Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 8/9/2024
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East.
Last week’s roundup is here.
General
Trissia Wijaya and Kanishka Jayasuriya, “A New Multipolar Order: Combined Development, State Forms and New Business Classes” in International Affairs. From the article:
The emergence of this new ‘interior bourgeoisie’—borrowing one of Nicos Poulantzas’ terms—is one of the central features of the new multipolarity. It is the recombination of the power blocs in favour of the interior bourgeoisie that is a defining feature of the current global (dis)order. The interior bourgeoisie is a specific sector of the business class that has emerged from the UCD [uneven and combined development] of neo-liberal capitalism. This class needs to be located within the specific localized processes of political economy that link various regions to the global capitalist economy. Adam Hanieh notes how, in the Gulf states, this new business class emerged ‘in “hothouse” fashion—from state-supported and family-based trading groups in the 1960s and 1970s to the domination of a few massive conglomerates in the contemporary period’. Likewise, in the case of Indonesia, Faris Al-Fadhat highlights how the state has been leveraging selective industrial policies to facilitate the transnationalization of well-connected family-based conglomerates. This has enabled this fraction of capital to consolidate itself as a new business class which latterly has served as the social foundation of regional economic integration in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), notably the ASEAN Economic Community. The key point here is that these fractions are a key part of the ruling bloc in many rising powers, and are often in cooperation—and conflict—with diverse regulatory geographies pursed by China and the US. Such conflicts are not external to the state but internalized within it.
Mujtaba Isani, Daniel Silverman, and Joseph Kaminski, “The Other Legitimate Game in Town? Understanding Public Support for the Caliphate in the Islamic World” in the American Journal of Islam and Society. The abstract:
In recent years, essentialist claims about the incompatibility of democracy and Islam have been swept away by public opinion research revealing that democracy is widely supported in the Islamic world. However, while this literature has demonstrated the popularity of democracy over authoritarianism, we argue that it misses a key piece of the puzzle by not examining Muslim public support for an alternative model of government: the Caliphate system. After outlining three different visions of the Caliphate in Islamic political thought – an autocratic view, a democratic view, and an instrumentalist or “good governance” view – we analyze how it is conceptualized today by its supporters with existing and original surveys conducted in several Islamic countries. We first engage with an existing cross-national survey conducted in several Muslim-majority countries that include Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan in order to investigate the sources of public support for the Caliphate, broadly speaking. We then move on to our own original, nationally representative survey conducted in Pakistan to analyze more deeply the political institutions and dimensions most associated with the Caliphate and democracy. Our results suggest that, like democracy, the Caliphate is understood by its supporters primarily in instrumental terms, as a vehicle for effective systems of welfare and justice rather than as a specific institutional configuration or simply as a means for policing public modesty and morality.
Sahel and West Africa
The fallout of the July 25-27 battle at Tinzaouaten, far northern Mali, continues to reverberate domestically, regionally, and in geopolitics. I wrote a little about it here. Ulf Laessing argues that Ukraine really messed up, diplomatically, by claiming some involvement in the episode. Both Mali and Niger have now broken relations with Ukraine.
Better not wave a Russian flag at a Nigerian protest.
Concerns about press freedom continue in Senegal.
A draft constitution in junta-ruled Guinea would not exclude current military ruler Mamadi Doumbouya from running for presidency.
Following the re-election of President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in June, Mauritania has a new prime minister, Mokhtar Ould Diay, and a new government.
North Africa
On August 5, Tunisian President Kais Saied submitted his candidacy for the October 6 presidential elections. Several other candidates and would-be candidates have faced obstacles ranging from prison sentences to authorities refusing to provide their criminal records, a document required for submitting a candidacy.
On August 7, Saied dismissed his Prime Minister Ahmed Hachani and replaced him with Social Affairs Minister Kamel Madouri.
Yasmina Abouzzohour and Tarik Yousef for the Middle East Council on Global Affairs:
Trust in the military is surprisingly high in the Middle East and North Africa: Despite military involvement in coups, conflicts, political interference, and economic encroachment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the majority of surveyed citizens express high trust in the armed forces, significantly more than other national institutions.
Salma El Wardany in Bloomberg: “Libya’s Biggest Oil Field Sharara Fully Halts Production.” More here, from The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour:
The political complexities of Libya’s oil industry were highlighted at the weekend when allies of the warlord Khalifa Haftar were said to have tried to shut down a Spanish-operated oilfield in reprisal for an arrest warrant issued by Spain for his son over alleged weapons smuggling.
Saddam Haftar, a key military figure in his father’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), was detained at an airport in Naples, Italy, for an hour on Friday after his name appeared on a common EU database. Those close to Haftar say he was questioned by Italian officials in relation to Spanish allegations, but insist he was never arrested.
Bilel Nasiri (pseudonym) in New Lines Magazine: “Imane Khelif’s Punch and the Culture Wars.” An excerpt:
The attacks against Khelif have prompted an unprecedented wave of solidarity [within Algeria], with sporting associations, state and private new channels and even the Algerian president wading in to express support for Khelif. In a tweet, Abdel Madjid Tebboune said: “Congratulations on qualifying Imane_Khelif. You have honored Algeria, Algerian women and Algerian boxing.. We will stand by your side no matter what your results are.. Good luck in the next two rounds.. and onwards Imane_Khelif viva_Algeria.”
Greater Horn of Africa
Abdihakim Ainte, Director of Food Security and Climate in the office of Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, speaks to The New Humanitarian:
While Ainte said Somalia was “grateful” for the lives saved by humanitarian action, he said they were “for the short term not… long term. And that’s a problem”.
After disasters, everyone goes “back to their silos, and then we wait” for the next disaster, Ainte added. “That's not sustainable.”
“We have to end this waiting game, it's time for this… humanitarian money to be redirected and invested in more long-term, more resilient institutions that can withstand, [and] address whatever crisis occurs,” he said. “The humanitarian money should be redesigned… and invested into a development project… the money should go into the government account.”
The New York Times reports from the Nuba Mountains.
Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair briefs the United Nations Security Council on the situation of women amid Sudan’s civil war.
Human Rights Watch calls on the Ethiopian government to free Millo Urgessa, brother of the opposition politician Batte Urgessa:
Batte was last seen alive at a guest house in his hometown of Meki, in the East Shewa Zone of Ethiopia’s Oromia region, on April 9. Early the next morning, residents found his bound body with a gunshot wound to the head, on the outskirts of town. In the ensuing days, local police announced the arrest of 13 suspects to the killing, including Batte’s younger brother, Millo, a family friend, Ebba Wane, and the owner of the guest house where Batte had been staying. Many of them remain in detention. Batte was an outspoken political officer of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) opposition group.
Mashriq
We had resolved, on arriving to Lebanon, to avoid the southern suburbs of Beirut and the south of the country, where we normally go in the summer, entirely. Since the attack on Haret Hreiq and the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, the flow of people arriving in Lebanon for the summer has reversed even as many commercial flights have been cancelled. The governments of the US, the UK, France and other states have advised their citizens to leave immediately ‘on any ticket available to them’. We bought the first available tickets we could afford, leaving in five long days. I remember watching in July 2006 as everyone with a foreign passport was being evacuated. I now find myself on the other side of that dividing line, trying to escape with my family and leaving my parents, relatives and friends behind amid fears of an all-out war.
Muriam Davis excavates some oddities in a New Yorker article on Hezbollah.
B’Tselem, in a new report: “Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps.”
A CNN investigation suggests that Hamas “appears to have made effective use of dwindling resources on the ground. Several units have made a comeback in key areas cleared by the Israeli military after pitched battles and intensive bombardment, according to the new analyses, salvaging the remnants of their battalions in a desperate bid to replenish their ranks.” Sam Heller, referencing a piece he wrote back in April, argues that the CNN report is off base and fundamentally misunderstands what Israeli forces are doing and seeking in Gaza. From Heller’s April piece:
Israel is waging a coercive counterinsurgency campaign that relies on overwhelming force and strict population control. That control entails concentrating displaced Gazans in small, contained pockets as Israel eliminates militant holdouts elsewhere, in an indefinite, potentially years-long series of targeted raids. By the war’s conclusion, Gaza’s insurgents will be mostly dead. The civilian population will have been starved and brutalized into submission, and will likely remain under Israeli military supervision.
In January, The Wall Street Journal made an explosive claim: Quoting “intelligence reports,” the paper reported that not only had 12 members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, taken part in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but 10% of the relief agency’s 12,000 workers in Gaza had ties to militant groups.
[…]
But months later, the paper’s top editor overseeing standards privately made an admission: The paper didn’t know — and still doesn’t know —whether the allegation, based on Israeli intelligence reports, was true.
Al Jazeera (Arabic): “The World As Yahya Sinwar Sees It.”