Middle East/North Africa Analysis: The Rise of a "Civic Islamism"? (Sadiki)

Rachid Ghannounchi, leader of Tunisia's EnnadhaCivic Islamism is linked with the novelty of the context, the Arab Spring, and the new dynamic of legalised Islamism as in Egypt and Tunisia. Civic Islamism displays features of impressive organisation for the contest of power, coupled with an aptitude to penetrate secular civil society through coalition-building with non-Islamists.

Only through inclusion, competition, participation and the tests of "power", will this force learn to moderate its politics, gradually learning to take its place amongst the progenitors of civic politics in the Arab spring states.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Hollow Declarations

See also Bahrain Feature: A New "Martyr"? The Death of Ali Hassan Al Daihi
Middle East Audio: Scott Lucas With Monocle Radio About Al Jazeera
Egypt Letter: Returning to Mubarak's Prisons (Alaa)
Wednesday's Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Catalyst of Alaa's Detention

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1747 GMT: The Bahrain Justice and Development Movement have posted an English-language account of the death of 70-year-old Ali Hassan Aldaihi, allegedly beaten by riot police as he returned home last night.

Aldaihi, the father of the Deputy Secretary General of the leading opposition party Al Wefaq, was found by his son. He was taken to hospital with head injuries but died at 12.30 a.m. after a cardiac arrest.

Aldaihi's home was attacked in September with rubber bullets fired into it.

1637 GMT: So, yesterday the Syrian government enters into an agreement with the Arab League, pledging among other things to withdraw troops and tanks and stop the bloodshed. What happened? A bloody day, with tanks deployed everywhere. Tomorrow, opposition groups are planning to put Assad's pledge to the test, with massive demonstrations scheduled in many locations. Many of our sources are buzzing that we may see protests in Damascus tomorrow. The Guardian's Martin Chulov thinks so too:

Two activists in Damascus said protests were being organised under a premise that nothing had changed. "Tomorrow [Friday] we will see how serious they are," one said. "I think they cannot afford to take the tanks from the streets just yet."

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Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Punishment and Protests

Protest in Anadan in Aleppo Province tonight, chanting about Syrian President Assad, "Bashar is a traitor"

See also Syria Video Special: The Friday Protests
Yemen Interview: President Saleh "I Will Retire When There Are Elections"
Syria Special: #MediaFail --- It's Not Yet a Civil War
Bahrain 1st-Hand: "48 Hours in Sanabis"
Thursday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Showdown Looms?

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2010 GMT: An EA source in Bahrain reports blocked roads in many villages, some blocked by protesters to prevent police getting in, others blocked by police to prevent protesters getting out. The source continues, "There are clashes between protesters and police in many of the villages. On my round now I passed on at least seven protests/clashes."

2000 GMT: A lower-than-expected turnout --- at least for protest organisers --- in Tahrir Square in Cairo today.

Thousands came out for the rally, with most stages set up by leftist and revolutionary youth movements, chanting against the ruling Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and its head, Field-Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi: "Tell the truth! Will you nominate yourself for the Presidency?" demonstrators shouted in reference to SCAF chief Field-Marshal Hussein Tantawi. Many protesters wore shirts with stickers reading “No to SCAF” and carried signs bearing anti-SCAF slogans. One banner depicted a turtle, reflecting popular frustration with the slow pace of change during the post-Mubarak transitional period.

One bright spot amidst the disappoointment: Hollywood actor and political activist Sean Penn, waving an Egyptian flag, put in an appearance.

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Yemen Interview: President Saleh "I Will Retire When There Are Elections"

Six days after returning  to Yemen from medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, President Ali Abdullah Saleh spoke on Thursday with Aryn Baker of Time magazine and Sudarsan Raghavan of The Washington Post.

Beyond the standard rhetoric --- Saleh has authorised his Vice President to conduct dialogue with the opposition, even though that opposition is linked to Al Qa'eda, note two things.

First, any talk of negotiation is limited by Saleh's insistence that his main opponents, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and tribal leader Sheikh Sadegh al-Ahmar, cannot not have any influence: "[The initiative] says to remove all the elements causing tensions. Because if we transfer power and they are there, this will mean that we have given in to a coup."

And second, Saleh is playing up the image of his "alliance" with the US --- note how often he refers to co-operation with American intelligence.

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Egypt Feature: A Guide to the Political Movements (Amr)

I've noticed that most of the foreign media as well as my non-Egyptian friends usually see the political scene in Egypt as a simple bipolar one, Islamists & Liberals, and that's it. That's why I decided to put the Egyptian political spectrum the way I see it.

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Syria Snapshot: Inside and Outside Hama (Yassin-Kassab)

For days Syrian security forces stayed out of Hama; not even traffic police were seen in the city. During these days, no armed gangs emerged from the shadows to terrorise and loot. Christians and Alawis were not rounded up and shot. Nobody was whipped for wearing an un-Islamic haircut. All that happened was day and night demonstrations against the regime swelled into crowds of hundreds of thousands --- men and women, adults and children.

Perhaps the security forces stayed out of the city on the request of Hama’s governor, and perhaps that’s why he was sacked. Now security forces have entered the city and brought plenty of insecurity in their wake.

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Egypt Feature: "The Struggle is Far from Over" (Worth)

Tahrir Square, Cairo, 27 May 2011Three months after the revolution, Egypt is in the agony of self-discovery. As other Arab revolutions founder or lapse into civil wars, Egypt has achieved far more than its young rebels ever hoped for. First, they forced out Mubarak in only 18 days. Then, with renewed protests in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, they rid themselves of his loyalists, including Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister.

Nominally, Egypt is being ruled by a panel of military generals, who have governed in an uneasy dialogue with the revolution’s self-appointed leaders, making concession after concession to popular demands. But protesters continue to call for deeper reforms, and workers are striking throughout the country, demanding better pay and the removal of Mubarak-era bosses. Meanwhile, many Egyptians seem eager to carry the revolutionary energy of Tahrir Square into everyday life. “I was part of the regime — I used to take bribes,” intones a man in a new public-service TV ad campaign. “But Egypt is changing, and I am changing.” Sitting in traffic, I saw bumper stickers proclaiming: “As of today, I won’t run traffic lights,” and “I will change.” Posters have appeared on walls across Cairo urging Egyptians to stop littering, stop cheating, stop putting up with police abuse and sectarian slurs.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond): Shutting Down Protest?

Syrian Protest, 22 April 20111835 GMT: The Government of Bahrain has blocked one of its own websites, the homepage of the Jaffaria Waqf (Endowments) Directorate.

The Directorate was established in 1927 as an independent organization and reports to the Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs. The activities of the Directorate focus mainly on the supervision of 724 mosques and 632 Matams (congregation halls).

An activist speculates the site may have been blocked because it referred to the recent destruction of dozens of mosques by authorities, who claim they were unlicenced.

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Egypt, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Turn in the Protests

1955 GMT: C.J. Chivers of The New York Times summarises the day's fighting near the opposition-held Ajdabiya in east Libya:

Colonel Qaddafi’s forces began the attack late on Saturday morning with barrages of rocket or artillery fire onto the city’s center. Then, as the smoke rose and confusion reigned, they sent a contingent of ground troops into the city , where a gun battle broke out.

The loyalists’ assault was more determined and organized than the ambushes and exchanges of rocket and artillery fire of recent days. Barrage after barrage of incoming fire thudded and exploded in the city, and loyalist troops advanced behind it. Thick smoke rose and drifted from central parts of Ajdabiya, and by noon, doctors were evacuating the city’s hospital as explosions shook the streets.

Many of the rebels fled once again, streaming north up the highway toward Benghazi, horns honking. One rebel shouted at vehicles as they passed: “Qaddafi’s forces are coming! Go! Go! Go!”

But at least a small cadre of lightly armed local residents remained to fight, stopping the advancing loyalists on the central Istanbul Street.

“We killed 10 of them,” said Said Halum, who stood in the morgue in the late afternoon over the body of his brother, Abdul Ghadir, who had been shot between the eyes. “Our group split into two groups on Istanbul Street and fought them. The firing was very heavy.”

As the gun battle within the city raged, the main rebel force rallied about 10 miles north and by evening was flowing back into the city, where they briefly re-established a degree of control of Ajdabiya’s eastern and central areas.

Gunfire started to ebb in these areas in the evening, but skirmishes could be heard at the city’s southern and western side, and then the barrages started again, prompting many rebels to flee again.

NATO airstrikes came into play in the battle --- at least one large mushroom cloud rose from the city’s western side at about 1:25 p.m. as pro-Qaddafi forces were barraging the city. But again the allied air campaign was unable to keep the colonel’s military from pressing the rebels, as has been the case throughout a week of fighting that saw the ragged opposition forces losing key footholds on the main coastal road, including the city of Brega.

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Egypt Opinion: Dissent After the Referendum "We Have to Start Playing Politics" (Sandmonkey)

So, now what? Well, now is the hard part. This is the part where we stop playing revolution, and start playing politics for the sake of the country. This means caring more about perception and public support over righteous and legitimate demands. Do you know what that means? Well, if you do, but think that the revolution must continue on the street, well, congratulations, you are the reason why we are losing. If you don’t, well, please relax and keep an open mind, cause this is about to get really uncomfortable.

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