charles Taylor was convicted of providing moral support, weapons and operational help to Liberian-backed, drug-crazed rebels in Sierra Leone from 1996 to 2002, in exchange for blood diamonds. The following piece, by no means an exhaustive analysis, is a commentary I wrote back in 2000 when I was just completing university. Written then as a reminder of “African Solutions to African problems”, it serves not only as a timely reminder of the Liberian Conflict, but also of ECOWAS’ baptism of fire in pursuit of sub-regional peace and justice.

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The story of the Liberian civil war appears to be very similar to that of many African countries – protracted, chaotic and violent. It was protracted because each time any attempt was made to resolve the crisis, warring factions in the conflict would make sure refusing to comply extended it. It was chaotic for the same reason; finally, it was violent given the death toll, and the extent of the killings each time ECOMOG clamped down hard on the warring factions.

Nevertheless, the role of ECOMOG in Liberia remains a moot point. This is because there has long been a perception in the West that Africa is a Dark Continent characterized by such violence and chaos that prospects of resolving its problems will not only remain constantly abortive, but will yield foregone conclusions that are effectively chronic failures. Therefore, any efforts for Africa to resolve its own problems may be unfairly judged as potential failures.

However, one useful way to best evaluate this outlook is through the Cold War period when, according to Stanley Meisler , “most people found Africa on their minds when the newly independent Congo erupted in 1960.” The catalyst for this had come from the West African State of Ghana, when, in 1957, it made African headline news as the first (West) African country to declare independence from its European colonizer. Consequently, this sparked the decolonization process to such an extent that by the end of the seventies, most African countries had kicked out their colonialist predecessor.

Most importantly, however, for Africa was how the relatively young United Nations could now help it maintain the peace and stability it so needed. The date 1960 is actually important here, for it is from this point onwards that one sees the United Nations ready and willing to throw a lifeline to a potentially violent situation in Congo through the then secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold and his deployment of almost 20,000 troops under the auspices of the Security Council. It would be in this same year that the man who had been one of the co-architects of peacekeeping, along with former Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, would (unfortunately) meet his untimely death on his way to broker a fragile peace in the Congo. Despite his death, the spirit with which Hammarskjold worked towards peace has much lived on today in the form of peacekeeping.

In fact, peacekeeping is a very problematic reality these days, therefore, it is important to make the distinction between traditional inter-position of UN forces and peace enforcement. The latter has appeared to be consistently anathema to many of the peacekeeping operations that have been established since UNEF I was set up in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis of 1956.

Today, peacekeeping operations around the world have been deemed by cynics as, at best, inefficient and, at worst, failures. This is not without reason, for implicit in peacekeeping is the idea that there is a peace to keep. However, UN peacekeeping operations have consistently demonstrated that they are powerless in the face of the people whom they seek to protect. Armed with only light weapons, and heavily predicating their raison d’être by a mandate.

Moreover, it begs the question of whether peace enforcement is not a better method in the long run. This is why, in my opinion, the case of Liberia is an interesting point of departure to assess this issue. In this paper, I hope to cover the background of the civil war that erupted in the West African State, and briefly describe the warring parties and factions in this conflict. I will eschew writing a direct history of the conflict since, in my opinion, it goes beyond the scope of this paper.

Most noteworthy, however, will be my attempt to demonstrate and offer an insight into how ECOWAS’ force, ECOMOG, was able, despite its controversial nature, to bring the conflict in Liberia to some type of resolution through the unique and flexible way it shifted from peacekeeper to peace enforcer, as well as outline the various peace accords that brought closure to the conflict. Could it for all its flaws be a putative tool of conflict resolution in the West African region?

WHEN PEACEKEEPING TURNS TO PEACE ENFORCEMENT

They say nature abhors a vacuum. In some parts of Africa, military leaders have seemed all too ready to fill it with their cronies. And what better places to do so than in government. Liberia is a case in point. According to Barry Stein, author of “A Liberian War: A Modern Humanitarian Crisis (URL), “much of Liberia’s turmoil can be traced back to the state’s origins.” . In 1822 a small group of emancipated slaves settled in what is now Monrovia. The movement was sponsored by the American Colonization Society and financed in part by the administration of President James Monroe – same president who declared the (in)famous Monroe Doctrine stating Latin America was the US’s area of influence.

Stein goes on to argue that this idea of Monroe’s was so as to enable freed slaves to settle in Africa (Stein); consequently, “the settlers also imposed forms of government similar to those of the US” . In 1847, they would break ties and proclaim Liberia an independent state”. In fact, whereas all the other countries in the Western sub-region had been colonized by Europeans, Liberia stands as the exception. Consequently, it felt rebuffed when it asked the US for help and was duly snubbed upon; “there was an expectation that the US would intervene in what has often been described as its unofficial colony. But the US initially showed little concern for what it considered would be a brief disruption.” (Online, Ero, Comfort. ECOWAS and the subregional Peacekeeping…) Ero maintains in her essay that the US “government stated that the resolution of this civil war is a Liberian responsibility of a solution to Liberia’s current difficulties will be viable if it is worked (out) by Liberians themselves and has broad internal support” . Actually, the only response that came was “use of 200 US marines to rescue at least 300 US nationals on 5 August 1990 .

Small wonder, then that faced with the prospect of no US assistance in a colony that once belonged to them, the US would be promptly replaced by ECOWAS and its peacekeeping force, ECOMOG. However, this ultimately begs the question of why ECOWAS was actually embroiled in the conflict, and why it felt the need to resolve the Liberian conflict at all?

[Emmanuel wrote this article in 2000. You can read it here: http://un_org.tripod.com/liberia]

In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism–Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns “Critiquing Regionalism” (http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: 0268.687.653.

Spain Officially Falls Into Recession

Spain becomes the 12th European nation to report at least two quarters of declining GDP, signifying a recession.

Spain has fallen into its second recession since 2009 as its economy shrank for the second consecutive quarter, according to a government report Monday.

There are now a dozen European nations that have had their economies shrink for two consecutive quarters, a condition that generally equates to a recession.

The Spanish economy, struggling with the aftermath of the bursting of a housing bubble, has been particularly hard hit by the economic turmoil rolling across Europe. On Friday, the government reported that Spain’s unemployment rate hit record high of 24.4%.

Spain’s economy shrank by 0.3% from the previous quarter in the first three months of 2012, the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica said. The decline matched the 0.3% quarter-over-quarter decline in the fourth quarter of 2012.

On an annual basis, GDP declined by 0.4%.

The latest report was a bit better than some forecasts. Last week, The Bank of Spain’s estimated that GDP fell by 0.4% in the quarter.

The yield on Spain’s 10-year bonds, a measure of investor confidence in the economy, was little changed following Monday’s report.

However, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of 16 Spanish banks. The move followed a downgrade of Spanish sovereign debt by S&P last week.

The news of a Spanish recession followed Wednesday’s reading that showed the United Kingdom in recession for the second time since 2008.

Spain downgraded by S&P

Four other eurozone countries that are dealing with sovereign debt issues — Greece, Italy, Ireland and Portugal — have previously reported at least two quarters of negative GDP, as have four other eurozone members — Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Slovenia.

In addition, two other European Union members that like the United Kingdom use their own currencies — Denmark and the Czech Republic — are also in recession.

El-Erian fro m PIMCO has publicly stated that the European crisis far from over.

It is likely that both the eurozone and the broader European Union will be declared in recession when they issue GDP reports in coming weeks, The combined GDP for both fell by 0.3% in the fourth quarter.

There are worries that a European recession could drag down economic growth in the United States as well as in emerging markets that export to Europe, causing a so-called hard landing in countries such as China.

Stocks: Jobs, manufacturing and autos in focus

 

Investors will have to wait until Friday for the most important reading on the economy and the markets: the April jobs report.

While the Labor Department’s monthly employment report is typically one of the most watched economic readings during any given month, investors will be scrutinizing it more closely next week as signs of a slowdown have been trickling out.

“What people are really trying to determine is whether we are seeing a slowdown and a possible double dip recession,” said Brian J. Lazorishak. “If [jobs are] weak, it raises anxiety that the recovery has stalled out.”

Investors hope the report shows that employers added more jobs in April than the 162,000 forecast by economists. In March, employmentgains from previous months receded with just 120,000 jobs added.

Over the last few weeks, the number of Americans filing for unemployment claims has also increased. Investors want to know whether that’s a blip or the new normal.

Occupy boardroom: Shareholders revolt

But before the jobs data, there are several economic reports for investors to consider. On Tuesday morning at 10 a.m., a key national reading on manufacturing will be released. The ISM manufacturing index is expected to drop to 53 in April from 53.4 in March. Anything above 50 indicates an expanding economy.

Auto manufacturers will release April sales figures for new vehicles at 2 p.m. on Tuesday. Sales are expected to increase to 5.4 million vehicles, up from 5.1 million in March.

Those economic numbers will add more context to a gross domestic product reading that showed growth slowing in the first quarter of 2012.

http://money.cnn.com/.element/ssi/video/5.1/players/story.player.html?p=0&d=94623701

Despite a choppy week of trading, the U.S. stock markets closed the week higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) gained 1.5%. The S&P 500 (SPX) advanced 1.8%, and the Nasdaq (COMP) moved up 2.3%.

Most bellwether companies have already posted earnings, including Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Caterpillar, (CAT, Fortune 500) General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500). But with 45% of companies left to report, investors will see a slew of earnings next week, primarily retail, pharmaceutical and media companies.

On Tuesday, Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) will report before the bell, and CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) and Chesapeake Energy (CHK, Fortune 500), which has come under fire recently, will report after the close.

World’s largest economies

On Wednesday before the bell, consumer products company Clorox (CLX,Fortune 500), as well as MasterCard (MA, Fortune 500) and Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500) will report, with Visa (V, Fortune 500) posting earnings after markets close.

On Thursday, General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) and Sara Lee will release before the bell, and Kraft (KFT, Fortune 500) will release numbers after the close.

Investors won’t be able to ignore Europe, which remains in turmoil. Englandslipped back into recession territory this week, just one of the worrisome recent developments in the region. Spain’s bond auctions next week will draw extra scrutiny.

Keystone Pipeline: Separating Reality from Rhetoric

The Obama administration supports extending the existing Keystone XL pipeline from Cushing, Okla., to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

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President Obama stopped in Cushing, Okla., on Thursday to announce a fast-track approval process for a portion of the Keystone XL oil pipeline — although it’s not the part for which he’s taken political heat for blocking.

The portion likely to start construction soon runs from Cushing, a key repository of U.S. oil, to the Gulf Coast.

The full proposed pipeline, which would cross the U.S. border in Montana, is designed to bring between 500,000 to 700,000 barrels a day from the Canadian oil sands region to refineries on the Gulf Coast. It would shortcut to an existing pipe that goes through much of Canada before cutting into the United States in North Dakota on the way to Cushing.

Republican presidential candidates have used the rejection of the shortcut pipeline as a hammer when attacking the Obama administration over high gas prices. They also say theKeystone will create much needed jobs.

Here are three facts about what the decision will and won’t mean.

This is not a flip-flop by Obama: Even when Obama blocked the full Keystone project earlier this year, he said he was in favor of this Cushing-to-Gulf portion. And that is the only portion he is backing now.

Approval of this southern part of the pipeline is not really the Obama administration’s call. The northern portion of the pipeline needs administration approval because it would cross the Canadian border.

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The Cushing-to-Gulf segment is much more of a local issue. So Thursday’s announcement is more theater than substance.

“This is pretty routine, but the politics are clear here,” said Bob Tippee, editor of Oil & Gas Journal, an industry trade publication.

Environmental groups oppose even this portion of the pipeline since they don’t like anything that increases production of oil from oil sands.

But compared to the other portion of pipeline, which stirred concerns of Nebraskans worried about underground water supplies, the Cushing-to-Gulf pipeline is relatively non-controversial. More than 99% of property owners where the pipeline will run agree to it.

Gas prices might go up, not down: Right now, a lot of oil being produced in Canada and North Dakota has trouble reaching the refineries and terminals on the Gulf. Since that supply can’t be sold abroad, it reduces the competition for it to Midwest refineries that can pay lower prices to get it.

Giving the Canadian oil access to the Gulf means the glut in the Midwest goes away, making it more expensive for the region.

“The price that refineries on the coasts have been paying is around $120 a barrel for months, while you had $75 to $80 a barrel crude available in the Rockies and Midwest,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

Much of the difference in gas prices between states is due to gas taxes, not cost. But Kloza said that the center of the country might have benefited by up to 25 cents a gallon in what they were paying for gas because of the glut of oil around Cushing.

The full pipeline would increase the capacity of oil flowing from Canada’s oil sands into the broader global market by up to 700,000 barrels a day, according to advocates. But adding even the 700,000 barrels to more than 90 million barrels worldwide will have limited long-term impact on prices, especially amid worries about what might happen with Iran production.

“In the current market, people are so worried about the loss of 3.5 million barrels from Iran, that 500,000 to 700,000 barrels isn’t enough to calm the markets,” said Tippee.

The impact on jobs will be minimal: The Republican supporters of the pipeline have argued Keystone will create much needed jobs.

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But even though this southern portion of the pipeline is relatively “shovel ready,” the impact on unemployment will be minimal. Even TransCanada says it will create about 4,000 jobs, mostly temporary construction work. That comes to less than 2% of the nation’s overall monthly job gain in recent months.

If the full pipeline got the green light, it would create 13,000 construction jobs and 7,000 jobs making equipment such as pump houses and the pipe itself, according to the company.

Pipeline critics dispute even those job estimates.