Justice in an Imperfect World

In a perfect world, justice delayed is indeed justice denied, but we live in an imperfect world and, therefore, justice delayed sometimes has to be considered as justice served.

Such is the case with Serbian commander Ratko Mladic, architect of the slaughter of 8,000 children, women and men in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995. Sixteen years after committing genocide and crimes against humanity, Mladic was arrested in Serbia on May 26 and now awaits extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Srebrenica has become synonymous with mass murder and ethnic cleansing, comparable in intensity to Nazi atrocities against the Jews during World War II. Together with Radovan Karadzic, currently awaiting his own trial for crimes against humanity, Mladic demanded that his troops use rape as a weapon of war. The siege of Sarajevo that the two orchestrated lasted from 1992-1995 and took the lives of an estimated 10,000 Roman Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims. The cruelty was unrelenting, the savagery unmatched.

Mladic was driven by a sense of himself as a savior of his people and as the avenger of historical events that took place almost two centuries ago when Ottoman Turks ruled what is now Serbia. The death of his 23-year-old daughter by suicide in 1994 only increased his thirst for revenge.

Mladic’s arrest, and that of Karadzic in July 2008, sends a strong signal to the world’s despots that their days are numbered, that the long arm of international law will eventually flush them out from any dirty corner of the world they may be hiding in, and bring them to justice.

This is particularly important for Arab tyrants who, for decades, have been torturing and imprisoning their people at will while looting the national treasury for supporting their sybaritic lifestyles.

The Tunisian dictator Ben Ali fled the country when his people rose in revolt against him in January this year. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and his sons were arrested in April for corruption, crimes and using deadly violence against protesters.

As long as the rule of law, and not vengeance, dictates the fate of these modern-day pharaohs, there is reason for optimism, although much remains to be done in a region where hereditary monarchy and oligarchy seems to have become the norm.

Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi has been killing Libyans with impunity since he seized power in 1969. He has never tolerated the slightest dissent and deployed spies and secret police to subjugate his people. Since the uprising against him in February, he has killed thousands of Libyans with the help of mercenaries. He has gone into hiding as NATO targets him and his sycophants in and around Tripoli. International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis-Moreno Ocampo is seeking arrest warrants against Gadhafi, his son Saif al-Islam and spy chief Abdullah al-Sensussi for crimes against humanity.

In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh refuses to bow to people’s will, adamantly clinging to power that he has held for 32 years. Hundreds of Yemenis have been killed and undoubtedly more will die in the coming days.

The situation is grimmest in Syria where Bashar Assad has let loose shadowy, mafia-style gunmen to kill protesters. The gunmen openly shoot people they think are a danger to Assad’s regime. They confiscate and grab whatever they like, be it cars, houses, or even women. So far, Assad’s loyalists and security forces have killed over 1,000 Syrians.

The similarity between Assad and Mladic is frightening. When the Syrian uprising began in March in the southern city of Dar’a, Assad ordered his troops to lay siege to the city, as Mladic did in Sarajevo, shutting off electricity, water and telephones. The army arrested schoolchildren who scrawled ant-government graffiti on walls and imprisoned hundreds of young men simply because of their age. There's also precedent in the family. Hafez Assad, Bashar Assad's father, laid siege to the city of Hama in 1982 and killed some twenty thousand Syrians as the world stood silently by.

Luis-Moreno Ocampo must urgently seek arrest warrants also against Bashar Assad and his brother Maher Assad, head of the elite Republican Guard. His troops continue to fire indiscriminately on peaceful protesters and funeral marchers in Syrian cities.

What these despots never anticipated was the reach of social media. Confronted with Twitter, Facebook and the likes, they appear frustrated even as the killing goes on. When government-appointed goons fire on protesters, the image is instantly broadcast across the globe. When a prisoner is tortured, the act is caught on camera and becomes instant news.

A young, web-savvy generation has found in technology an enabler that aids their revolution. They have lost their fear. There is no stopping them now as they fight and die for freedom and justice.

Generals and dictators who commit genocide against their perceived enemies or their own people cannot escape justice. It may take decades or it may take months, but they will have to account for what they have done and pay the price in courts of law. That is the new reality.

Protest Against Egypt's Dictator in San Francisco

(2/5/11) Greg Lyons converted to Buddhism several years ago. He is in downtown San Francisco on a spring-like day to take part in the demonstration against Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. “Our intentions are important,” he says. “They are the seeds of reality.” He is optimistic that people power will prevail in Egypt after decades of dictatorship. “But change must come from within. If America tries to bring about the change that Egyptians are dying for, it will be a disaster. They must do it themselves.”

One reason why grassroots revolution is sweeping the Arab world is the enormous income gap between the rich and the poor. “Do you think that kind of class struggle can happen here in the U.S.?” I ask Greg.

“What do you mean can it happen here?” he asks back. “It’s already happening! Just look around you, a few blocks from here, and you can see how many Americans have become destitute. We have become one of the most unjust societies in the world.”

We chant slogans - 1,000 Americans strong - who have gathered at the United Nations Plaza. “Down, Down, Hosni Mubarak! Yasqut, Yasqut, Hosni Mubarak!”

Jack Kornfield also feels strongly that Egyptians must take control of their own destiny. The soft-spoken person becomes agitated when he talks about how the U.S. may undermine the aspirations of Egyptians. “U.S. has got to stay out. I am confident Egypt will find its own way. People on the streets of Cairo and other cities are smarter than the people in Washington.”

Hassan, an Egyptian, is a doctoral student in a California University. He is grateful to Tunisians for showing the way but believes that since Egypt is a bigger and more “critical country,” the revolution must succeed in his homeland for other Arab countries to emulate. He wants the new government to stop selling Egyptian land to foreign investors, as Mubarak’s government has been doing. “The king and his corrupt cronies fatten their pockets while the poor become poorer!”

“No justice, no peace,” exhorts an organizer from the makeshift dais, and we respond in unison.

Farida, a young Egyptian student, narrates how she tried to get her voter card in Cairo last November to vote in the parliamentary elections but was harassed and intimidated at every step of the way. An officer at the police station asked her, “Who are you going to vote for?” Emboldened by a friend who threatened to bring a lawyer, the officer quickly changed his tune and gave her the voting card. But many of her friends got the runaround for weeks until they gave up in frustration. (The election was, as usual, completely rigged by Mubarak and his minions.) These young people have never known anyone other than Mubarak as their ruler. They felt defeated, until they saw what happened in Tunisia. Everyone cheered when Farida said January 25 would be the most important day in the history of modern Egypt.

Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, women, men, babies in strollers and veterans in wheelchairs, the young, the old, Imams, Rabbis and Priests filled the Plaza. Colorful signs sprouted everywhere: “Stop U.S. Military Aid to Egypt,” “Buddhist, Jews in solidarity with the Muslim and Christian People of Egypt,” “Mubarak in De-Nile, Get Out!,” “Ali Baba is Gone. What about the Forty Thieves?” “DeNile Ain’t Just a River in Egypt,” “Dying for Something is Better than Living for Nothing,” and many more.

Maryam Bin Salah, a doctoral student from Tunisia asks in wonder: “Just two months ago, could you have dared to dream that two dictators would fall? Why are we ruled by trash in Arab countries? All our thinkers and scholars and engineers are either in exile or in prison. Why? Why are we treated so badly? We must rid our countries of dictators so our inventors and our best minds can return and rebuild our nations.”

Imam Abdul Aziz of Sacramento, an Egyptian, asks us to put pressure on the White House to make the right decision. “Just think,” he said, “the revolution is raging for the 12^th straight day. There is uncertainty, sure, but what is certain is that the brave people of Tunisia and Egypt have already prevailed. All supporters of democracy have prevailed. Even after Mubarak is forced to resign, people will remain in the streets until true democracy rules. We have a chance to become a developed country rather than remain frozen as a third world country.”

The Imam chokes with emotion but recovers: “I have a cousin, a young fellow, in Tahrir Square right now. He has never had an aim in life, frittering away his time in frivolous pursuits. I just spoke to him. He told me, ‘I will die for my country until we have democracy and rule of law.’ The revolution is changing hearts. Some are already swayed by the crocodile tears of Mubarak. ‘Give him a chance,’ they say. ‘The economy will be destroyed. Old people are not getting their pension. The sick are not getting their medicine.’ All I can say to them is: Shut up! We have been in prison for 30 years. The thugs have stolen $70 billion of our money that are now in the banks in Switzerland and France and England. Egyptians will stay on the streets until their demands are met!”

Tim Paulson, a labor union representative tells the gathering that Americans must learn from Egyptians “so we know how to secure our own rights here in America. We must remain vigilant until Egyptians can live their dreams. Mubarak is only four hours from Saudi Arabia. Enough is enough. Get out!”

A new slogan reverberates around the Plaza:
Ben Ali Yesterday, Mubarak Today, Qaddafi Tomorrow!

Mo, an activist with the Jewish Voice for Peace (http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/ - Israelis and Palestinians. Two people. One Future), told me: “It is not for presidents and kings to give people their freedom. Freedom is God’s gift to people. We must be united together.”

“Israel has expressed anxiety about democracy coming to Egypt. Why is that?” I ask. Mo sighs. “Because it is easy,” he says, “for Israel to engage in the politics of fear. Israel must act like a country in the Middle East and not as if it is a transplant of the West. It will be good for Israel if democracy comes to Arab countries.”

Mo wants the U.S. to do everything it can to let democracy bloom in the Middle East instead of promoting its candidates in the name of stability. “Jews and Muslims are not separate,” he said. “We are united by a common future.” He is sure that the last pharaoh will soon go. “Coddling dictators has been the U.S. policy. That has to change. All this talk about the Brotherhood coming to power is a tactic to create anxiety and undermine the revolution of the people.”

“O Mubarak can’t you see, Time to join Ben Ali.” The rhyming slogans are catchy and energizing and make us smile.

More people are pouring in. I realize with a shock that three hours have already passed. When stories and images of oppressed people breaking free from their oppressors grip us, time becomes inconsequential.

People sitting on the fences say that demonstrations, rallies and protest marches don’t change anything. What they don’t understand is that, at the very least, they change the participants in subtle and significant ways. Change without can come only from change within.

What Tunisians have achieved, and Egyptians are poised to achieve, is nothing short of miraculous. It’s still a long way to freedom and democracy but the first steps have been taken. The least we can do is show them, “We are with you, all the way!”

Young Arabs Cross the Rubicon

“I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

Those were the stirring words President Obama used at his Cairo speech in June of 2009. But eloquence and oratory cannot mask reality. As Egyptians rise is revolt against the kleptocracy of Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration is desperately trying to adjust its sails against the furious wind of change sweeping Egypt. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton initially praised Egypt’s “stability” under Mubarak but now that the Arabs have crossed Rubicon, she is using words like “restraint” and “reform” and urging “transition to a democratic regime.”

Why does the United States so often finds itself on the wrong side of history, at least initially? Why does it so easily settle for Faustian bargains with autocrats like Mubarak? For the Muslim world, in particular, America’s policy has been driven by an irrational combination of oil, Israel and Islamic terror. Mubarak used the bogeyman of “Islamic Jihadists” (Muslim brotherhood in his case) to convince America that keeping him in power was the only option, and so our government obliged him with $1.3b in military aid every year. Not just the tanks and the fighter planes, even the tear gas and the rubber bullets being used against Egyptians bear the label “Made in America.” Only the water in the water cannons presumably comes from the Nile. Is it any wonder that ordinary Egyptians do not quite look upon America as a beacon of freedom and democracy?

In his second State of the Union address on January 25, President Obama equated Tunisian revolution with freedom. “We saw,” he said, “that same desire to be free in Tunisia, where the will of the people proved more powerful that the writ of a dictator. And tonight, let us be clear: the United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.”

What a golden opportunity the President missed by not including Egypt in his address! Extolling the virtues of democracy, the President said, “… as contentious and frustrating and messy as our democracy can sometime be, I know there isn’t a person here who would trade places with any other nation on earth. We may have differences in policy, but we all believe in the rights enshrined in our Constitution. We may have different opinions but we believe in the same promise that says this is a place where you can make it if you try. We may have different backgrounds, but we believe in the same dream that says this is a country where anything’s possible, no matter who you are, no matter where you come from.”

As my Egyptian friend Mustafa asked: “Does this mean that the United States reserves the right to experiment with democracy to enjoy its fruits, while Muslim puppets deny democracy to their people to cater to misguided American interests? This is nothing but arrogance and hypocrisy.”

American-Muslims, meanwhile, have thrown their full support behind Egyptians fighting unarmed for their freedom. During the Friday Khutbah in the largest mosque in California’s Silicon Valley, for instance, the Imam urged us to pray for their success in throwing out the pharaoh and preventing dynastic decadence. In solidarity with the Egyptian anger revolution, American Muslims have already demonstrated in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston. More protest marches are planned.

During the Tunisian revolution, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his sycophants cut off Internet access, particularly access to Facebook. As reported by Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic, the Facebook security team at its headquarters in Silicon Valley discovered that Ammar, the nickname Tunisians have given to the authorities that censor the Internet, was trying to steal an entire country's worth of passwords. With the stolen passwords, Ammar was deleting Tunisians’ Facebook accounts!

After more than ten days of intensive investigation, Facebook's security team realized that Tunisia’s Internet service providers (ISP) were running a malicious piece of code that was recording users' login information when they went to sites like Facebook.

The security team coded a two-step response. First, all Tunisian requests for Facebook were routed to an https server. The https protocol encrypts the information sent across it (the “s” in “https” stands for “secure” or “secure sockets layer” (SSL), so it is not vulnerable to the keylogging strategy used by the Tunisian ISPs. The second technical solution was a "roadblock" for anyone who had logged out and then back in during the time when the Tunisian malicious code was running.

Facebook rolled out the new solutions to all of Tunisia five days after the company discovered what was happening, and access to the site was restored.

Hosni Mubarak also followed the path of his now-deposed fellow-dictator: He ordered the state-controlled ISPs to completely cut off Egypt’s Internet access. But Egyptians were not deterred. The air was charged with electricity and possibilities. The revolution had taken on a momentum of its own, and while Facebook and Twitter initially helped, Egyptians had already transcended the Internet.

Still, it is reasonable to expect that companies like Facebook will give special consideration to activists trying to overthrow repressive regimes. If the company wants to remain central to people's political aspirations, it has to come up with a powerful, long-term solution that can be activated at a moment’s notice when access to the site is denied by any country. From a hardware point of view, if dictators block Internet data pipes into their countries, perhaps multiple satellite connections as backups can be in place so that communication can continue uninterrupted in spite of latency issues.

However the technology evolves, the days of dictators who equate dissent with treason and oppress and torture their people are coming to an end. Muslim nations are beset by modern-day pharaohs. For the creativity of millions of Muslims to flower in freedom, the pharaohs will be overthrown, if not today, then certainly tomorrow. That is the lesson of Tunisia and Egypt.

The Relevance of Naguib Mahfouz

In 1988, the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz “who, through works rich in nuance – now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous – has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind.”

Unlike many recent recipients of the Literature Nobel Prize, whose political leanings figured prominently in the award, Naguib Mahfouz deserved his honor, as his peers and discerning critics throughout the literary world acknowledged.

Until his Nobel, though, Naguib Mahfouz was not well-known beyond Arabia but that changed when international recognition made his translated works available to readers everywhere. And what a good thing that was, considering that so many of us would have missed out on one of the most perceptive observers of the human condition.

His setting may have been the labyrinth alleyways of Cairo but it could have been anywhere – old Dhaka, sprawling Mumbai, storied London, kaleidoscopic New York – because he wrote of dreams and longings tempered by reality and inexplicable forces that shaped character and destiny. What could be more universal than that?

Mahfouz wrote more than 30 novels and several collections of short stories, memoirs, essays and screenplays, but his masterpiece is the Cairo Trilogy. Named after actual streets in Cairo – Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street – the trilogy deals with three generations of the Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad family and extends from 1917 to 1945, during which Egypt was fighting for independence from British rule.

The three volumes record in rich detail the daily events in a middle-class Egyptian family, offering insight into a way of life vanishing under western influence and encroaching modernity.

But nostalgia is not what Mahfouz is after. Any society is better off jettisoning some aspects of the old way, misogyny and corruption in the name of religion, to name two. Mahfouz is more ambitious. Delving deep into the hearts of his protagonists - desire for control, hunger for recognition, lure of extremism, opposing pulls of selfishness and altruism, tradition and modernity, faith and reason, body and soul, temporal and eternal, love and responsibility - and weaving those elements together with tenderness, humor and sensitivity, he reminds us that the one constant in life is change, that unless we are open to change, fate will drag us into its abyss. In contrast, if we embrace change without compromising universal values of decency, justice, freedom and moderation, our lives will be enriched in unexpected ways.

The Cairo trilogy is a gripping read. Once I began with Palace Walk (Doubleday issued the paperbacks in the USA in 1992 after he won the Nobel), I could not stop until I had finished reading Sugar Street.

As is common with any great work of literature, one experiences a certain sense of loss in leaving the saga of the al-Jawad family. So many currents and undercurrents run through the 1,500-page narrative, “now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous,” that the reader willingly and rapturously submits to the flow.

Consider, for instance, Mahfouz’s lyrical evocation of bittersweet love in Palace of Desire: Why had he (Kamal) been looking forward so impatiently to this day? What did he hope to gain from it? … Did he dream of a miracle that would unexpectedly cause his beloved (Aida) to be friendly again for no conceivable reason, exactly as she had grown angry? Or was he trying to stoke the fires of hell so that he might taste cold ashes all the sooner? … Whenever he went to visit the mansion he approached it with anxious eyes, as he wavered between hope and despair. He would steal a glance at the front balcony and another at the window overlooking the side path … As he sat with his friends, his long reveries featured the happy surprise that just did not take place. When they split up after their conversation, he would keep looking stealthily and sadly at the window and the balconies, especially at the window over the side path, for it frequently served as a frame for his beloved’s image in his daydreams … These are feelings familiar to any lovesick youth experiencing the pangs of first love.

Naguib Mahfouz had nothing but contempt for the monarchs, tyrants and militants of the Arab world. Although he could be contradictory at times, he never wavered in his faith in the basic dignity and courage of the common man. It was around them - the oppressed housewife in a patriarchal household, the waiter in the café, the destitute child in the bazaar, the young girl forced into prostitution who rebels, the boatman plying the Nile - that he articulated his vision of Arab renaissance.

Some Arab countries banned his books for supporting Anwar Sadat’s peace overture to Israel in 1977. But this conscience of Egypt who believed in the separation of mosque and state repeatedly warned his countrymen that postponing political and social reform would be “playing with fire.”

For his troubles, he was stabbed in the neck by a young assailant in 1994 while sitting in a car, waiting for a friend to drive him to his beloved Kasr al-Nil café in Cairo overlooking the Nile. He had spent every Friday evening for thirty years at this café, the iconic “Friday sitting,” meeting with writers, intellectuals and disciples. Already in failing health, Mahfouz never fully recovered from the wound, slowly and agonizingly turning blind and deaf and losing the use of his writing hand. Even in such condition, he refused to see the world in Manichean, black-and-white terms. Revenge held no meaning for him.

Mahfouz’s passing away on August 30 at the age of 94 in Cairo is also a reminder for American Muslims to confront a critical issue facing them.

Five years after 9/11, we find ourselves divided into two broad camps. There are those who want to be both American and Muslim, who seek integration with mainstream culture without undermining basic Islamic principles, and who wish to become ambassadors of their faith to America.

There are others who have chosen to withdraw into their mosques and enclaves promoting a ghetto mentality, and who stridently assert their Islamic identity through dress and mannerisms in response to government profiling and suspicion and distrust of some of their fellow-Americans.

Based on what he said and did in a long and meticulous life, it is clear that Mahfouz would have sided with the first group. As he saw it, retreat and rejection served only to strengthen prejudice and misunderstanding. Hope, in his world, always trumped despair.

“What are the stars,” wrote the great Arabian writer, “in fact, but single worlds that chose solitude.” But this star of the world’s literary firmament shunned solitude in favor of spirited discussions with aspiring and established intellectuals on the turbulent issues of the times.

Mahfouz never ventured beyond Egypt - he sent his two daughters to Stockholm to accept the Nobel award on his behalf – but his mind ranged far and wide even as it plumbed the depths of the human soul. One can only hope that a new generation of young Arabs and Muslims will heed his call to reflect and reform and bring about the renaissance that so animated his writings.