(Source: http://generationbass.com/2013/04/10/electro-chaabi-trailer-egyptian-underground-sounds/)

Alongside the country’s political revolution, it seems that something of a musical ‘revolution’ may have been happening in Egypt. The buzz surrounding the musical genre Electro Chaabi, an Egyptian folk hip hop sound, would at least have you think so.

However earth shattering and significant to the people and social groups involved, in the minds of Western observers, many movements only become “real” when they are noticed by Western societies.

Such is the case for Electro Chaabi. If you were to believe articles in the Western press about this hybrid of rap, pop and hip hop, you would think it had just been developed. Depending on the importance you ascribe to music, you might also imagine it was the catalyst for the country’s recent cataclysmic changes.

Despite having only recently made its way out of Salem City to Cairo and subsequently to Europe, it is far from a new phenomenon.

Origins

The original term for Electro Chaabi is mahragan, which literally means popular, or festival music in Arabic. Played and performed at weddings and parties for centuries, its carnivalesque feeling encapsulates the newness and excitement that overtook Egypt during those heady days of January/February 2011.

While in recent years Electro Chaabi has been a mainstay of the Egyptian working class, it began as an art form within the middle classes, created in response to Egypt’s defeat by Israel in the 1967 war.

In all eras and situations, Electro Chaabi’s objective has been the same – to incite emotion and public comment on life in Egypt, and acting to instil national pride in the listener. The genre has always carried an attitude of irreverence, humour and sarcasm, as the challenging and cheeky lyrics reveal.

Electro Chaabi’s improvised vocal performance-the mawal-allows for lyrical flexibility and responsiveness to immediate surroundings. In its early days, for example, the genre was used at weddings, to narrate a newlywed couple’s first dance.

With the passage of time, lyrics have become concerned with more overtly political issues. A voice of freedom and expression that has moved from the family gathering to the political arena, Electro Chaabi has never lost its roots as a form of artistic observation.

The Internet

The World Wide Web has a lot to answer for, and is certainly one of the reasons for the exponential growth in popularity and power of this lyrical movement, and its evolution from local folk music into electro mainstream sounds.

The ability to download software and create music by oneself in a more packaged and polished form has opened the genre up to a vast number of artists, allowing Electro Chaabi to become the people’s voice.

The internet has also been a powerful driver for disseminating the genre. Traveling faster than the artists themselves, YouTube videos and mp3 files created virtual communities of Electro Chaabi fans on Facebook and Mediafire.com. In itself, this freedom to communicate was new and exciting and heavily tied to the genre’s subsequent growth and popularity. All over the Arab world changes were taking place, and via the virtual world of the internet communities were able to share their support for a revolutionary message. However, the influence of these transient worlds should not be overestimated – Electro Chaabi did not cause revolution, but was a potent soundtrack.

One did not have to be in support of a full social, political, and economic revolution in order to rebel in some way. The celebratory lyrics of Electro Chaabi could be both an incitement to action, and excitement at the action already occurring, as well as a necessary distraction from the exhaustion of constant and consistent battle. Even when a particular political message was not being shared, a vibrant revisionist sentiment could be.

In its multimedia documentary, The Songs of Tahrir Square, the television channel France 24 argued that music was at the heart of Egypt’s revolution. Can wedding music be so powerful? It would be narrow minded to say that the music of the Electro Chaabi scene in no way related to the region’s recent political and social changes. People do not exist in a bubble, and neither does artistic output. There is no denying that art of all forms has been used as a pivot to rally support for the revolution in Egypt.

Within the Electro Chaabi scene, some songs, albums, and record companies have been more overtly political than others. These include the very subtly named Revolution Records, a label established in 2006 in Alexandria, Egypt, which was very active in Tahrir Square and critical of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Similarly, MC Amin, one of the most popular purveyors of Egyptian rap and hip hop has been a clear advocate for change in Egypt, as embodied in the title and lyrics of his song The Situation Must Change.

Conclusion: The Changing Nature of Electro Chaabi

Electro Chaabi is not always so serious though. Take for example, the integration of the famous revolutionary slogan “The People Want Revolution” into the mahragan song, The People Want Five Pounds Phone Credit. Reflecting a similar irreverence, BiladiBiladi opens up to the slow sounds of Egypt’s national anthem before abruptly shifting to electronica and beats.

As the situation in the country changed, so did the day-to-day concerns of the audience. The freedom to buy bread eventually became the freedom to purchase phone credits and the like.

Not only the content, but also the delivery of the genre has changed over the last several years. Where the internet was one the primary form of communication and collaboration, Salma el Tarzi, the author of the new documentary Underground on the Surface, argues that YouTube and the internet are now being used primarily as a tool for self-promotion, advertising the artist as a brand.

The documentary film explores the dilemmas of artists who have gained recognition as a part of underground movements, and the threat they face of being swallowed up by the mainstream music industry with its lure of money and apparent artistic freedom. The film reveals how the narrative focus of artists has changed over time, their fight for freedom evolving into one where they openly confess, “We want to have real fame. We want to have lots of money. We want to have cars.”

Along with the social and political situations in Egypt, Electro Chaabi has now gained global recognition. However with this, some of the vitality and vibrancy seems to have been lost. The more attention it receives, the more diluted its effect seems to have become. Only time will tell whether it continues to have a social effect, or whether it becomes a force for aural pleasure only.

*Francesca Baker is curious about life and enjoys writing about it. A freelance journalist, event organiser, and minor marketing whizz, she has plenty of ideas, and likes to share them. She writes about music, literature, life, travel, art, London, and other general musings, and organises events that contain at least one of the above. You can find out more at www.andsoshethinks.co.uk.

Battir, Palestine

Reports have come out that Palestine backed down from plans to ask UNESCO to include the ancient West Bank village of Battir, southwest of Jerusalem, on its World Heritage in Danger list during its World Heritage Committee convention in Cambodia this week. The village is home to an ancient 2,000 year-old Roman irrigation network, which is still in use by local farmers.

The Palestinian delegation to UNESCO in Paris completed the file work for the application in January but decided to stop the application process surprising even Israeli officials. The alleged reason for this move is that in early 2013 Palestinian and Israeli officials informally agreed to freeze the nomination in return for Israel’s permission to allow the UN agency to send an investigative team to Jerusalem. In the end, the Palestinians were on the losing end of this agreement as Israel “ended up reneging on the deal weeks after the deadline to submit Battir had passed.”

A Palestinian Authority (PA) official admitted, “What we did was bad. It was a really big mistake… They were never going to allow UN investigations into their ‘undivided, eternal capital’.”

Israeli officials claimed ignorance of the change in plans and reacted to the news with surprise. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Palestinian news agency, Ma’an, that the informal deal was stuck in return for “shelving” five pro-Palestinian resolutions at the UN that did not include Battir’s UNESCO bid.

The decision is bad news for Battir, which has the unique characteristic of falling under Area A, B, and C, and could have benefitted greatly from UNESCO heritage status. The town is currently locked in a court battle with the Israeli army to re-route the Separation Barrier that threatens to annex 30% of its vital farmland.

Good to know the fate of Palestinians can be arbitrarily “shelved” at will and prioritized according to the interests of the PA. Who wants to bet local farmers were not consulted prior to the “shelving” of the UNESCO petition?

Yeah, thought so.

U.S. forces meeting with Afghans. Source: AFP

After fighting a brutal 12 year war to defeat the Taliban, the United States announced this week that it would be entering into peace talks with the group as part of its upcoming military withdrawal.

From a report by NBC:

U.S. and Taliban representatives will meet soon for the first time to begin what are expected to be long and complex negotiations for a peaceful settlement to the war in Afghanistan, senior Obama administration officials said Tuesday.

While it is laudable that the foreign military occupation of Afghanistan is coming to a negotiated end, the United States’ decision to speak with the Taliban is sadly ironic. Before the start of the war, the Taliban repeatedly offered to negotiate with the United States, even offering terms for the surrender of Osama bin Laden to U.S. forces.

The Bush administration categorically refused these entreaties and instead launched a massive invasion of the country that has claimed thousands of lives and cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. While there is extensive documentation that the Taliban’s links to Al Qaeda were far more tenuous than official claims suggested at the time, the United States still chose to wage a long war for reasons that today seem utterly inexplicable.

The outcome of the war in Afghanistan – fought for the stated purpose of eliminating the Taliban – will now be a negotiated agreement between the two parties. That the exact same outcome could have been achieved over a decade ago is an inconvenient truth, which has escaped much scrutiny.

In its desire for indiscriminate vengeance after the terrible events of 9/11, the U.S. government embarked on a needless and essentially irrational war of choice in Afghanistan.  The American people, as well as the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, will continue to pay the price for this decision in the years to come.

(Photo credit: Nasser Ishtayeh/AP/file)

Last week, Yariv Levin, a Likud Party lawmaker, proposed a new Israeli Basic Law to the Knesset that would make “the right to realize national self-definition in the State of Israel… unique to the Jewish people.” Previous incarnations of the basic law imbued the state with a Jewish identity, but never before had this been wielded explicitly to affirm the exceptionalism of Jews.

The apparent uniqueness of this right to “self-definition” for Jewish citizens—and therefore its denial for non-Jews—has led critics to accuse Levin and the Likud of attempting to prioritize Israel’s “Jewish character” over its democratic commitments.

Since the country’s founding, there have been intense debates over whether Israeli society’s Jewishness can coexist with its supposed democratic character. Time and again, this harmony has proven to be a myth on a level even deeper than law and politics.

The central question is, in fact, whether Zionism can be pursued as a legitimate endeavor without bringing along the baggage of racism, discrimination, and ethnic privilege?

Racism, despite vehement  attempts to deny it, is a natural by-product of Zionism or any other race-based nationalism. If a specific ethno-religious character is to be imposed upon a state, if the state is to be explicitly of the Jews, by the Jews, and for the Jews, there are obviously problematic consequences for non-Jews.

While racism has existed for decades, this year has witnessed particularly glaring examples of this issue. After a Muslim player joined Beitar Jerusalem, the city’s football club, in February, anger erupted over the perceived corruption of the team’s former Jewish “purity.” Fans set fire to the team’s offices while others chanted “death to Arabs” from the bleachers. That same month, an Arab woman was beaten at a Jerusalem rail station in an apparent hate crime.

These are just a few of the race-related confrontations that have reared their ugly head recently, but on top of these popular displays of racism, Israel’s political leadership has its own long history of race-based policies.

In the lead up to Israel’s founding during the 1948 war approximately 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, either through expulsion by Israeli forces or to escape the enlarging war zone. Debates continue as to which of these causes was predominantly to blame for the Palestinian nakba (catastrophe), as this upheaval is called.
Whatever the cause, the fact remains that these non-Jewish refugees have been—and continue to be—barred from returning to their homes. In the new Jewish state, there was simply no room for non-Jews. This sentiment was again repeated in the aftermath of Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Days war. Referring to the lands Israel had conquered, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol famously said, “The dowry is followed by a bride we don’t want.” The bride was the unwanted Palestinians living in the lands of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, which Israel now controlled.

And the Palestinians have remained unwanted by successive Israeli governments.

For instance, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s pursuit of peace with the Palestinians was firmly based on the principle of separation, touting the slogan “Them over there; us over here.” To enforce this ideology, a rigorous permit regime was put in place clearly demarcating the areas certain people could access and the roads they could use.

In 2006, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s former Foreign Minister and leader of the ultraconservative Yisrael Beiteinu party, presented his own ideas for separation.

Lieberman’s plan to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict not only called for annexing Israel’s illegal settlements. Using the sanitized language of “land swaps,” it also called for transferring territories in Israel populated with Arabs to a proposed Palestinian state, disenfranchising these people of Israeli citizenship. All remaining non-Jewish Arabs in Israel would be required to “take an oath of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish Zionist state.”

It is difficult to tell whether a society that has, at least in part, embraced ethnic privilege has simply yielded a government that reflects these sentiments or whether the government’s pursuit of race-based policies has created a society gripped by an epidemic of racism. This is more than just a “chicken or egg” question however. Separating and privileging the Jewish members of Israeli society goes much deeper, reaching the fundamental premise of the state: Zionism itself.

Born out of a terrible calamity of persecution and terror, European Jews believed they could find peace if they had a state founded on the idea of Jewish primacy. During the first half of the twentieth century, after centuries of anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust, one would be hard pressed to see this as an abhorrent idea.

But now in the early twenty-first century, the idea can only be described as anachronistic and depraved. The shameful story of Israel’s treatment of African immigrants is enough to demonstrate this. David Sheen writes:

In February [2013], United Nations officials in Israel accused Israel of secretly coercing asylum seekers languishing in its detention facilities to return to the country they fled from, Eritrea, which the UN called a “totalitarian state” that “tortures dissenters.” Forcing them to choose between deportation or rotting in jail indefinitely [and without trial], the editors of Haaretz called Israel’s offer to Eritrean asylum seekers a “‘voluntary’ death penalty.”

Because of a blind, outdated allegiance to ethnocracy, the Israeli state views the presence of these non-Jews with fear, as yet another threat to its demographics. The Jewish diaspora’s long history with exile and alienation should have yielded a different result, one in which victims of oppressive state policies are treated with empathy, not repression.

Liberal Zionists constantly debate the question of how Israel can remain both Jewish and democratic. The answer, obviously, is that the country will have to choose between these ideas and watch the other wither away. The only Zionism that can persist within a state committed to democracy is that Zionism promoted by philosopher and theologian Martin Buber, a Zionism that rejects racial primacy in favor of equal rights and integration.

Israel’s apologists must soberly admit that there is indeed a problem of racism in Israel that permeates both politics and society at large. Jewish privilege cannot be reconciled with liberal and democratic values.

Nation-states are already predisposed to dangerous expressions of tribalism and chauvinism, and this sorry tendency is not improved by ethnic or religiously based discrimination or by touting ideas of racial separation or homogeneity. It is imperative that those who care about Israel’s future reflect on how to overcome widespread support for Jewish privilege.

Israel’s greatest challenge—from which most others flow—is how best to guide its population away from these ideas of segregation and through a much needed turn toward civil rights and social justice.

Adam Simpson is a writer on Middle East politics that lives in Washington D.C. You can follow him on his blog or on twitter.

Source: http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com

After three weeks of anti-government protests, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains defiant. On Saturday and Sunday June 15-16, Erdogan organized two massive rallies in Ankara and Istanbul, where he pledged to “spoil the big game” and to “write Turkey’s history.”

The Prime Minister laced his speeches with a smattering of religious imagery, references to foreign conspiracies, and continued claims that radical groups have used the protests as a pre-text to disrupt public order.

Only hours after his first speech in Ankara, on Saturday evening, the prime minister ordered the clearing of Istanbul’s Gezi Park, where protests began in late May with the initial aim of preventing the park’s destruction.

Erdogan had warned in his Saturday speech that the park would be cleared within 24 hours, but few expected the crack down to start that very night, when the park was sure to be very crowded.

The police operation came just one day after the Taksim Solidarity Group – an umbrella organization representing the Gezi Park demonstrators – refused to leave the park, after Erdogan agreed to comply with a court decision to suspend the razing of Gezi.

While the decision has been appealed, should the court ultimately allow construction to proceed, the AKP has indicated its willingness to take the issue to a local plebiscite. Demonstrators have rejected such a narrow concession, maintaining that the protests have evolved to become about far more than the uprooting of trees and the destruction of a park.   

The Saturday night assault on Gezi Park sparked clashes with protesters, mass arrests, a general strike by Turkish trade unions, held on June 17, and continued violence in Istanbul and other cities throughout Turkey.

Erdogan and the rest of the AKP party apparatus seized on these violent images and have steadfastly sought to portray the protest movement as divided between violent extremists and more reasonable environmentalists.

To be fair, some of the flags waving in Gezi and Taksim Square suggest the movement has been penetrated by a slew of radical leftist organizations with causes that belie attempts to portray protesters as a monolithic block of apolitical youth intent on carving out a more democratic future.

These leftist groups are a minority in what is largely a leaderless spasm of anger at the AKP’s rule. Nevertheless, the distinction allows the AKP to pivot back to its own democratic achievements, which include the granting of unprecedented – but still largely inadequate – rights to the Kurdish minority living in Turkey. The AKP is keen to include these and other successes in its electoral talking points to continue to appeal to its base and to delegitimize the protest movement.

These tactics are not particularly new. Turkey has a history of violent protests, most notably during the 1960s and 70s, when tensions between right wing, left wing, and religious conservative groups, all with their own particular political backers, erupted in violent clashes on the streets for close to a decade.

Turkey’s on-going protests are actually far less violent than these events of the past, underscoring differences between the current anti-government bloc and previous opposition movements. While, previously, protests were typically led by marginal leftist groups, more apolitical youth groups representing a smattering of different and disparate causes are at the forefront of current demonstrations.

Erdogan’s handling of these events suggests both he and his party have failed to adapt to the make-up of the new protest movement. Instead, the prime minister has chosen to follow the old political playbook of divide and conquer, in lieu of playing the role of conciliator in chief.

Erdogan continues to maintain that he will not bow to the wishes of a minority of Turks and has reiterated in speech after speech that the only way to settle the Gezi Park issue is at the ballot box. This rhetoric, while reflective of the AKP’s insistence on its democratic legitimacy, further underscores feelings of political marginalization among protesters. In turn, this has hardened political demands and made it less likely that either side will move to de-escalate the situation.

As far as popular will is concerned, recent events have eroded support for the AKP government. Data from March 2013 indicates that 62% of Turkish citizens had a favorable view of Erdogan, while just 34% viewed him unfavorably. The poll also indicated that only 36% of Turkish Muslims who prayed infrequently had a favorable view of Erdogan, compared to a nearly 75% favorability rating among those who prayed five times per day.

More recent data from Metropoll – an independent strategic and social research firm in Turkey – suggests that the protests and the government’s handling of the unrest have damaged Erdogan and the AKP. 49.6% of Turkish citizens think the government is moving toward authoritarianism. 20.6% blamed the government for the protests’ escalation, with another 16.9% blaming Erdogan directly for the unrest. In a blow to the government’s political messaging, only 3.2% believe that foreign powers were responsible for the demonstrations.

While polling data suggests that the prime minister continues to retain support from his core constituency, the continued use of polarizing rhetoric creates economic as well as political risks for the AKP.

Turkey remains dependent on short-term portfolio funds to finance its perpetually high current account deficit (CAD). For the past month or so, fears that the U.S. Treasury would taper its fiscal stimulus policies have prompted investors to flee from riskier markets in developing countries. Turkey has been no exception to this trend.

Current protests have shaken investor confidence further, exacerbating an already gloomy economic future. Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke is slated to make an announcement on June 19 about the U.S. government’s bond-buying program, which is sure to have reverberations in Turkey.

On top of all these developments, Erdogan is fighting a political battle to draft a new constitution. The current Turkish constitution, which was written by the military junta after the 1980 coup, has various shortcomings. For instance, Article 34 protects the right to freedom of assembly, but is filled with numerous caveats that could be used to justify troubling government actions, including current police abuses against protesters.

The AKP has recognized the constitution’s deficiencies and has led a nation-wide effort to draft a more liberal and democratic document. Deliberations on the new constitution are taking place through a parliamentary commission, which includes representatives from the AKP, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Erdogan has chastized the group for moving too slowly and has indicated that he may opt to circumvent the process and present an AKP draft for parliamentary consideration.

With his term-limit expiring in 2015, Erdogan has floated the idea of including a constitutional provision to strengthen the presidency. The prime minister has, however, faced resistance from opposition parties, as well as from AKP MPs about his ambitious presidential plans.

While Erdogan appears to have over reached and the likelihood of realizing his presidential ambitions remain small, the perception that he is trading Articles in the constitution to realize his political goals remains palpable.

For these reasons, even before protests broke out, the drafting of Turkey’s new constitution was tinged by ideological brinksmanship. In a rather strange paradox, however, events of the past week have dramatically underscored the need for a new constitutional document. The path to consensus has now become much harder, underscoring one of the major challenges facing the AKP once order is restored.

As of now, Erdogan has opted for a short-term political strategy that focuses on intensifying differences within Turkish society. This will certainly resonate with elements of his base and is likely to help him maintain support among his core constituency. This strategy fails, however, to account for Turkey’s long-term interests, which are threatened by increased political polarization.

*Aaron Stein is a doctoral candidate at King’s College London and a researcher specializing in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East at the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies. He blogs at Turkey Wonk. Follow him on Twitter: @aaronstein1.

The wheat harvest underway in Assiut, Egypt. April,2013. (Photo: Andrew Leber)

It is harvest season in Egypt, as farmers from the lush Nile valley of Upper Egypt to the palm-flecked coastal regions of the Nile Delta gather in the year’s wheat crop. Throughout the country, farmers and hired hands feed golden stalks into rented threshers, clouds of chaff piling up in the fresh-cut fields as tractors rumble past, towing carts piled high with yet more stalks.

Sadly, agricultural news is rarely front-page material in English and Arabic language news coverage for a country that otherwise never wants for analysis and attention. Given this tendency for making little more than passing references to agricultural developments, a little background is in order to understand why the Egyptian government may be facing a massive shortfall in wheat supplies by summer’s end.

Wheat at a Glance

From Pharaonic times through the last days of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt was an agricultural breadbasket. By the latter half of the 20^th century, however, the country’s consumption of wheat far outstripped local production.

This increased demand for wheat was related, in part, to increases in meat consumption, as greater grain production is required for animal feed. This, combined with heavily subsidized wheat shipments provided by the United States from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, began a pattern of heavy wheat imports that continues to this day.

In the past decade or so, Egypt has consistently looked abroad to satisfy about 40% of its total foodstuff consumption– a persistent “food gap” that affects much of North Africa. Although Egyptian wheat production has nearly doubled in the past twenty years (from 4.4 million metric tons (MT) in 1991 to about 8.4 million MT in 2011), continuing population growth has meant that import ratios have remained steady.

While licensed private companies handle 30-40% of Egypt’s wheat imports – destined for fino, or white-flour production – the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) is undoubtedly the major player in wheat importation.

Based in a nondescript office building just south of Tahrir Square on Qasr al-Aini Street, GASC employees manage the import and storage of millions of tons of wheat destined for the state’s subsidized baladi bread program, which consumes around 8-9 million MT of wheat annually.

GASC blends imported wheat – largely sourced from the United States, Russia, or other Black Sea states – with stock acquired domestically, then sold to government-licensed bakeries which produce baladi bread on contract with the government.

In theory, each citizen is entitled to three loaves of baladi bread a day. In practice, though, anybody willing to line up in front of participating bakeries can take as many 5-piaster loaves (about $0.01) as they can pay for.

It is largely a self-regulating subsidy; those with the money to purchase bread elsewhere tend not to wait in the long, crowded lines outside of government-licensed bakeries.

In the eyes of the Ministry of Supply, charged with guaranteeing Egypt’s food security and administering its subsidy programs, there are few programs as important as baladi bread. No one within the Ministry can forget (and no journalist writing on the subject should let us forget) the 1977 “bread riots” that followed President Anwar Sadat’s attempt to cancel subsidies on staple goods. The upheaval left some 800 injured and 80 dead as police sought to restore order.

More recent protests, centered on the industrial city of Mahalla in 2008, were similarly sparked by rising food prices, and marked the first public action of the April 6 Youth Movement, a non-violent political  group that played a major role in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.

Towards Self-Sufficiency?

While the GASC and other Egyptian importers have grown quite effective at bargaining for low-priced wheat, and have staved off a repeat of 1977’s clashes, there have been few attempts to address the structural causes of Egypt’s wheat deficit.

Various cash-crop schemes backed by the Egyptian government and USAID have aimed to increase Egyptian agricultural exports by supplying Europe with out-of-season crops such as strawberries. Unfortunately, these schemes have done little or nothing to shift the country’s agricultural trade imbalance (a $4.4 billion deficit in 2012) while consuming vast amounts of Egypt’s increasingly scarce water supply.

When discussing the Egyptian dependence on wheat imports, spokesmen for the Ministry of Agriculture inevitably mention the government’s efforts to create 1 million feddans (1 feddan = 1.04 acres) of farmland out of barren desert, focusing on areas such as Northern Sinai and the infamous Toshka Lakes Project, located in a parched expanse south of Aswan.

Despite very limited successes to date (the Toshka project, for example, has only added 50,000 feddans in the past 15 years), the current government has announced plans to invest some $10 billion in the project. Meanwhile, low-level improvements such as drip-fed irrigation are dismissed as “uneconomical” for the nation’s small farm holdings.

It is not clear where the money needed for agricultural reform will come from. As it is, the government is struggling to pay for food imports with increasingly scarce foreign currency. Despite repeated cash infusions from Qatar, Libya, and other nations, Egypt’s reserves remain low at $14.42 billion, a far cry from the nearly $36 billion in the central bank’s coffers prior to January 25, 2011.

Because foreign currency is necessary for purchasing imported products, including wheat, the strain on the GASC’s purchasing power has started to show. By February 2013, the GASC had slowed wheat imports to a trickle. Wheat reserves that stood at nearly 7 months’ worth in September 2012 – able to satisfy the country’s needs for nearly 7 months with no additional production – fell to less than 3 months’ worth by April of this year.

Quickly, an official explanation appeared for the sharp drop-off in imports. Predicting a bumper harvest this year, of 9 to 10 million MT (up 1-2 million MT from last year’s harvest), the GASC would be reducing state imports by about 8-10%. The Ministry of Supply has plans to reduce imports even further next year, betting that an even larger domestic harvest can be held in an expanded network of storage silos.

Officials such as Bassem Ouda, the head of the Ministry, have explained this as a decisive step that would bring Egypt’s subsidized bread program within striking distance of self-sufficiency, insulating it from shifts in global wheat prices.

Domestic Challenges

Notwithstanding the woes of importing wheat, relying on domestic supplies brings its own difficulties. Because the Egyptian government no longer sets draconian quotas for how much wheat farmers must supply to the state, the Ministry of Supply can only procure wheat through farmers who are willing to sell their hard-farmed grains at the established government price. Currently, that price is set at LE400 ($57) per ardeb of wheat (about 150kg), up LE20 from last year and about LE100 higher than world prices.

Farmers from the northern shores to Aswan have complained that the price does not cover the full cost of growing wheat, which is impacted at every turn by another commodity in all-too-short supply in Egypt: diesel fuel.

This ongoing shortage, brought about by the country’s heavy fuel subsidies and dwindling foreign currency reserves, has been written about elsewhere. Suffice it to say that diesel affects Egyptian agriculture every step of the way.

Fields are watered by diesel-powered pumps, fields plowed and harvested by diesel-powered tractors, wheat stalks fed into diesel-powered threshers, grain hauled away and transported to and from government storage silos by diesel-powered trucks.

With black-market diesel fuel trading 2-3 times the official rate, costs accumulate, to a point where the government’s price of LE400 becomes unattractive or even uneconomical. Farmers would be better off simply holding on to much of their harvest and selling it in their local communities.

And while the Ministries of Supply and Petroleum have repeatedly stated that enough fuel will be earmarked for transportation of domestic grain, a U.S. Department of Agriculture annual report from early April 2013 noted  “that diesel fuel’s lack of availability… may cause bottlenecks/shortages in June/July 2013 when stocks will be very low.”

Despite its outward confidence, there have been signs that the Ministry of Supply, and the Egyptian government in general, is also concerned about recalcitrance among the country’s wheat farmers. On April 19, Minister of Religious Endowments Talaat ‘Afifi was dispatched to Assyut to give a Friday sermon in which he lectured local farmers on the importance of turning over wheat stocks.

Ten days later, the Chairman of the Farmer’s Syndicate, Muhammad Abdel Qader, called on farmers to increase their sales to the government “as a matter of national security.” Meanwhile, the Primary Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit, which handles agricultural payments and loans within Egypt, established several hotlines for farmers to call to facilitate the procurement process.

Preliminary Observations

So far, the country’s strategy seems to be paying off, with each new procurement number announced amid great fanfare by Minister Ouda. Statistics logged so far have been impressive. Most recently, figures from May 9 suggest a 5-fold year-over-year increase (nearly 1 million MT) in domestic wheat procured by the government to date. With wheat flowing into state-controlled silos, government-held wheat reserves rose to 5 months’ worth by the end of May.

The harvest season is, however, far from over, and there is no way to tell whether the state’s front end numbers represent a massive, nation-wide increase in domestic wheat sales or a few breakaway farmers rushing their crops to market.

In Egypt, coverage on the wheat harvest regularly pairs confident government announcements with farmers complaining of diesel shortages, poor-quality fertilizer, limited water supplies, and above all, government indifference.

Reflecting these concerns, the U.S.D.A.’s annual report predicted a massive shortfall of some 1 million MT in flour destined for the country’s subsidized bread production. The GASC still struggles to finance more imports, most recently asking France to delay payments on wheat shipments for as long as a year.

If catastrophe strikes, the Egyptian government will have to rely on loan assistance from the United States and Europe; standing agreements guarantee U.S. and European farm credit to purchase U.S. and E.U. grain, providing Egypt with a grain silo of last resort.

Conclusion

The wheat supply issue in Egypt follows a familiar pattern seen with other post-Mubarak economic problems. A pre-existing challenge, exacerbated by the pressures of the post-revolutionary downturn (particularly fuel shortages), is handled via ill-thought-out attempts to make the best of a bad situation, and passed off as a decisive step toward a brighter future. The government puts the best possible spin on events, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Fallback strategy relies heavily on Egypt’s status as a “too big to fail” strategic country in a strategic region.

Major initiatives to resolve the challenge involve dusting-off or continuing Mubarak-era plans with little or no alterations. Just look at attempts to resolve the country’s electrical woes (remember last fall’s 10pm shopping curfew?) or yearlong negotiations over the proposed IMF loan.

Economic news will never be able to compete with political or cultural developments in sheer entertainment value, yet the economic issues that plague Egypt deserve attention both from analysts who can explain these issues in layman’s terms and from writers and scholars seeking to understand the nation’s political economy beyond simplistic explanations and stock phrases.

To a good harvest.

*Andrew Leber is a freelance economic analyst, focusing on the Middle East/North Africa region. 

Minister Raheen will supply names of “anti-Islamic” media to Afghanistan’s Parliament

Afghanistan’s lower house of parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, has given the country’s Information and Culture Minister a one-month deadline to ban “anti-Islamic” television broadcasts.

According to Afghanistan’s TOLO News, Minister Sayed Makhdoom Raheen said at a legislative session on Saturday, June 15 that, “A number of media organizations and journalists are insulting the country’s respected personalities and their broadcasting is un-Islamic. However, we are trying to strengthen the ‘freedom of speech’ in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, media organisations and journalists are misusing this freedom.”

Parliamentary member, Abdul Satar Khawasi, was one of the more extreme proponents of the initiative, announcing a ‘Fatwa of Jihad’ against the offending media. Other parliamentarians objected and called the fatwa illegal, as was reported by TOLO News. This may not mean, however, that they support full freedom of expression.

Many Afghans expressed surprise and condemnation of the United States’ inability to legally silence people like Pastor Terry Jones whose public burning of a Quran in March 2011 resulted in deadly riots in Afghanistan.

“Some people misinterpret the term of freedom of expression and think that they are free to insult or accuse anyone of anything and broadcast anything they want,” a representative from Afghanistan’s Herat province said during Saturday’s meeting, as reported by Pajhwok Afghan News.  Still some members of Parliament argued that independent Afghan media have helped to inform and reform the country.

Minister Raheen is no stranger to the power of independent media, having founded and published resistance magazines and papers during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He later established the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (NIMA) in Peshawar, Pakistan, which according to the Afghan Embassy Oslo website promoted democracy in Afghanistan. In the United States, Dr. Raheen formed the Association for Peace and Democracy for Afghanistan. In May 2004, the Afghan government honored him with a medal for serving freedom of speech and promoting cultural revival.

Notwithstanding his personal history, Minister Raheen has agreed to provide the Afghan parliament with a list of journalists and organizations working against the “national interest.” Who will be on the list, and the consequences for their “anti-Islamic” reporting and programming remain uncertain.

British MP Caroline Lucas secured a cross party bid to hold a parliamentary debate on Thursday 13th June over Britain’s decision to go to war in Iraq

On Thursday 13^th June, British Member of Parliament and former leader of the Green Party for England and Wales, Caroline Lucas, led a cross party debate in the House of Commons to discuss Britain’s invasion of Iraq war. She wrote an op-ed in the Guardian explaining why it is imperative that British MPs rethink the parliamentary process of going to war. She believes that “giving MPs a free vote on going to war would be a positive Iraq legacy”. Here is an excerpt of her op-ed:

Today MPs are debating the 10th anniversary of the decision to go to war in Iraq. For most of us, this anniversary of the US-led invasion is largely history, but for the people of Iraq, it’s a state of continuing war. Bombings, murders and other acts of terrorism continue on a daily basis. Tensions are growing between the Shia Muslim majority and the minority Sunnis, raising fears of a return to the worst levels of sectarian violence.

Just this week, there were harrowing reports of at least 70 people killed in a single day, while last month was the bloodiest since June 2008, with more than a thousand Iraqi civilians and security officials killed. And even if Iraq finds a way out of its current difficulties, there is the legacy of the past decade of warfare and terrorism to deal with.

In today’s debate in the House of Commons, MPs will reflect not only on the war itself, but on the parliamentary process that led to it. For the 179 British service personnel who have been killed, the many more who have suffered physical and mental trauma, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children who have lost their lives, this is the least we can do.

About two-thirds of British people now say that the Iraq war was a mistake. Ultimately, parliament was responsible for the decision to go to war. So if this war was a mistake, what should parliament do now?

If it were a public body – a school, hospital or a local authority – we would expect an admission that things had gone wrong, and a pledge to learn the lessons so that it could not happen again. Among the media, public and MPs, a commonly held belief is that people were simply misled into supporting the war. Plenty of evidence shows that the case for war set out by the Blair administration in 2003 was deeply flawed. Intelligence was misused, concerns raised by experts suppressed, and the legal and political position misrepresented. People say that if they had known then what they know now, they would never have supported the war.

Documents from the time do show that there was a deliberate intention to mislead. When Tony Blair decided to join the US in invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein, he knew that the public and MPs had doubts. So he used every opportunity to twist the evidence to isolate his critics and encourage his supporters. Britain was, indeed, spun into war.

But this isn’t the whole picture. The fact that some MPs were not taken in by the spin exposes the reality that others could easily have known then what they know now. Nearly all of the evidence available now was in the public domain at the time. By asking the right questions, trawling through the documents, some MPs did see through the lies and deception, and stood up in parliament to state the war was based on a false prospectus.

Chief among these was the former member for Livingstone, Robin Cook. In his resignation speech, delivered with the eloquence and authority of a former foreign secretary and cabinet member, he articulated his damning critique of the government’s position: why war was unnecessary and unjustified, and exposing the misinformation and deceit.

Yet his warnings were ignored. There are a number of reasons given as to why, but most come down to the idea that the government knew much more about the risk posed by Saddam Hussein than they could say. But in a way, it is more simple than that: most members put loyalty to their leaders and their party above their own judgment, swallowing their private doubts, accepting what they were being told, and voting accordingly.

Read full article here.

El Mazzikateya in Zamalek, Cairo (Photo credit: Mohamad Alsehety, El Mazzikateya Facebook page).

Two musicians, Khaled Sanoussi and Ahmed Heyman, have decided to play music in the streets of Cairo. Their project, El Mazzikateya, is one among many that claims the streets of the city for expression, whether artistic, political, or otherwise.

The right to use a street corner for music is neither forbidden nor guaranteed, but it has often been difficult to do. The plot of the 2010 film Microphone turns on this ambiguity. Directed by Ahmed Abdalla, the semi-fictional film follows underground artists and musicians in Alexandria as they try to find space for their work. After being denied access to galleries and concert halls (in part by officials at the Ministry of Culture), the artists decide to put on a concert at the café they frequent. Before they even finish setting up the stage, a group of men sitting near by comes over to ask, “Where is your permit?”

While the film is fictional, the question is real, and it is not just the government, represented by policemen or officials, who wants to know. People from the neighborhood or passersby often also inquire whether groups have the right to use a public area. Heyman says that policemen will warn them about disturbing the neighborhood and will ask them to stop, but that this has only happened occasionally. It seems that the good will of the crowd that gathers around them is the “permission” that they need.

Since the fall of the Mubarak regime, many taboos have changed in Egypt, but the use of public space continues to be curtailed in certain ways, but not in others. For example, vendors in downtown Cairo, who do not have permits, sell their goods on the road itself. While they block traffic, the police leave them alone, most likely because it is not worth the fight.

El Mazzikateya is pushing the boundaries of the use of public space not to contest the power of the state, but rather to bring enjoyment to Egyptians and to raise the status of musicians in society.

In their words, “All over the world, people play music in the streets. They depend on it for a source of income. They play for fun, but in the end, they are doing something that they love.”

“Unfortunately, in Egypt there isn’t this [musicians playing in the streets]. We have many artists. We have many musicians. People draw, sing, and play, but they are embarrassed of their profession, and of how people will see them. They are embarrassed about what the street will think.”

“Because of this, we decided that we would go down to the streets.”

(Photo Credit: Ken Browar)

Hooman Majd is the grandson of an ayatollah, son of a career diplomat, and related by marriage to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.  Born in Tehran, he spent his formative years globe-trotting for his father’s work and was educated in schools in San Francisco, New Delhi, Tunis, London and Washington D.C.

After many years in the entertainment business, heading Island Records and producing at Palm Pictures, Majd visited Iran in 2003, the first time he had been back to his birthplace in over thirty years.  Over the past decade, he has traveled to Iran often and been a consistently astute and articulate observer of Iranian society and politics.

Author of the best-selling books, “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran” (2008) and “The Ayatollah’s Democracy: An Iranian Challenge” (2010) and countless articles published in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Newsweek, The New Republic, The Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Politico, The New York Observer, The Daily Beast, Salon and elsewhere, Majd’s intellect, insight and humility are refreshing, especially in a community occupied by self-declared “experts” and agenda-driven analysts and activists. 

Majd recently spent a year living in Iran researching his newest book, “The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran,” which will be published this Fall.

Muftah met up with Majd in Brooklyn recently, where he generously lent his time to answer a wide range of questions.  Below is an excerpt of the conversation, which focused on the Iranian economy and the effects of sanctions, the legacy of the Iranian revolution, and the future of Iran-U.S. relations.  

MUFTAH: In your year living in Tehran, did you get a chance to talk to strangers and what did you come away with in terms of your understanding of what matters to people on a daily basis? On the economy? On Iran’s standing in the international community? Is this something that you see weighing on average people?

HM: No, I don’t think people think about it too much. It doesn’t seem to be a primary concern. I think the economy is something people are constantly complaining about and constantly worrying about and that’s only natural when you have a country that is basically under siege from sanctions and has been for a very long time and that affects everything. Economically it affects everything.  Not to the extent that we sometimes imagine, I mean, people aren’t starving. They are managing, but it does affect inflation and all the other things.

So the economy is definitely something that seems to be, at least in my experience, a number one priority for people.  Fixing the economy, creating jobs.  There’s a certain hopelessness, and I think that’s partly because of the poor economy, among certain elements of the youth who feel like they spent all this time studying and going to school and graduating and then, because there aren’t any jobs, going on to get a Master’s Degree and there’s still no jobs and they go on to get a PhD and there is still no work and that’s very much related to the economy. So that seems to be a big thing.

But I think very few people talk about the nuclear issue as an issue that is of daily concern to them, or even weekly or monthly concern to them, not in the way that it is here.  Even the potential confrontation with the West doesn’t appear to be something that’s a very high priority for people.

Corruption in the government, resentment of the tremendous amount of wealth that’s on display these days in Tehran. One of the things you notice now versus even five or six or seven years ago is that people are very comfortable showing off their wealth. Ten years ago, even if they were very wealthy, people chose not to drive Porsches and ridiculous cars and have ostentatious homes that were visible from the street.

MUFTAH: What do you think accounts for this change?

HM: I don’t think people care any more. People who are wealthy are benefiting from the system.  However they gained their wealth and a large number of them gained it through connections, much like it was during the Shah’s time, they’re succeeding within that system and I think there’s a sense of power that comes with that that goes, “I just don’t care.” It doesn’t mean, however, that they’re necessarily supporters of the system or the regime or the government,

Before, you had to be a revolutionary. You had to show yourself as a revolutionary and a revolutionary doesn’t drive a Mercedes. A revolutionary drives a Kia!

As far as I’m concerned, that’s a little bit of a danger for the Islamic Republic because part of its credibility was that there was going to be social justice. If you’re in Tajrish [an area in a more affluent part of Tehran] and you see a homeless kid sitting on the corner, begging, while cars driving around the traffic circle are Porsches and Mercedes and BMWs, it’s a reality you wouldn’t have seen in the Islamic Republic only a few years before.  Even if people had the money, they didn’t want to show it.  Now it seems that they don’t care.  That’s a generalization, but it’s based on my experience.

MUFTAH: The phenomenon of display, a sense of almost exhibitionist individualism, whether it’s through personal style or wealth, is very noticeable in Tehran. Especially in upper and middle-class neighborhoods such as Gisha, for example. Are there a particular socioeconomic dimension to this type of behavior?

HM: For people who are wealthy and cosmopolitan or, I hate to use the word secular or Westernized, but for the sake of this conversation, let’s say more Westernized in many ways, for them there’s not much else they can do. It’s hard to go to a restaurant in Tehran, there are some good ones, but there aren’t that many of them and it’s hard to do anything other than to entertain at home, privately. So you’re going to start spending your money. I mean, Tehran traffic is awful, if you can navigate it in a Porsche, that’s nicer, and a bit more fun.

I know a few very, very wealthy people in Iran and over the years they’ve had less and less of a problem with displaying their wealth. And I’ve actually said to a couple of them, ‘This is what happened during the Shah’s time.’ I’m a little bit older than some of them and I remember.

This goes back to that whole argument about regime change, which we hear about all the time here in America. Not about whether America should try because, I think, everyone pretty much agrees that America can’t bring about regime change in Iran or even help bring it about.

It goes back to something that’s going to be internal. Whatever happens to this regime, whether it stays and reforms, or whether eventually there is a revolution – which I myself doubt since I think Iranians don’t really want a revolution and the unknown that goes with that – Iranians seem to want change.

MUFTAH: So more of an evolution?

HM: An evolution, yes, but it could be a dramatic evolution. There could be a big change. And part of it could be because the working class or the poor or even the middle class, who are suffering tremendously compared to the very wealthy, who are not suffering at all and, in fact, are doing well.  You [could] see them demanding that change. Demanding that change at least to realize some sort of social justice.

That was the foundation – one of the foundations – of the Islamic Revolution: social justice. Another was religion.For a lot of people, the religious aspect has been lost, at least for a lot of the intellectuals it has, along with the credibility of the ayatollahs. No one has the credibility of a Khomeini anymore and the ones that do are quiet; they’re not politically active. The ones that are politically active tend not to have that credibility.

I think that if you lose social justice too – which is something Ahmadinejad campaigned on and the reason why he was popular I think for a while and still maintains a bit of that popularity – if you lose that, I don’t know what’s left.

MUFTAH: How has Iran’s social safety net worked since the sanctions started? Is there visible poverty in Iran? Has the dismantling of government subsidies, which was an initiated spearheaded by Ahmadinejad, had a positive or negative effect?

HM: The subsidies were removed even while I was there but the cash payments have continued. While the cash payments are not very meaningful for a family living in Tehran, they’re very meaningful for families living outside Tehran where the cost of living is dramatically lower. In many cases, the cash subsidy is a significant part of a family’s income.

There is a large working class population in Iran and a large poor population, but the number of people who go hungry and are completely lost and have no way to find relief from either government agencies or otherwise, I don’t know what that is – I’m definitely not an expert in the socioeconomic implications of sanctions, subsidies and safety nets.  I will say this, though: you don’t see the kind of widespread poverty in Iran as much as you see in other developing or third world countries. Iran is not a third world country; it’s definitely a developing country. In Tehran, a massive metropolis of over 12 million people, you don’t see the slums you see in Rio, for example, and Brazil is not considered a third world country either.

This is nothing new, really. You didn’t see that under the previous presidency [of reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami] either. I think the system has been pretty good in terms of trying to take care of people to the extent it can. It’s not a socialist country and there is joblessness, but Iranians are entrepreneurial and they find their ways around the system, figuring out how to make things work and managing to scrape by.

There are those who fall through the cracks, especially immigrants, Afghans, and drug addicts. By and large, I don’t think it’s the Ahmadinejad administration specifically that is responsible for the relative absence of complete destitution among the country’s citizens. Definitely outside of Tehran, in rural areas and small towns, Ahmadinejad’s popularity has been strong because he has instituted a lot of government projects and given loans to people for construction. So there is some of that.

MUFTAH: Switch gears a bit, do you think there’s any chance of a war actually starting with Iran? Or do you think it’s all bluster?

HM:  I don’t know. I think there’s always a chance. I think there’s more of a chance that Israel will do something than there is that America would initiate a war. I just don’t think Obama wants to do it or is the kind of person who wants to start any war, even though he says, “all options are on the table.” I think he’d be happy if nothing happened in the next three years and he could just keep saying to the Israelis, “But I’m putting more sanctions on them! I’m crippling them!” And then he’s out of office.

I think that, yes, it is possible that the Israelis have backed themselves into a corner. They have all these red lines they keep talking about and Netanyahu and company have been saying Iran’s a year or so away from a bomb since 1992 – twenty years – so, can they maintain that or are they going to be called on it at some point? Is someone going to call them on it and say, “Ok, now what?”

MUFTAH: With the curent policies against Iran, such as economic warfare, cyberwar, assassinations on the street, collective punishment of the Iranians themselves, and especially the middle class, does this just all lead inevitably toward actively promoting regime change and a new Iraq Liberation Act, this time for Iran?  If there won’t be American military strikes, what’s the endgame for the United States?

HM: At some point there has to be give somewhere. We’ve been thinking that for a long time. Indeed, Iran can probably survive for a number of years, if it can continue to export at least as much oil as it is today. But if that spigot shuts off completely, then I think you have serious problems. I don’t think that means they’re going to give in on the nuclear issue, I don’t think they will at all. But at what point does Iran need to do something in retaliation? I mean, when you have a complete embargo, I mean, that’s a form of war on a country. So that’s a danger I feel is present.

There are all sorts of other factors as well. There’s Russia and China, which we haven’t mentioned yet. If sanctions become so stringent that there really is an embargo, I think we’ll start seeing a lot of Eastern countries drop off and I don’t think America can do a lot about that. I think that the Treasury Department can sanction any firm that does business with Iran but, at the end of the day, we don’t have that much pull with China and certainly not with Russia anymore.

Something has to give in the next two or three years. Either we have to come to the conclusion that we’re going to live with Iran being a potential nuclear power, if not an actual nuclear power. And when I say that I don’t mean a nuclear-armed power, I mean being able to build a weapon if it chooses to do so. Or, else, we’ll say “No, we can’t live with that,” and there will be an escalation.

MUFTAH: We’re often told that a nuclear-capable Iran would entrench the government, as if it’s currently on the verge of collapse and needs just one little, American nudge to push it over the edge.

HM: The Iranian regime isn’t going anywhere any time soon.  That I can say with a good amount of certainty.  I think the actions we’re taking and that Israel is taking are doing more to entrench this regime than anything else.  If the regime was on its last legs or was teetering, with all the internal squabbles and everything else, if there was no outside threat, if there were no sanctions, the chances of it being overthrown would be much higher than if you had all the threats.

Look at America in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. I was in New York on 9/11. I was here the next day and after that. And America – and Americans – reacted to that with great fear. And justifiably so. George Bush’s popularity soared to over 90%. We were willing to give up everything because we were under attack. So just consider, for a lot of Iranians, Iran is under attack. And they’re willing to give up certain things. They’re not willing to fight a regime when it’s under attack.

When I say they’re not willing, I don’t mean all Iranians – some people are willing to fight the regime. They’re just don’t constitute a majority of the people. Iranians simply don’t have the energy for it. They’re trying to get a job, to make a living under difficult circumstances. They’re trying to get medicine for their sick parent. And they can’t get that. They’re trying to live, first and foremost.

So, to me, the argument that the more we sanction them, the more we cripple them, people are going to get fed up and overthrow the government just doesn’t make any sense. Do people here really imagine that Iranians are going to say, “Oh, these sanctions are hurting so bad and this government is so bad because they didn’t humbly bend to the demands of the United States”?

I mean, are Iranians that stupid? It’s offensive to think this way.

MUFTAH: That seems to be the game plan.

HM: Yes, and that’s what they’re saying, that Iranians are so stupid and have so little dignity and pride in their culture and their nation that they will actually say, “I want this government to fall and I will do everything – I’m willing to fight and die – to make this government fall in order for us to be dictated to by the West.”  That seems very far-fetched to me.

That’s not to say there aren’t people who would like to see a much more reasonable approach or to have the Iranian government say, “Look, let’s figure out how to work with these guys. We don’t really need nuclear weapons, which the government itself has already made clear, but let’s put in whatever safety mechanisms they want, and if we have to suspend enrichment for a while, then let’s do that,” like Khatami said when he was in office.

There are people who say, “Well, we should have a referendum and that the people of Iran should be asked whether they should be suffering for this nuclear issue.” But, does Obama have a referendum of whether we should have drones that kill American citizens? No. When it comes to national security issues and infrastructure, you don’t have referendums. You don’t have referendums on whether to go to war or not. We just go to war. And so does every country in world. So why does Iran have to be treated different from every other country? Why does Iran actually have to be more democratic than America is?  I mean, in this regard, we set a standard for Iran that actually is higher than our own standard for democracy.

And that’s a separate issue from whether elections are fair or whether the people have a voice in their government. That is a separate issue.  Because even if you had completely free elections in Iran and anybody could run, I still doubt that there would be a single candidate who could win an election after declaring, “I would get rid of the nuclear program.”

MUFTAH: Explain the difference between what you term the Iranian regime and the Iranian government.

HM: I didn’t like to use the word regime, because that implies an illegitimacy. We never say “The American Regime.” We only use it with countries we don’t like.  The Soviet regime. The Cuban regime. The North Korean regime. The Syrian regime.  But every other country has a “government.”

But in Iran’s case it is fair to use two different words because there is a government and there’s also the nezaam, “the system.” Maybe that’s a better word, “the system,” than “regime.” But you can call it a regime, because it is a regime. It’s a unique system of government, and it’s flawed. But it’s also a work in progress that may yet end up being a legitimate, different, alternative system of governance. Or it may not, I don’t know. But it was certainly intended to be an alternative to the liberal democracies of the West and the communist governments of the East. Not by taking the best elements of either, but by being unique. And that was the idea. And I think it still is unique. It’s not a democracy in the sense that we think of a democracy, but it’s not a dictatorship either, in the sense that we define that.

Do I think that it’s veered toward dictatorship? Yes. Are there dictatorial aspects of the regime? Absolutely.

It’s a very complex issue. Certainly the way Khomeini envisioned it, it wasn’t supposed to be a dictatorship, although some would argue the Khomeini was a dictator himself because whatever he said went at the end of the day. And that’s a fair argument to make. But I would argue that there’s enough of a difference in the political ideology of the people who are in leadership positions in Iran – and there are multiple power centers – that it’s not a complete dictatorship.

MUFTAH: Are there effective checks and balances?

HM: There are checks and balances, theoretically. Of course, since 2009, things have changed quite a bit, substantially. But in terms of how things should work in theory, the Iranian government mirrors in some ways our system in that there’s a judiciary, there’s an executive branch and there’s a legislative branch.

The legislative branch is certainly more independent than it was under the Shah. Under the Shah, the parliament was a rubber stamp. Some would argue that today, parliament is a rubber stamp for the Supreme Leader, but I would argue that it’s not quite that way. Sometimes the Supreme Leader has to intervene, sometimes the Expediency Council has to intervene in disputes that happen in parliament. In parliament you have genuine opposition figures, though they’re in the minority now. So it’s not quite the rubber stamp that people might imagine it to be.

The judiciary is also supposed to independent. The three branches are certainly independent from each other. That independence has been proven. And even since 2009, it’s been proven in the political battles that we’ve seen between them.

The question is whether the Supreme Leader has dictatorial powers or not. I would say that he does have dictatorial powers, but I would also argue that he does not exercise them often.

MUFTAH: If there was actually the motivation and desire within the U.S. government to reset our Iran policy completely, what would it need to do to actually start engaging productively with Iran?

HM: The biggest problem is that we’re just wielding a big stick with Iran and not offering very much in terms of any kind of meaningful dialogue. You’ve got to listen to what Iran says, and this is very separate from human rights and civil rights and all the other issues that we have with Iran, you’ve got to listen to what Iran says and take it seriously.

When they say, “We’re not going to negotiate with a gun to our heads,” we should realize that that makes sense. No one wants to negotiate with a gun to their head. We always say we don’t negotiate with terrorists. The reason we don’t negotiate with terrorists is we don’t want to negotiate with someone who’s got a gun to our head, or who threatens to do something to us if we don’t do what they want. It’s the same thing.

What we’re saying to Iran is, “Do this, negotiate with us and while you’re deciding whether to do that or not, we’re just going to keep turning the screws, until there’s so much pain that you have to do what we want.” Well, that’s not a basis for negotiation. The first thing the U.S. government should say is, “No, not all options are on the table. The option of war is not on the table.” When they say “all options are on the table,” what does that mean? Does that mean they’ll nuke Iran?  That’s an option, isn’t it? We could nuke Iran. We could turn it into glass. When you say all options are on the table – all – well that’s an option, so we could nuke Iran. How about first taking that one off the table?

Then let’s say, we’re not gong to go to war with Iran. Take that option off the table next.  There is no military solution to this conflict. We know that. Obama knows that.  So why do we keep saying that option is there, that we could bomb Iran into submission? Or we could bomb its nuclear program out of existence? Well, we can’t. Every military analyst worth his salt has said that. We could set it back, but we can’t actually bomb it out of existence.  So take those options off the table too.

Once you take threatening language away, I think the possibility for dialogue is there. If you are concerned about human rights, if you are concerned about having leverage and having influence with Iran, not just over the people, but over the government, well you’re only going to have that if you start negotiating and if you have a better relationship with Iran where you could say, “Hey, by the way, we don’t like it when you execute gays. Could you please not do that? And if you don’t do that, we can have an even better relationship. Or, maybe you could not throw people into Evin prison because they didn’t say the right thing. Could we talk about that please?”

And then the Iranians would say, “Well, yeah sure we can talk about that, but can you release the prisoners in Guantanamo, please? Could you please not drone people?”  And then there’d be some back and forth and there’d be some negotiation. That’s what negotiations are about.

The whole U.S. attitude has been an imperialist one whether it was Bush or Clinton before him and now Obama. It’s this imperial attitude that “we’re right and they’re wrong and they have to submit to our will,” which is counterproductive. It’s just not the basis for diplomacy or negotiations, or a healthier world environment. It’s not a basis for encouraging human rights in Iran either, which we are and should be concerned about.

If I’m talking as an American, I’m concerned about human rights everywhere in the world, not just Iran. If I’m talking as an Iranian-American, of course, Iran is a place that is closer to my heart and yes, it’s human rights situation is worrisome. But as long as we’re an enemy of Iran and as long as we continue to threaten Iran, it’s not going to help the human rights issue. The question is whether to separate these two issues. I think that’s a fair debate to have, but I think we should separate the two. But I also don’t think that American progressives should feel they don’t ever need to address human rights or civil rights in Iran because they’re giving credence to the imperialists if they do. I don’t think that’s right either.

I think they should make these criticisms and that Iranians should stand up and say what the government does is wrong. I mean, you can’t defend some actions of the Iranian regime. They’re impossible to defend if you’re any kind of decent human being. So I think we do have to stand up and say we do want those changes and I think people in the Iranian diaspora can be effective in having influence on the Iranian government, but not as long as it’s all intertwined with national security issues as well.

All of a sudden, the nuclear issue, human rights, and regime change become intertwined and then we’re not moving forward on anything. I think that if the nuclear issue were resolved, the human rights situation would be [next]. Actually, that’s one of Khamenei’s fears.  He’s always said this was all an excuse because, if we resolve the nuclear issue, the next thing the Americans will come back with is human rights. And he’s right!

You know, we had relations with the Soviet Union, not great relations, but we had relations. We had our presidents meet with their premiers. And we always brought up human rights and we were able to help in some cases with refugees from the Soviet Union and in some cases we weren’t able to help. But we had relations and we didn’t go to war and we didn’t threaten to bomb them every five minutes. And they actually had nukes.

*Nima Shirazi is co-editor of Muftah’s Iran, Iraq, & Turkey pages. He tweets @WideAsleepNima