A Lebanese-American Journalist Reflects on the Arab Spring: Anthony Shadid

Veteran war correspondent Anthony Shadid spent much of the past decade in Baghdad covering the Iraq war, first for The Washington Post and then for The New York Times. Last December, Shadid left Baghdad for his home in Beirut, Lebanon, where he’s been based for more than a decade.

“It was amazing to me how many conversations I was having with people about how dejected they were, how disappointed, how pessimistic they were about where the Arab world was,” he tellsFresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “… And so remarkably, just a week or two later, the uprising began in Tunisia.”

Shadid reported from Tunisia and then from the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Bahrain. He says 2011 has been one of the most unbelievable years he ever could have imagined experiencing in the Middle East region.

“I think back to this idea that a generation ago, the Iranian revolution was this event that changed the Middle East,” he says. “And we’re [talking about] six revolts or revolutions or uprisings all happening, in a lot of respects, at the very same time.”

Shadid says the euphoria felt in places like Tunisia and Egypt throughout the spring has now passed.

“I think there’s a lot of anxiety and uncertainty of where we’re headed,” he says. “I guess after being a pessimist in Baghdad for so long, I remain an optimist. I think that optimism comes from this idea that these societies — that have been moribund for so long — have been revived or rejuvenated. … And that very dynamism of those societies leaves hope for the future.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM NPR 

Obama’s Bahrain Backpedaling

editor’s Note: Joost R. Hitlermann is Deputy Program Director for Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group.

By Joost R. Hiltermann, Foreign Affairs

Ever since the Arab Spring began, Washington has been faced with the question of how to ease autocrats from power. After former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced from office in February, President Barack Obama said that the United States had been on the “right side” of history, suggesting that that is where Washington would position itself in the Arab world’s transition to democracy. What exactly this should mean in practice remains an unsettled question – especially in states presided over by dictators whose stable rule and pro-U.S. orientation were long-standing cornerstones of U.S. strategy in the Middle East.

This dilemma is particularly salient in the case of Bahrain, a small island kingdom in the Gulf and a longtime U.S. strategic ally. For months now, Bahrain has been engulfed in protests against the repressive rule of the Khalifa family; the most recent demonstrations in late August claimed the life of a 14-year-old boy, the latest casualty in the regime’s drive to restore order.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CNN

Bahrain: the Untold Story

The Destruction of Shi’a Mosques in Bahrain

(Be sure to scroll down the page where you will find before and after pictures of mosques that the Bahraini government has destroyed in its ongoing effort to discredit and marginalize the majority Shi’a population of the country)

MANAMA, Bahrain: One can understand the dignity and honor of a Mosque by the fact that Allah (SWT) calls Mosques as His homes. There is a Hadith that states whoever comes to mosque; Allah (SWT) will make him His guest in Jannah (The Paradise). Allah (SWT) loves the people who take care of mosques.

Unfortunately, Saudi-backed Bahraini forces in their crackdown against civilians protesting for their rights in Bahrain have bulldozed several mosques.

According to McClatchy Newspapers report, in the ancient Bahraini village of Aali, where some graves date to 2000 B.C., the Amir Mohammed Braighi mosque had stood for more than 400 years — one of the handsomest Shiite Muslim mosques in this small island nation in the Persian Gulf.

Today, only bulldozer tracks remain.

FULL ARTICLE  WITH PICTURES FROM JAFARIYA NEWS

 

Bahrain’s Crackdown Creates Sectarian Fallout

The Mo’men mosque in Nwaidrat stood in the same location 

for generations until it was bulldozed last month. 

The Sunni-run government in Bahrain has destroyed 

at least 47 Shiite mosques in recent weeks

 

  June 7, 2011

The mass protest movement that swept Bahrain in February and March has since turned into a bitter sectarian confrontation. The tiny island nation — a key U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf — is mostly populated by Shiites, but it’s ruled by a Sunni royal family.

Analysts say the family is now pushing a sectarian agenda that might eventually be its undoing.

From the very beginning, it was no secret that most of the protesters in Bahrain were Shiites. They are the underdogs in Bahrain: They’re generally poorer than the average Bahraini, and they’re kept out of top positions in the government. Meanwhile, the government imports Sunnis from Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere to tip the scales in favor of Sunnis.

FULL ARTICLE FROM NPR

Muslims Rush to Restore Torched Egyptian Church

(Reuters) – Mohammed Fathi worked his brush gently over an icon of Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, removing soot from its surface inside a church gutted in an attack by Islamist militants this month.

“It takes a lot of careful work to do that,” Fathi said. “We have to do a lot of tests with chemicals to try to restore the icon to its original condition.”

The 26-year-old is one of a vast group of mostly Muslim craftsmen tasked with restoring St Mary’s Church in the Cairo suburb of Imbaba after militants set it on fire on May 7.

Egypt’s military rulers have ordered its restoration at a time when tensions between Christians, who account for about 10 percent of Egypt’s population, and Muslims are on the rise.

Attacks have triggered protests and pose a challenge for Egypt’s new rulers, under pressure to impose security while seeking to avoid the tough tactics against Islamists used by deposed President Hosni Mubarak.

FULL ARTICLE FROM REUTERS

Egypt: Thousands March in Tahrir Square, Christians Maintain Sit in

Thousands of protesters marched in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday to stress the unity between Egypt’s Muslims and Christian Copts following sectarian clashes that ended with a dozen dead and more than 200 injured last week.

The march, which coincided with a rally in the square in solidarity with Palestinians, began with a Christian Mass followed by Friday prayers.

Cleric Mazhar Shahin, who delivered the Friday prayer speech, said Islam and Christianity do not teach hatred or incitement of violence.

Timeline: Revolution in Egypt

“Such strife is intended by a group of people who are neither Muslims nor Christians,” Shahin said as he warned Egyptians not to let extremists divide them.

Both Muslim and Coptic Christian protesters joined the demonstration, chanting, “Muslims and Copts are one hand” and carrying banners that said, “Egypt is for all Egyptians.”

“We need to have constitutional guarantees securing equal citizenship rights and respecting all religions without discrimination between Muslims and Copts,” Adel Mahmoud, who is Muslim, told Babylon and Beyond.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE LA TIMES

Islamist Mobs Burn Christian Churches in Egypt, Several Dead

May 8, 2011

Muslim mobs set two Cairo churches on fire overnight during sectarian clashes that left 12 dead and more than 200 injured. The deepening religious violence in military-ruled Egypt exacerbated an already chaotic and lawless transition to democracy.

Mobs of ultraconservative Muslims attacked the St. Menas church in the Cairo slum of Imbaba late Saturday following rumors that a Christian woman married to a Muslim man had been abducted. Local residents said a separate mob of youths armed with knives and machetes attacked the Virgin Mary church several blocks away with firebombs.

“People were scared to come near them,” said local resident Adel Mohammed, 29, who lives near the Virgin Mary Church. “They looked scary. They threw their firebombs at the church and set parts of it ablaze.”

Islamic clerics denounced the violence, sounding alarm bells at the escalating tension during the transitional period.

FULL ARTICLE FROM NPR 

Collective Courage Fuels Protests Across the Arab World

(CNN) — Mohamed Bouazizi couldn’t have known when he struck that match he would spark the “Arab spring,” but it’s tough to imagine he’d be disappointed.

Bouazizi’s singular act of protest — to light himself afire before a government building in Tunisia’s Sidi Bouzid — set off one of the most collective demonstrations the region has seen in contemporary times.

His uncle, Ridha, a fellow fruit-cart vendor, said the government often demanded bribes and stole goods from them. His nephew’s death, he said, was a result of corruption.

“It was because of their tyranny that Mohamed set himself on fire,” he said.

Tyranny, it must be noted, was not something new to Tunisia. Before President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s ouster, protests were violently quelled. Citizens there had long complained of political repression, corruption and a denial of opportunity in a country where unemployment and rising food prices are oppressors in themselves.

It would seem that the 26-year-old’s martyrdom was not so much driven by tyranny as it was his refusal to fear the tyrants — or death — any longer.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CNN

Islamists in Egypt seek change through politics

Reporting from Alexandria, Egypt—

Nageh Ibrahim once spoke of slaying infidels and creating an Islamic state that would stretch from the Nile Delta to the vast deserts ofEgypt’s south. Today he lives in a high-rise with a view of the Mediterranean Sea and has the soothing voice of a man who could lead a 12-step program on rejecting radicalism.

Ibrahim’s group, Gamaa al Islamiya, plotted notorious attacks, including the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and the massacre at an ancient Luxor temple that killed 62 people, mostly tourists, in 1997. He spent 24 years in jail reading the Koran and tempering the rage of his youth.

“We were young and we took extreme measures. But now we’re old men and our time in prison has made us wiser,” he said. “Al Qaeda and Islamic militancy have lost their glamour. Look at what has happened. The young saw that violence didn’t bring change to Egypt, a peaceful revolution did.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE LA TIMES