The December 2004 issue is now online. Looks fascinating. Its focus is on Arab media and how it relates to reform. In addition to a number of country-specific articles, it has statistics, regional trends of various sorts, and information on journalists and funding.

Insights and Analysis

• Shattering the "Politics of Silence:" Satellite Television Talk Shows and the Transformation of Arab Political Culture By Marc Lynch
  Arab satellite news stations represent one of the Middle East's most potent forces for reform.
• Arab Satellite Television: Can It Rise Above Spectacle? By Jon B. Alterman
  Pan-Arab satellite TV has brought more open political talk into studios, but not yet more open politics on the ground.
• Privatization Alone Will Not Loosen Arab Governments' Grip on Broadcasting By Naomi Sakr
  Until Arab broadcasting is independently regulated, aspiring independent broadcasters will face pressures from above and below.
• Cyber-Struggle: Islamist Websites versus the Egyptian State By Omayma Abdel-Latif
  Islamist websites are trying to break the state's monopoly over the political and social agenda.
• Washington and the Challenge of Arab Press Freedom By William A. Rugh
  It is no simple matter for the United States to apply its cherished press freedom principles in its Middle East policy.
• Iraq: Nightmare of Violence Dashes Hopes for a Free Press By Borzou Daragahi
  Iraqi journalists face dangers from the insurgency, U.S. forces, and the Iraqi interim government.
• Kurdish Media After the War By Maggy Zanger
  Kurdistan is the most secure and economically thriving place in Iraq, but the Kurdish media are slow to take advantage of the situation.
• Media Reform in Syria: A Door Ajar? By Ammar Abdulhamid
  The Syrian regime is tolerating limited expressions of dissent in the media, but will reformers take advantage of the new opening?
• Still Shooting the Messenger in Morocco By Aboubakr Jamai
  King Muhammad VI has displayed an ambivalent, sometimes hostile attitude toward Morocco's new independent press.
• Egypt: Political Films and the Politics of Filmmaking By Walter Armbrust
  The politics of Egyptian film reflect an often complex mix of internal and external forces for change.

News and Views

• Statistics on the Arab Media
  
• Trends in Media Law Reform
  
• Trends in New Arab Media
  
• A Snapshot of the Iraqi Media Scene
  
• Reports on Press Freedom in Arab Countries
  
• Private Broadcasting in Palestine
  
• Al Jazeera Initiatives
  
• New Journalists' Associations
  
• U.S. Funding for Arab Media
  
• Views from the Arab Press

Read On
A roundup of new writings on Arab media and reform.

The Arabic edition of this issue of the Arab Reform Bulletin will be available by December 22 at http://www.alwatan.com.kw/arb.

You say you want democracy in the Middle East. You may think the best hope is to bring democracy by gunpoint to Fallujah or to Sudan.

I disagree. I think you people have it mostly wrong.

Support this guy.

I don't know enough about Egyptian politics to be able to say how unprecedented this is, but it is encouraging:

More than 650 politicians, activists and intellectuals issued a landmark joint statement saying they will push to amend Egypt's constitution to prevent Hosni Mubarak, the country's president for almost a quarter of a century, from standing for another term next year.

Mubarak, 76, has been Egypt's president and leader of the National Democratic Party since replacing his assassinated predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in 1981. His current six-year term ends in October, 2005 and he has not chosen a successor. In four previous presidential referendums, which require Egyptians to vote yes or no, he has been the sole candidate.

Some 689 people, ranging from Islamists to Communists and including 30 lawmakers, signed a petition Saturday in the name of The Popular Campaign for Reforms, an umbrella group formed last month to try to amend Egypt's constitution to limit a president to holding two terms only.

Among the signatories, including 26 human rights and civil society groups and opposition political parties, was the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic group, which has 17 members represented in the Egyptian parliament as independents.

The petition, a copy of which was faxed to The Associated Press, said maintaining the system of one-man rule in Egypt would be "an obstacle to all opportunities for reform and progress which the country needs in order to face political, social and economical challenges."

These included curbing the spread of corruption, deterioration of public services, price increases, fall in standard of living and rising unemployment levels, the petition said.

How will the U.S. react? It's time to see if we're serious about this whole "democracy in the Middle East" thing.

UPDATE [10:01 AM 10/25/04] by praktike: Issandr El Amrani of the Arabist network is optimistic yet cynical:

The left and the Islamists have taken some time to get together and find common ground, but at least they finally have. The group that’s still missing, though, is precisely the one Western powers would most like to see succeed the military regime: the “liberal” businessmen who have been nurtured for years as a rising force in Egyptian politics and are now – to a certain extent – represented by Gamal Mubarak and his cronies.

Hmmm.

Abu Aardvark has more analysis. Short version: it isn't unprecedented, and the fact that the reformers appealed to the AP is a sign of weakness. And Gamal Mubarak is being put forward within the NDP as a reformer, but he's an unknown quantity and he happens to be the son of a dictator, which undercuts his reformist credentials.

A high-minded review of Cairo's Azhar Park, the new green space that is just out of view in this photo of mine. Now I understand what my guide at the Blue Mosque was trying to tell me.

While a park is certainly superior to a garbage dump, my hunch is that the park itself isn't going to be the kind of revitalizing influence that its designers intended it to be. Across a major thoroughfare, atop a hill and surrounded by walls, it isn't connected to the fabric of the neighborhood at all. The history of urban design is littered with the detritus of grandiose but ultimately inhuman monuments to the ego of the designer. It's the people, stupid! (And the connectivity) What's more, it isn't catered to the needs of the residents, who would probably greatly prefer soccer fields to formal gardens. Nor does there seem to be a plan for the type of development spillover that such urban parks are usually designed to generate. My old prof, Alexander Garvin, would raise his elfin eyebrows at the missed opportunity. Vincent Scully would bemoan the inhumanity of it all, and mumble something uplifting about the ancient Greeks. And David Sucher, if he weren't such a mild-mannered fellow, would have a conniption.

Far more beneficial than the park, I think, are the kinds of community building activities being undertaken by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture--training locals to renovate and upgrade their own neighborhood, educating them about the rich architectural and cultural heritage of Islamic Cairo, involving them in the revitalization process. The architectural visitor's center is an overdue idea; hopefully it will be a meeting point for tourists and interested residents alike.

All of which, of course, the Times reporter Nicolai Ouroussoff is saying in the article, but in a fancier way.

UPDATE: [2:10 PM 10/25/04] by praktike: Thoughts on the park from "Hellme," one of the few Egyptian bloggers I've come across:

The first thing that comes to mind is the question of how long it will take the locals to ruin the new Agha Khan Azhar Gardens (eloquently covered in this article). Knowing Egyptians, and knowing the flood of people that decend on the Giza Zoo whenever the weather allows or during public holidays, I have a haunting suspicion that Al Azhar's garden's - a multimillion project that demands as much attention as the Alexandria Bibliotheca - will wither away and die, and become a distant remnant of what Cairo could be, but isn't. I also wonder whether I'm just being obtusely pessimistic without cause.

Cheerio.

Questioner: What would happen if, let's just say, there were elections in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood won? What would happen?

Briefer: Well, then they'd have to balance the budget, run the government …

Questioner: No, I mean, would there ever be another election?

Briefer: Well, sure. Why not?

Questioner: That's naïve. The Muslim Brotherhood would bar elections.

Briefer: I don't think so ... I think ...

Questioner: That’s why we can't have elections.

Briefer: I don't understand what you mean.

Questioner: Oh come on. This is really simple. We can't have elections in the Arab world because the Islamists would win -- and that would be the end of democracy.

-- Heard on Capitol Hill

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. cover Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

--Excerpt from Catch-22

praktike's Cairo trip will coincide with the second annual convention -- Sept 21-23 -- of the ruling party (National Democratic Party). The theme of this year's conference is "New Thinking and the Priorities of Reform" which, will highlight economic reforms and political reforms.

On the political reform side, according to "Reform Debate Heats Up" from Al Ahram Weekly, it seems some changes are to be made to the process that regulates the formation and operation of opposition parties. At the least, the changes should improve on the current "system" of vague and arbitrary application of the rules.

Parellel to the preparations by the NDP for the conference, a group of eight opposition poltical parties has taken some steps to organize themselves to press for constitutional reforms prior to the transfer of power from Mubarak that will come, sooner or later. They have created a joint secretariat to develop a unified reform agenda, coordinate action and speak with a unified voice. They intend "outreach" not only to professional and human rights groups but to others currently even further outside the political system, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Apparently both the opposition groups and the NDP agree that this is not a "declaration of war" or serious threat to the ruling party. There is considerably less agreement on the sorts of reforms that should be front and center. The NDP doesn't plan for constitutional reforms, and orderly succession, to be on the list at their convention labelled "Priorities for Reform."

NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif said the ruling party did not see the opposition conference as an overt attempt to sabotage the ruling party's upcoming conference. He said the NDP did not think constitutional reform was a priority right now. "[Too] much talk on constitutional reform on the part of the opposition will open the door to foreign intervention in domestic affairs," El-Sherif said. "The opposition should recognise this fact, and opt to seek common ground with the NDP, so as not to allow foreign powers to meddle with the country's future."

Somewhat sad that Bush's loud advocacy of freedom and democracy is being used to justify avoiding fundamental democratic reforms by the regime that the US hopes will "lead by example" in reforming the Middle East!

So out of curiosity, I was checking out USAID's roster of accomplishments in the Arab world's largest country, Egypt.

Here's their self-assessment:

The United States and Egypt launched their cooperative development program in 1975, and, for the past 28 years, a collaborative partnership in economic development has flourished. $25.6 billion in U.S. Government assistance has been devoted to these efforts. The two countries have built a strong and productive relationship, resulting in an impressive legacy of major achievements and concrete improvements in the lives of millions of Egyptian in all parts of the country. USAID's programs in Egypt focus on economic growth and include an emphasis on: trade and investment; education; health and population; environment and antiquities; infrastructure; workforce development; and democracy and governance. Among many accomplishments, USAID/Egypt has:

• Built 1,998 schools
• Lent 2.7 billion Egyptian pounds to 400,000 small businesses, creating 250,000 jobs;
• Funded $300 million for Egyptian government loans to 2.3 million small farmers;
• Funded 800,000 telephone lines serving 4.8 million users;
• Trained 570,000 Egyptians in agriculture and irrigation sciences;
• Financed 51 Compressed Natural Gas stations and firms that converted 40,000 vehicles;
• Benefited 40 million electricity consumers by funding $1. 8 billion in upgrades;
• Financed $3.1 billion in commodity imports for 1,700 private sector importers;
• Financed $3.9 billion in equipment and commodity imports for public bodies;
• Encouraged economic reform with $3.75 billion in budget support to the government;
• Spurred rural incomes by investing $1.3 billion in productivity and sector development.

Now, this sounds pretty good. And one can certainly imagine an alternative history of the past 28 years in which Egypt did not receive this help and was worse off than it is today. Some would even say that our relationship with Egypt has created excessive dependency and stunted its development; I've seen that asserted but not convincingly argued. For now, let's assume that we have in fact been helpful.

Yet, judging by the latest poll numbers in Egypt, all of these good deeds seem to have garnered the United States an approximate 2% approval rating.

What does this suggest about Iraq?

Useful overview in the Washington Post of a variety of groups getting energized by contemplating the end of Mubarak's rule, which will come sooner or later.

It covers a diverse range of groups from the whole spectrum, including a right-center group, Tomorrow, that has a 600 page reform plan. Tomorrow hasn't been allowed to register as a party yet. And other groups have chosen to avoid registration altogether. a bit on the monitoring by the Egyptian government. And an overall tone that the choice isn't simply between the Mubarak regime (and its potential heirs) versus a reactionary Islamist system.    more »