العرس الديمقراطي التونسي

العرس الديمقراطي التونسي
رأي القدس

"توجه ملايين التونسيين يوم امس الى صناديق الاقتراع لانتخاب مجلس وطني تأسيسي يكون من أبرز مهامه وضع دستور جديد وانتخاب رئيس للجمهورية لفترة انتقالية لمدة عام وتشكيل حكومة تتولى ادارة شؤون البلاد، ريثما يتم انتخاب برلمان جديد لمدة أربع سنوات.
مراكز الاقتراع شهدت اقبالاً جماهيرياً غير مسبوق على طول البلاد وعرضها، واصطف الناس في طوابير امتدت لآلاف الامتار للإدلاء بأصواتهم في اول انتخابات حرة ونزيهة في تاريخ البلاد، وفاقت نسبة المشاركة اكثر من ستين في المئة حتى بعد ظهر امس.
اللافت ان تجاوزات محدودة جداً قد وقعت، ولم تحدث اي صدامات او اعمال تزوير، وكانت البسمة ترتسم على وجوه جموع المشاركين الذين وصفوا هذا اليوم، يوم الانتخابات، بانه عيد ديمقراطي انتظروه طويلاً طوال العقود الماضية.
السيد الباجي قائد السيسي رئيس وزراء تونس المؤقت الذي قاد دفة الحكم في البلاد طوال الشهور الأربعة الماضية، ويعتبر من المرشحين لرئاسة الجمهورية في فترتها المؤقتة (لمدة عام فقط) وصف المرحلة المقبلة بانها الأصعب، لأن هناك تطلعات كبرى في صفوف الشعب التونسي، كما ان هناك كتلاً متنافسة تحمل آراء سياسية وعقائدية مختلفة.
ما لم يقله رئيس الوزراء التونسي الذي ابلغ هذه الصحيفة انه جمع متعلقاته وأوراقه استعداداً للرحيل بمجرد تولي المجلس التأسيسي مهامه، ان هناك مخاوف، وان كانت محدودة، من حدوث خلاف على توزيع المواقع الرئيسية في المرحلة المقبلة، وخاصة رئاسة الجمهورية، رئاسة مجلس الوزراء ورئاسة المجلس التأسيسي.
تعرض الشيخ راشد الغنوشي زعيم حزب النهضة الاسلامي لبعض التهجمات المعادية اثناء ادلائه بصوته في احد مراكز الاقتراع يعكس جانباً آخر من هذه المخاوف، اي احتمالات الصراع بين الاسلاميين والعلمانيين، وهو صراع تتردد ارهاصاته على ألسنة الكثيرين في تونس هذه الأيام.
تونس التي انطلقت منها الشرارة الاولى والأقوى لثورات الربيع العربي، تشهد اول ثمار الديمقراطية لهذا الربيع، من خلال الانتخابات، وتكاتف جميع ابنائها لانجاحها، والتأسيس لنظام حكم تعددي يقوم على الشفافية والمؤسسات الديمقراطية المنتخبة وحكم القانون وترسيخ قيم العدالة والحريات.
الانطباع السائد في مختلف انحاء تونس يفيد بان الشعب التونسي الذي قدم التضحيات الغالية للاطاحة بالنظام الديكتاتوري سيكون الحارس القوي، والضمانة الحقيقية لاستمرار مسيرته الديمقراطية التي بدأت اولى خطواتها في الاتجاه الصحيح والمأمول بانتخابات الأمس.
التنافس بين الاسلاميين والعلمانيين ظل في اطار التنافس الحضاري الديمقراطي، وكل المؤشرات تؤكد حتى الآن انه سيكون كذلك، ومن اجل مصلحة تونس ورخاء شعبها.
الاسلاميون الذين تؤكد معظم النتائج الاولية انهم سيكونون الرابح الأكبر في هذه الانتخابات لا يستطيعون حكم البلاد بمفردهم، والعلمانيون لا يمكن، بل من المستحيل ان يلغوا الاسلاميين من الخريطة السياسية الجديدة وان اختلفوا معهم. فالتعايش والتوافق بين جميع الكتل والتيارات تحت سقف المجلس التأسيسي، وبعد ذلك البرلمان هو الخيار الوحيد المطروح اذا كان هؤلاء يريدون مستقبلاً واعداً بالأمل والرخاء للشعب التونسي.
المجلس التأسيسي الذي سينبثق عن هذه الانتخابات الحرة النزيهة سيعيد السلطة للشعب التونسي الذي بات الحاكم الفعلي للبلاد، فهذا الشعب هو اساس كل السلطات الثلاث: التشريعية والتنفيذية والقضائية، ومن المؤكد ان هذا الشعب الذي يتحلى بأرقى انواع الوعي سيكون متيقظاً للتصدي لأي اعوجاج او انحراف هنا او هناك.
لا نعرف ما هي مشاعر الرئيس التونسي المخلوع زين العابدين بن علي وهو يراقب هذا العرس الديمقراطي التونسي من منفاه الاضطراري في المملكة العربية السعودية، ولكن ما نعرفه انه سيشعر بالندم لانه لم يقدم لهذا الشعب، اثناء حكمه له، الذي امتد حوالي عشرين عاماً، ما يستحقه من حريات ومشاركة في الحكم عبر المؤسسات الديمقراطية.
مبروك للشعب التونسي عرسه الديمقراطي الذي يستحقه لانه قدم الدماء الزكية للوصول اليه.
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Al-Jazeera Video: Nazanine Moshiri talks to Tunisian blogger Zied Mhirsi

This is What Democracy Looks Like: 90% of Registered Voters Voted!
Mabruk (Congratulations) to Tunisia.

Imperialism and Democracy: White House or Liberty Square?

By James Petras

"Introduction: The relation between imperialism and democracy has been debated and discussed over 2500 years, from fifth century Athens to Liberty Park in Manhattan. Contemporary critics of imperialism (and capitalism) claim to find a fundamental incompatibility, citing the growing police state measures accompanying colonial wars, from Clinton’s anti-terrorist laws, and Bush’s “Patriot Act” to Obama’s ordering the extrajudicial assassination of overseas US citizens.....

Conclusion
We have argued that empire and democracy have been complementary in times of ascendant imperialism. We have shown that when wars of conquest have been short and inexpensive, and when the results have been lucrative for capital and job-creating for labor the democratic majorities joined in support of imperial elites. Democratic institutions flourished when overseas empires provided markets, cheap resources and raised living standards. Workers voted for imperial parties, held positive opinions of executive and legislative officials, and applauded the colonial war veterans (our troops). Some even volunteered and joined the military. With vast citizen support for empire, the state more or less ‘abided’ by the constitutional guarantees. But the marriage of democracy and imperialism is not ‘structural’. It is contingent on a series of variable conditions, which can cause a profound rupture between the two, as we are witnessing today.....

The present danger is that imperial structures are deeply embedded in all the key political institutions and are backed by an unprecedented vast and sprawling police state apparatus, called Homeland Security. Perhaps it will take a major external political-military shock to ignite the kind of mass democratic uprising needed to transform an imperial police state into a democratic republic. A growing sense of isolation and impotence affects the ruling regime in the face of overseas military defeats and unyielding, deepening domestic economic crisis. The danger is that these fears and frustrations could induce the White House to attempt to regain popular support by attacking Iran under a manufactured pretext. A US/Israeli assault on Iran will result in a world-wide conflagration. Iran could and would retaliate. Saudi and Gulf oil wells would go up in flames. Vital shipping lanes would be blocked. Gas prices would skyrocket while Asian, EU and US economies crash. Iranian troops with their Iraqi allies would lay siege to the US garrisons in Baghdad. Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of the Moslem world will take up arms. US forces would surrender or retreat. The war would shatter the US Treasury. Deficits would spiral out of control. Unemployment would double. This likely sequence of events would trigger a massive democratic movement and a decisive struggle between an emerging republic struggling to give birth and a decaying empire threatening to drag the world into the inferno of its own demise. "

Occupiers Have to Convince the Other 99 Percent

By Chris Hedges
TruthDig

"....What we are witnessing in parks and squares across the United States is not simply widespread revulsion over the greed and cruelty of corporate capitalism, but the articulation of a new and potent radicalism. This radicalism challenges the right of corporations to poison our ecosystem and turn greed and self-promotion into the highest good at the expense of human life. If this movement can cross class lines, if it can articulate its vision to those in marginalized communities, especially poor people of color, it can tap into a force and power that was never part of the New Left. It can make possible the shaking of the foundations and, let us hope, the toppling of the corporate state."

Must See: Documentary filmed in Syria exposing regime crimes

Al-Jazeera Video: Nazanine Moshiri updates from Tunisia

Tunisian elections: There can be no risk-free democracy

Some people are scared of elections if they can't predict the outcome. They are usually the old guard and their foreign backers. The Tunisian people are not scared any more

A VERY GOOD COMMENT
Sihem Bensedrine
(Sihem Bensedrine is a Tunisian journalist and human rights activist)
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 October 2011

"....Just as popular demand for democracy was ever more clear and left ever less room for doubt, so the transitional government led by Caied Essebsi and his panoply of "committees" was ever more committed to ignoring it, and instead to carry on serving up the old authoritarian menu. But the young people who created this revolution have their own vision, their own programme. The watchwords of the demonstrations and sit-ins held since 14 January reveal a lot about the clarity of thought of the young people who continually reiterate the three urgent unfinished reforms: justice (including social justice), police and media.

Today's elections will be the real test of the capacity of the political class to respond innovatively to the these demands. They need to step off the beaten path of autocratic kneejerk reactions and accept the verdict of the ballot box.

These are the first elections Tunisia has known since independence whose outcome is not known in advance. And that scares people. Firstly, it scares the European, and especially French, decision-makers who refuse to accept the risks which come with any free and fair election...

Resistance to change is predictable. We have rarely seen transitions in which people politely give up power. Nor is the transition from dictatorship to democracy a well-trodden path. The provisional government, obsessed by its concern not to upset the old guard, kicked urgently needed reforms into the long grass, and left the Constituent Assembly to deal with the four major areas of unfinished business of the transition – the preservation of vital records and archives, and the reform for the judiciary, the media and the police - as well as the task of installing a new government.....

Despite the fact that the electoral system which has been chosen tends to work against radical forces, and despite the role that money has played in the campaign, there is still everything to play for. The people of Tunisia will remain on guard to see that their revolution is not stolen from them. Fear has been banished from the hearts and minds of the people of Tunisia. They will inspire other countries, as they have inspired other revolutions."

Yet again, Tunisia can show Arab nations the way forward

Just as protests in Tunisia led the Arab spring, so its elections can show other Arab nations the way to true democracy

A VERY GOOD COMMENT
Issandr El Amrani
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 October 2011

"Yesterday, millions of Tunisians lined up – some for several hours – to vote in their country's first free election. Some voters came with their children to show them, they said, what democracy looks like. Many were also voting for the first time, having refused to take part in the masquerade that electoral politics was under the oppressive regime of their deposed dictator, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

The road to the polling stations has not been easy....

It is nothing short of a miracle to witness a country that only a year ago had one of the most repressive police states in the region now hold its freest elections. It is not just that these elections are technically sound: unlike the much-hailed polls in Iraq in the last decade, they are not taking place against a backdrop of civil war and military occupation, or with the sectarian calculations that have defined Lebanon's elections. These elections are taking place in a democratic spirit; Tunisia's parties are not backed by gangs and militias.....

The Tunisian people now seem doubly liberated: from a nasty regime, but also from their own guilt in not confronting it earlier. Many are embracing political activism for the first time in their lives in a manner that makes the apathy often prevalent in established democracies seem shameful.

There is nervousness about the election's results, of course. It is likely that Al-Nahda, an Islamist movement that leads in the polls, will do well, disturbing the strongly secular tradition of Tunisian politics since 1956. But, significantly, there are signs that Tunisian politics are maturing: today's al-Nahda seems far from the much more conservative and illiberal Islamist movement of the 1980s, and secular parties are grudgingly recognising that their presence on the political scene is legitimate. Indeed, al-Nahda's popularity appears to be as much based on the recognition of its leaders' ordeal – killings, torture and exile – as their religious ideas. In exchange for its political acceptance by secularists, al-Nahda has largely endorsed the relatively liberal social consensus instilled by Bourguiba.....

But just like Tunisia showed the way for the rest of the Arab world in January with its unlikely revolution, it now again offers a symbol of hope. Egypt, whose transition is currently a mess, and Libya, where it is only beginning, should take note."

Al-Jazeera Video: Nazanine Moshiri updates from Tunisia

Al-Jazeera Video: Syria's seven longest months

رسالة سرية من بيرس لشارون: بحثت مع ابو مازن الإطاحة بعرفات

عرب48

"يصدر في الأيام القريبة كتاب "شارون- سيرة حياة قائد"، لجلعاد شارون، ابن رئيس الوزراء السابق ارئيل شارون، والذي يعتمد على على وثائق ورسائل ومحاضر جلسات جمعها والده وأرشفها في منزله.
ويتناول الكتاب أهم المحطات في حياة شارون العسكرية والسياسية، ونشرت صحيفة "يديعوت أحرونوت" مقتطفات من الكتاب، من بينها رسالة سرية بخط يد وزير الخارجية في حكومته حينذاك شمعون بيرس.
وتوصف الرسالة في الكتاب بأنها "الرسالة التي تحرج أبو مازن"، وتتضمن محضر جلسة سرية عقدت بين بيرس وأبو مازن.
وحسب الكتاب فإن ابو مازن وبيرس كانا يجريان اتصالات سرية تنسيقية من وراء ظهر رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية حينذاك ياسر عرفات.
وتشير الرسالة إلى أن أبو مازن حذر بيرس من انه إذا انكشف أمر اللقاء فإن حياته ستكون في خطر:"إذا انكشف أمر اللقاء سأكون في عداد الأموات ".
وحسب الرسالة، قال أبو مازن لبيرس: " ينبغي أن تتوقف إسرائيل عن الثناء عليه كي لا تمس في فرص انتخابه رئيسا للحكومة". ويصف أبو مازن، الراحل عرفات، بحسب الرسالة بأنه "إنسان غير واقعي"، كما طلب أبو ازن مساعدة إسرائيل في إقناع الولايات المتحدة بمنح معونات مالية للفلسطينيين، بعد انتخابه.
ويقول بيرس في الرسالة أنه ناقش مع ابو مازن في جلسة سابقة الإطاحة بعرفات.
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Wanted, by Schrank

Bury Gaddafi with dignity

Gaddafi's body should be treated with dignity in order to send a message to other dictators and future generations.

Hamid Dabashi
Al-Jazeera

"....
It is imperative for the future of the Arab Spring that the hopes and aspirations of these revolutions determine the course of action rather than the NATO alliance who will be paving the way for European and American oil companies.

The proper burial of Colonel Gaddafi would also provide a signal to other remaining dictators in the region. They too must see a safe and sane way out of their bloody deeds. They too must be given the chance to recognise the world has changed— that we are not going to repeat the vicious cycle of one brutal downfall after another. All the tyrants of the region, from Iran to Syria, from Bahrain to Yemen, must be able to see a dignified way out, without NATO intervention.

As Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy think of how to turn the Arab Spring around and to their advantage, and as European and American oil companies think of the lucrative contracts shining forth from Tripoli, Libyans, Arabs, and Muslims, must think of the enduring sense of dignity that the Arab Spring has in store for the future of their children.

Bury Colonel Gaddafi in a manner befitting the dignity of Libya, the pride of Arabs and the faith of Muslims."

Plus ça change: Iraq Done; On to Iran!

One not-so-funny fact about Washington is that nearly all the news media stars who fell for neoconservative falsehoods about Iraq are still around to fall for new ones on Iran, even some like Richard Cohen who briefly regretted his earlier gullibility

by Ray McGovern

"Paul R. Pillar, my former colleague in the CIA’s analytical division, has raised a warning flag, cautioning that the same imaginative neocon composers who came up with the various refrains on why we needed to attack Iraq are now providing similar background music for a strike on Iran.

He is right. And as one of my Russian professors used to say, “This is nothing to laugh!”

Pillar’s piece – dissecting an op-ed by the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen about the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington – first appeared on The National Interest Web site. On Oct. 21, it was posted at Consortiumnews.com under the title “Sloppy Iran Think by WPost’s Cohen.”

The Cohen column that Pillar critiques is entitled “The alarm bells behind Iran’s alleged assassination plot.” Yet Cohen’s “alarm bells” ringing now about Iran brought a painful reminder of all the alarms he and his colleagues sounded in cheerleading for the attack on Iraq in 2002 and 2003.

Cohen was one of the many big-name opinion leaders to put on the pompoms after Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his deceptive Iraq War speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003. Joining a cheerleading pyramid of pro-war consensus, Cohen mocked anyone who still doubted that Saddam Hussein possessed hidden WMD stockpiles....."

Al-Jazeera Video: Syrian opposition member speaks to Al Jazeera

"Louay Safi, a member of the newly formed Syrian National Council, says the overthrow of the Libyan leadership has given Syrian protesters more hope that their struggle will lead to victory."

BBC report on situation inside syria

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Story - Libya after Gaddafi

Includes Abdel Bari Atwan

Al-Jazeera Video: Questions remain about Gaddafi's death

"Speculation is rife about the precise manner of Muammar Gaddafi's death.

Libyan leaders say he was killed in a crossfire after fighters found him hiding in a tunnel.
But footage shows him alive after his capture, only to be pronounced dead a short time later.

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley reports from the scene of his death just outside of Sirte."

Cartoon From the Montreal Gazette: 6.5 Million Gun Salute!

Libya after Gaddafi: A dangerous precedent?

The death of a dictator is being celebrated, but foreign intervention could prove problematic in the long-term.

Richard Falk
Al-Jazeera

"The fall and death of the despised and despotic leader who had ruled for 42 years naturally produced celebrations throughout Libya, especially in the main cities. Although his end was bloody and vindictive, warning that a violent aftermath could further spoil the outcome of the struggle, we should remember that Gaddafi’s early rants against his own people invited a harsh popular response if their turn came.

Recalling WH Auden’s famous line, “Those to whom evil is done/ do evil in return,” it is almost inevitable that when a leader refers to his opponents as "rats" and pledges to hunt them down house by house the stage is set for the kind of violent drama that played out a few days ago in the dictator’s last stand at Sirte.....

More hopefully it is worth observing that unlike Hosni Mubarak, whose overthrow did not by itself alter the structure of power in Egypt, the fall of Gaddafi gives the victorious Libyan opposition a clean slate that is likely to be receptive to democratic state-building. In this crucial respect, whereas the most that Egyptians can hope for at this stage is either modest constitutional reforms or the patience to await a second reckoning in Tahrir Spring that sweeps the old order away. Libyans, by contrast, are presented with this rare opportunity for a genuine revolutionary transformation of their political, economic, and cultural life. In this respect, it could turn out to be helpful that Gaddafi was the Libyan state, and left no institutional infrastructure behind following his departure....

In the meantime, we can only hope that the Libyans seize the occasion given to them to establish a viable and independent democratic state that is respectful of the human rights of all Libyans, and energetic in its efforts at reconstructing the country without being overly hospitable to foreign investors and companies! The NATO countries are also challenged to stand aside, and allay neo-imperial suspicions. Having waged a devastating air campaign, it is now NATO’s duty to exhibit respect for the exercise of Libya’s inalienable right of self-determination."