Scramble for Africa -or Recent History of Africa

Scramble for Africa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scramble for Africa

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Contents [hide] 1 Background 2 Causes 2.1 Africa and global markets 2.2 Strategic rivalry 2.2.1 Bismarck's Realpolitik 2.2.2 Clash of rival imperialisms 2.2.3 American Colonization Society and foundation of Liberia 3 Crises prior to the First World War 3.1 Colonization of the Congo 3.2 Suez Canal 3.3 Berlin Conference 3.4 Britain's occupation of Egypt and South Africa 3.5 Fashoda Incident 3.6 Moroccan Crisis 3.7 Dervish resistance 4 Colonial encounter 4.1 Colonial consciousness and exhibitions 4.1.1 Colonial lobby 4.1.2 Colonial propaganda and jingoism 4.1.2.1 Colonial exhibitions 4.1.2.2 Anthropology 4.2 Extermination of the Namaqua and the Herero 5 Conclusions 6 African colonies listed by colonizing power 6.1 Belgium 6.2 France 6.3 Germany 6.4 Italy 6.5 Portugal 6.6 Spain 6.7 United Kingdom 6.8 Independent states 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

Le Maroc appelé à changer

A leur tour, le 20 février, les Marocains sont appelés à manifester. L’instigateur de l’appel sur Facebook, M. Rachid Antid, est un jeune homme de Meknès, ville du nord du pays, diplômé et chômeur. Cet appel a été relayé par différents groupes de journalistes, d’intellectuels, de jeunes. Il a aussi été soutenu par Mme Nadia Yassine, du mouvement Al-Adl wal Ishsan (non reconnu par les autorités mais toléré) ; en revanche, l’autre composante du mouvement islamiste, le Parti de la justice et du développement (PJD), légal, a déclaré ne pas être concerné par la manifestation. Les autres partis légaux, notamment l’Union socialiste des forces populaires (USFP), ont adopté la même politique de refus. Dans ce contexte, on pourra visionner l’entretien donné le 18 février à la chaîne France 24 par Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui, qui revient sur cet appel et sur la situation dans le monde arabe.

Mouvement de contestation, Égypte, Maroc, Tunisie

Dans « Le Monde diplomatique »

• « L’Algérie marchera-t-elle pour la démocratie ? »
  par Ali Chibani, La valise diplomatique, 17 février.
  Certains la considèrent comme « le début de quelque chose » ; d’autres n’y voient qu’une « vaine agitation ». La journée du 12 février a vu la mobilisation de quelque trois mille personnes dans les rues d’Alger, venues exiger le départ du régime au pouvoir.

• « Tunisie, les éclaireurs » (aperçu)
  par Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui, février 2011 (en kiosques).
  « L’âme arabe est brisée par la pauvreté et le chômage », a déclaré le secrétaire général de la Ligue arabe lors du sommet de Charm El-Cheikh (Egypte), le 19 janvier. On ne saurait mieux résumer la crainte des gouvernements de la région de voir la révolution tunisienne menacer leurs régimes.

• « De la Tunisie à l’Egypte, un air de liberté »
  par Alain Gresh, La valise diplomatique, 28 janvier.
  La tension est à son comble en Egypte, où le président Hosni Moubarak a décrété vendredi soir le couvre-feu. Le président de la commission des affaires étrangères de l’Assemblée, membre du Parti national démocrate (PND) au pouvoir, a appelé le président Hosni Moubarak à « des réformes sans précédent » pour éviter une « révolution ».

• « L’opinion musulmane et la méfiance à l’égard des institutions » , juillet 2005.

• « Le “non-Maghreb” coûte cher au Maghreb »
  par Francis Ghiles, janvier 2010.
  Le conflit du Sahara occidental représente toujours l’un des obstacles majeurs à une coopération entre le Maroc et l’Algérie, freinant les échanges régionaux qui pourraient se développer avec la Tunisie. Une collaboration politique et économique aiderait pourtant à résoudre bien des problèmes de la rive sud de la Méditerranée.

• « Retour vers le futur dans le monde arabe » (H. B. A. E. A.), août 2009.
  Depuis la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, deux vagues successives ont submergé le monde arabe, celle du nationalisme et celle de l’islamisme politique. Leurs objectifs n’ont pas été atteints. L’émergence d’une troisième force permettra-t-elle de sortir de l’impasse ?

• « Colère des paysannes de l’Atlas marocain »
  par Cécile Raimbeau, avril 2009.
  Depuis que de grandes exploitations de primeurs ou d’agrumes et des industries du secteur cosmétique tirent profit de la plaine du Souss, de plus en plus de paysannes berbères sont acculées à trimer comme ouvrières agricoles dans des conditions déplorables.

Wikio

Egypt's Last Pharaoh? The Rise and Fall of Hosni Mubarak - TIME

Egypt's Last Pharaoh? The Rise and Fall of Hosni Mubarak - TIME

Egypt's Last Pharaoh? The Rise and Fall of Hosni Mubarak

By Karl Vick

By the time he finally resigned Friday, Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak had ruled Egypt longer than anyone since Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Albanian-born viceroy of the Ottoman Empire credited with bringing Egypt into the modern age. Mubarak was a son of the soil, born 82 years ago on the Nile delta, but in his three decades as its president, the Land of the Pharaohs surrendered its position as leader of the contemporary Arab world. Egypt remained by far the most populous Arab nation, but its historic power to inspire the masses was crimped, beaten and subdued along with the citizens who restored it in the space of a fortnight, simply by assembling, day after day, and chanting for him to leave.

When he did, a day late, the announcement fell to the first vice president Mubarak found the need to appoint in the last 30 years, the indefatigable spymaster Omar Suleiman, a figure who would be right at home on the 1950's era black-and-white movies that flicker on the television sets in every Cairo coffee shop and kiosk, to the remembered glory of Egyptian cinema. At once terse and lugubrious, the former general delivered his walk-off line like the undertaker he likely thought he had become: "May God help everybody." (See pictures of Hosni Mubarak, the man who stayed too long.)

With that, power reverted to the Egyptian military from which Mubarak emerged, both stolid and a little dashing, 36 years ago. He had been a command hero of the 1973 war against Israel when he shed the epaulets of Air Chief Marshal to serve as vice president to Anwar Sadat. And when Sadat was assassinated by Islamist officers at a military parade, the world discovered the new president of Egypt was a square-jawed, powerfully built figure whose imposition of Emergency Rule seemed justified.

But as the years passed and self-regard accumulated, Mubarak assumed a still grander role: The Indispensable Man. It wasn't only a matter of embodying a nation, though that was the fundament of the electoral arrangement. For the first 18 years, Mubarak was returned to office not by elections — no other candidate was allowed — but by referenda that never showed him with less than 94%. Let Egyptians think what they wanted privately, more and more of what legitimacy the ra'is (Arabic for "chieftain") could claim originated beyond Egypt's borders. Mubarak upheld the 1979 treaty with Israel that Sadat had boldly signed, and which led to his death. The decision assured more than $1 billion in aid per year from Washington, but also the enmity of an Arab world that moved the Arab League headquarters out of Cairo and down the Mediterranean coast to Tunis.

In time the League moved back to Cairo, and its members more toward Egypt's position, in 2002 even putting forward its own peace plan. But in a Middle East where autocrats have remained in place thanks in no small part to Western powers seeking the kind of assurance colonial masters once sought from tribal chiefs, Mubarak was at the head of the class. He cut a dapper figure on the red carpets of the White House, where he received the welcomes of five presidents, and played the pivot in the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, both of which fret at his departure. The strategic position Egypt long occupied on the map, Mubarak assumed in the cosmology of strongmen who Washington remonstrated quietly but counted as reliable. Perhaps Leon Panetta was only passing on what was in the air in Cairo Thursday, but it was fitting that word Mubarak's departure was imminent came from the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. (See TIME's exclusive photos of the Egypt uprising.)

Not that all of this came out of the blue. Tunisia's revolution was clearly the spark, but Egyptians have been stewing for so long, their uprising was foreshadowed by the titles of books years in the making and years in print: Egypt on the Brink; Egypt After Mubarak; Egypt: The Moment of Change; Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution. The stranglehold of Mubarak's regime gripped not only politics — putting a boot heel on the formation of any challenge to the National Democratic Party, jailing a presidential challenger on trumped up charges — but also the economy. In 30 years in power, more than two generations could study as long as they wanted, but still hope to find no meaningful work absent some connection to the regime. Such were the legions of unemployed university graduates that the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation started a program to settle them on reclaimed desert along the Nile delta. It was called the "Mubarak Project."

Oblivious is a word.

"Look," Mubarak told Charlie Rose a couple of years ago, raising an arm from the gold-gilt armchair to shake a finger. "Your concept of human rights is a merely political one. Human rights are not only political." (Comment on this story.)

The president then enumerated the areas protesters listed to reporters in Tahrir Square for 18 days. "You have social rights," he said. "You have the right to education. You have the right to health. You have the right to a job. There are many other rights, and we are doing well on these fronts." (See the celebratory images from Tahrir Square.)

"But we are not absolutely perfect," Mubarak allowed. "Nobody's perfect."

Nor are revolutions. As this one enters its celebratory phase, some observers are dismayed by the faith demonstrators have placed in Egypt's military.

"Communique No. 1, right? This is not how a revolution begins," said Tzvi Mezal, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, while awaiting Mubarak's address to the nation Thursday night. The incongruity — Friday brought Communique No. 2 from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces — was striking enough. "Everyone thinks the army is going to save the day. Mubarak is also the army."

Still it was army officers who chucked out Egypt's last monarch in 1952, peaceably escorting Farouk I to Alexandria and putting him on a boat. (The mechanics of that transition involved abdication to his infant son.) And the throngs that brought down the man Egyptians derisively called "Pharaoh" were, on Friday night, raising soldiers aloft.

See how the U.S. plans to aid democracy in Egypt.

See TIME's complete coverage: "Middle East in Revolt."

• 
  

A DAY IN THE HISTORY OF EGYPT-UNE DATE HISTORIQUE POUR L'ÉGYPTE

Huge demonstrations across Egypt; crowds reject Mubarak's stance

Huge demonstrations across Egypt; crowds reject Mubarak's stance

By Craig Whitlock, Ernesto Londono and Leila Fadel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 11, 2011; 9:40 AM

CAIRO -

Egyptian state television reported that President Hosni Mubarak and his wife left their home in an affluent Cairo suburb Friday, as hundreds of thousands of citizens across the country gathered to demand his ouster.

The televised statement did not say where Mubarak was headed, but the Associated Press, citing a local official, reported that he was going to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

The apparent departure came hours after Egypt's military chiefs pledged to back the Mubarak's decision to remain in office, but cede some powers to his hand-picked vice president, Omar Suleiman. The supreme military council said it would guarantee "free and honest" elections after Mubarak's term expires, and a lifting of Egypt's 30-year-old state of emergency once calm returned to the streets. The military encouraged protesters to go home, citing the need to "return to normal life."

Instead, throngs of people gathered cities across the country, and anger and frustration mounted as word spread of the military's stance. "Mubarak must go! He is finished!" protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square shouted as a sea of people waved red-white-and-black Egyptian flags.

The armed forces did not move against the demonstrators.

At the state Television and Radio Tower, which is north of the square and flanks the east bank of the Nile, thousands of protesters toppled makeshift barricades erected by the military and swarmed around the building.

Soldiers stood by and watched. For the moment, protesters did not force entry into the building, instead chanting: "this is the people's army, not Mubarak's army." The television channel, a reliable producer of propaganda for Mubarak, continued to broadcast.

On the Mediterranean coast, massive crowds packed public squares in Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city, jeering Mubarak and insisting that he resign. Protests also erupted in Suez, where crowds surrounded 10 government buildings, according to the Egyptian news Web site al-Ahram Online. Large demonstrations were also reported in the cities of Tanta, Mahalla and Assuit.

In the affluent Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, a smaller demonstration was underway at Mubarak's presidential palace. There, 26-year-old Taha Nahas predicted that the military's statement would backfire and that Egyptians who had seen the armed forces as an honest protector of their interests would change their minds. "This is what we've heard before from Mubarak and Omar Suleiman," Nahas said. "We have lost our trust in the military. It's a corrupt organization."

A group of counter-demonstrators congregated nearby, chanting support for the president and urging the other side to disperse. Soldiers kept the two sides separated. "We are afraid. If there is anarchy, looters will come to our homes," said Serge Simon, 60, an Armenian-Egyptian pianist from Heliopolis. "What we are seeing here is hooliganism."

In Tahrir Square, scores of thousands prostrated themselves to the muezzin's prayer call at midday, many of them weeping. Organizers of Egypt's popular rebellion predicted the biggest turnout so far in their 18-day revolt.

Parts of the square grew so packed that it was difficult to walk around. Soldiers in riot gear manned entrances to the square, but did not stop those who were streaming in. Dozens of ambulances were parked on nearby side streets.

Protesters said that three soldiers turned in their weapons and joined the protests an hour before Friday prayers. Many chants focused on the need for a civilian, rather than a military, government.

"The military is now in an embarrassing situation," said Tamer Oweiss, 31,, a superviser at Cairo's airport. "They're trying to stand in the middle. They feel loyalty to Mubarak, an officer, but at the same time, they dont want to hurt the people."

The plaza, next to the Nile River, has served as the heartbeat of the rebellion.

In a rambling televised speech late Thursday, Mubarak ceded some authority to Suleiman but refused to quit, insisting that he would stay in office to oversee a drawn-out transfer of power. His defiance stunned and angered hundreds of thousands of protesters in the capital, who responded with chants of "revolution, revolution."

Enormous crowds, which had gathered in anticipation that Mubarak would announce his resignation, expressed disappointment and fury as the message sunk in that the president had no intention of leaving.

"Oh Mubarak, be patient! The people will dig your grave," protesters shouted. As dawn broke Friday, the Muslim holy day and the start of the weekend here, more and more people came to the square.

Around 200 people had gathered at the presidential palace, al-Ouruba, by midday, outside a wall of barbed wire and two tanks. The mood was calm as soldiers directed traffic.

Said Younis, a 26-year-old advertising executive, said he marched 10 miles from Tahrir Square to the presidential palace immediately after Mubarak's speech, arriving about 2 a.m. "He ridiculed us," Younis said. "We want him to hear our voices from up close."

Mubarak "is an idiot," said Ahmed Suleiman, 62, a physician. "We're very upset about what he said yesterday.

Some protesters vowed to storm the palace. But others appealed for restraint, saying they would not clash with the military.

"The people and the army are continuing their march together!" they chanted.

Younis said military officers stationed at the palace offered their sympathy and support, providing tea and juice to the handful of protesters who pulled an all-night vigil. "They told us, 'Don't worry, we will never fire on you,' " he said.

Outside the palace gate, some protesters appealed to soldiers across the barbed wire to join their cause.

"I'm with you!" one officer shouted back.

"Then come to this side!" one woman demanded.

Mubarak's rejection of the rebellion capped a confusing day of contradictory messages, exultant expectations and, ultimately, flattened hopes. It left Egyptians and the rest of the world anxious and afraid of how the conflict would unfold in the hours and days ahead.

"This stalemate cannot continue forever," Finance Minister Samir Radwan told BBC radio. "I think the military is highly disciplined and they have taken a decision not to fire at the young people."

Some opposition leaders warned that Mubarak was risking a bloody revolt.

"There is no way the Egyptian people right now are ready to accept either the president or the vice president," Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader, told CNN. "They have lost all authority, all legitimacy. . . . My fear is that the situation will turn violent."

The developments not only shocked Egyptians but seemed to catch the world by surprise, including the highest levels of the U.S. government. In a written statement, President Obama said "it is not yet clear'' whether the transition to democracy pledged by Mubarak would be "immediate, meaningful or sufficient.''

Earlier Thursday, CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress that "there is a strong likelihood that Mubarak may step down this evening." In an afternoon speech to university students in Michigan, Obama gave no indication that he expected otherwise, calling the events in Egypt "a moment of transformation that's taking place because the people of Egypt are calling for change."

After 17 days of swelling protests and labor unrest, demonstrators in Cairo thought they were on the cusp of forcing Mubarak from power Thursday afternoon when Egypt's military chiefs pledged in unequivocal-sounding language that they backed the protesters' goals.

Crowds had thundered their approval when Gen. Hassan al-Roueini, military commander for the Cairo region, strode into the square and declared: "All your demands will be met today."

Anticipation soared even higher when Egypt's supreme military council announced that it had convened an emergency session - in its commander in chief's absence. In a statement, the military chiefs pledged "support for the legitimate demands of the people" and promised "to oversee their interests and security."

About five hours later, at 10:45 p.m., Mubarak addressed the nation on television from his palace. Standing next to an Egyptian flag, he tried to assure the public that he had heard their grievances.

He promised to investigate the deaths of an estimated 300 people during the demonstrations, which began Jan. 25. But he took no responsibility for the actions of his police and security forces, which have been widely accused of instigating the violence.

"I speak to the youth of Egypt in Tahrir Square and all around Egypt. I speak to you as a father speaks to his children," he said. "I say to you before anything else that the blood of your martyrs will not be in vain and that I will hold perpetrators to account."

"I say to you that my response to your message and your demands is a commitment that I will not go back on," he said. "I believe that the majority of Egyptians know who is Hosni Mubarak, and it hurts me how some Egyptians talk about me."

But as he continued for 15 minutes, he never uttered the lines that many assumed were coming, instead insisting that he would remain in office until the end of his term in September so he could oversee what he called a transition to "free and transparent" elections.

"This is the pledge that I've made before God and the nation, and I swear that I will honor this pledge," he said. "I have lived for the sake of this nation. I will not leave it nor depart it until I am buried in the ground."

Mubarak said he was transferring power to his vice president, Omar Suleiman, Egypt's longtime intelligence chief. He also said he had ordered several constitutional amendments. One would expand the field of candidates eligible to run to succeed him in September, and another would provide for judicial monitoring of elections.

Afterward, Sameh Shoukry, Egypt's ambassador to the United States, asserted that Mubarak had transferred all authority to Suleiman, making the latter the de facto president. "For undertaking all decisions and responsibilities under the constitution, it is Omar Suleiman," the ambassador told CNN.

But there were few signs that Mubarak was about to recede into the background, and few Egyptians believed that he had entirely relinquished his control of the state.

Shortly after Mubarak finished speaking, Suleiman followed with a televised address in which he defended his boss and tried to soothe widespread concerns that Egypt's revolutionary struggle could turn ugly.

"The president puts the supreme interests of the country above everything else. He has empowered me to preserve its achievements and restore stability and happiness," Suleiman said. "We have opened the door to dialogue, and the door is still open to dialogue."

Earlier in the week, Suleiman had made public statements in which he warned protesters that they faced a choice between a "coup" and a "dialogue" and implied that a military crackdown was possible. On Thursday night, he once again urged demonstrators to back off, saying it was for the good of the country.

"Youth of Egypt, go back home. Go back to work. The nation needs your efforts to create and build a bright future," Suleiman said. "Do not listen to television and radio reports and foreign influences whose aim is just to cause chaos and tarnish Egypt's image."

The allusion to outside intervention echoed a warning from Mubarak, whose advisers have expressed anger with the United States, Egypt's longtime ally, for sternly urging the Cairo regime to repeal its state-of-emergency law and to embrace democratic reforms.

"We will prove that we are not followers or puppets of anybody, nor we are receiving orders or dictations from anybody," Mubarak said. "No one is making the decision for us."

The audio of Mubarak's speech was broadcast on loudspeakers mounted in Tahrir Square. His remarks were repeatedly interrupted by the crowd, which shouted, "Go away, go away," even as most people strained to listen so they could comprehend the president's message.

As Mubarak concluded, the response was instantaneous and ear-splitting. "The people want to put the president on trial," the crowd roared. There seemed to be little doubt that the speech had set the stage for decisive and possibly violent confrontation.

"He was provoking us," said Osama Hassan, a 35-year-old Cairo resident. "What he's doing is putting us in conflict with the military. This here is a camp of revolution. And he will need the military to get us out."

After the speech, the European Union signaled a tougher line on Mubarak's handling of the unrest.

"The demands and expectations of the Egyptian people must be met," said Catherine Ashton, the E.U. high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. She added: "The time for change is now."

Special correspondent Samuel Sockol and staff writer Linda Davidson in Cairo and staff writer William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.

Egypt Erupts in Jubilation as Mubarak Steps Down

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

CAIRO — An 18-day-old revolt led by the young people of Egypt ousted President Hosni Mubarak on Friday, shattering three decades of political stasis here and overturning the established order of the Arab world.

Shouts of “God is great” erupted from Tahrir Square at twilight as Mr. Mubarak’s vice president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced that Mr. Mubarak had passed all authority to a council of military leaders.

Tens of thousands who had bowed down for evening prayers leapt to their feet, bouncing and dancing in joy. “Lift your head high, you’re an Egyptian,” they cried. Revising the tense of the revolution’s rallying cry, they chanted, “The people, at last, have brought down the regime.”

“We can breathe fresh air, we can feel our freedom,” said Gamal Heshamt, a former independent member of Parliament. “After 30 years of absence from the world, Egypt is back.”

Mr. Mubarak, an 82-year-old former air force commander, left without comment for his home by the Red Sea in Sharm el Sheik. His departure overturns, after six decades, the Arab world’s original secular dictatorship. He was toppled by a radically new force in regional politics — a largely secular, nonviolent, youth-led democracy movement that brought Egypt’s liberal and Islamist opposition groups together for the first time under its banner.

One by one the protesters withstood each weapon in the arsenal of the Egyptian autocracy — first the heavily armed riot police, then a ruling party militia and finally the state’s powerful propaganda machine.

Mr. Mubarak’s fall removed a bulwark of American foreign policy in the region. The United States, its Arab allies and Israel are now pondering whether the Egyptian military, which has vowed to hold free elections, will give way to a new era of democratic dynamism or to a perilous lurch into instability or Islamist rule.

The upheaval comes less than a month after a sudden youth revolt in nearby Tunisia toppled another enduring Arab strongman, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. And on Friday night some of the revelers celebrating in the streets of Cairo marched under a Tunisian flag and pointed to the surviving autocracies in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Yemen. “We are setting a role model for the dictatorships around us,” said Khalid Shaheen, 39. “Democracy is coming.”

President Obama, in a televised address, praised the Egyptian revolution. “Egyptians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day,” he said. “It was the moral force of nonviolence — not terrorism and mindless killing — that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed Islamist movement that until 18 days ago was considered Egypt’s only viable opposition, said it was merely a supporting player in the revolt.

“We participated with everyone else and did not lead this or raise Islamic slogans so that it can be the revolution of everyone,” said Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, a spokesman for the Brotherhood. “This is a revolution for all Egyptians; there is no room for a single group’s slogans, not the Brotherhood’s or anybody else.”

The Brotherhood, which was slow to follow the lead of its own youth wing into the streets, has said it will not field a candidate for president or seek a parliamentary majority in the expected elections.

The Mubarak era ended without any of the stability and predictability that were the hallmarks of his tenure. Western and Egyptian officials had expected Mr. Mubarak to leave office on Thursday and irrevocably delegate his authority to Vice President Suleiman, finishing the last six months of his term with at least his presidential title intact.

But whether because of pride or stubbornness, Mr. Mubarak instead spoke once again as the unbowed father of the nation, barely alluding to a vague “delegation” of authority.

The resulting disappointment enraged the Egyptian public, sent a million people into the streets of Cairo on Friday morning and put in motion an unceremonious retreat at the behest of the military he had commanded for so long.

“Taking into consideration the difficult circumstances the country is going through, President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the post of president of the republic and has tasked the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the state’s affairs,” Mr. Suleiman, grave and ashen, said in a brief televised statement.

It is now not clear what role Mr. Suleiman, whose credibility plummeted over the past week as he stood by Mr. Mubarak and even questioned Egypt’s readiness for democracy, will have in the new government.

The transfer of power leaves the Egyptian military in charge of this nation of 85 million, facing insistent calls for fundamental democratic change and open elections. Hours before Mr. Suleiman announced Mr. Mubarak’s exit, the military had signaled its takeover with a communiqué that appeared to declare its solidarity with the protesters.

Read on state television by an army spokesman, the communiqué declared that the military — not Mr. Mubarak, Mr. Suleiman or any other civilian authority — would ensure the amendment of the Constitution to “conduct free and fair presidential elections.”

“The armed forces are committed to sponsor the legitimate demands of the people,” the statement declared, and the military promised to ensure the fulfillment of its promises “within defined time frames” until authority could be passed to a “free democratic community that the people aspire to.”

It pledged to remove the reviled “emergency law,” which allows the government to detain anyone without charges or trial, “as soon as the current circumstances are over” and further promised immunity from prosecution for the protesters, whom it called “the honest people who refused the corruption and demanded reforms.”

Egyptians ignored the communiqué, as they have most official pronouncements of the Mubarak government, until the president’s resignation was announced. Then they hugged, kissed and cheered the soldiers, lifting children on tanks to get their pictures taken. “The people and the army are one hand,” they chanted.

Standing guard near the presidential palace, soldiers passed photographs of “martyrs” killed during the revolution through barbed wire to attach them to their tanks. At Tahrir Square, some slipped out of position to join the roaring crowds flooding the streets.

Whether the military will subordinate itself to a civilian democracy or install a new military dictator will be impossible to know for months. Military leaders will inevitably face pressure to deliver the genuine transition that protesters did not trust Mr. Mubarak to give them.

Yet it may also seek to protect the enormous political and economic privileges it accumulated during Mr. Mubarak’s reign. And the army has itself been infused for years with the notion that Egypt’s survival depends on fighting threats, real and imagined, from foreign enemies, Islamists, Iran and the frustrations of its own people.

Throughout the revolt, the army stood passively on the sidelines — its soldiers literally standing behind the iron fence of the Egyptian Museum — as the police or armed Mubarak loyalists fought the protesters centered in Tahrir Square.

But Western diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were violating confidences, said that top army officials had told them that their troops would never use force against civilians, depriving Mr. Mubarak of a decisive tool to suppress the dissent.

It has been “increasingly clear,” a Western diplomat said Friday, that “the army will not go down with Mubarak.”

Now the military, which owns vast commercial interests here but has not fought in decades, must defuse demonstrations, quell widespread labor unrest and rebuild a shattered economy and security forces. Its top official, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, 75, served for decades as a top official of Mr. Mubarak’s government. And its top uniformed official, Gen. Sami Hafez Enan, has not spoken publicly.

Egypt’s opposition has said for weeks that it welcomed a military role in securing the country, ideally under a two- to five-member presidential council with only one military member. And the initial reaction to the military takeover was ecstatic.

“Welcome back,” said Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who administered the Facebook group that helped start the revolt.

Mr. Ghonim, who was detained for 12 days in blindfolded isolation by the Mubarak government as it tried to stamp out the revolt, helped protesters turn the tide in a propaganda war against the state media earlier this week, when he described his captivity in an emotional interview on a satellite television station.

“Egypt is going to be a democratic state,” he declared Friday, in another interview. “You will be impressed.”

Dr. Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, 32, a transplant surgeon who was among the small group of organizers who guided the revolution, said the leaders had decided to let the protests unwind on their own. “We are not going to ask the people to stay in the square or leave — it is their choice,” he said. “Even if they leave, any government will know that we can get them to the streets again in a minute.”

“Our country never had a victory in our lifetime, and this is the sort of victory we were looking for, a victory over a vicious regime that we needed to bring down,” Dr. Harb said.

Amr Ezz, 27, another of revolt’s young leaders, said that calling the revolution a military coup understated its achievement. “It is the people who took down the president and the regime and can take down anyone else,” he said. “Now the role of the regular people has ended and the role of the politicians begins. Now we can begin negotiations with the military in order to plan the coming phase.”

The opposition groups participating in the protest movement had previously settled on a committee led by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former diplomat and Nobel laureate, to negotiate with the army if Mr. Mubarak resigned.

Mr. ElBaradei could not be reached for comment on Friday, but in a television interview he indicated that he expected the talks with the military to begin within days.

“I’d like to see that started tomorrow so we can have a sharing of power, the civilian and the military, and tell them what our demands are, what they need to do,” he said.

By evening, Egyptian politicians were beginning to position themselves to run for office. Amr Moussa, one of the country’s most popular public figures, resigned his position as secretary general of the Arab League, and an aide, Hesham Youssef, confirmed that Mr. Moussa was considering seeking office.

In Switzerland, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had frozen possible assets of “the former Egyptian president” and his associates.

In the military’s final communiqué of the day, its spokesman thanked Mr. Mubarak for his service and saluted the “martyrs” of the revolution.

In Tahrir Square, protesters said they were not quite ready to disband the little republic they had built up during their two-week occupation, setting up makeshift clinics, soundstages, a detention center and security teams to protect the barricades.

Many have boasted that their encampment was a rare example of community spirit here, and after Mr. Mubarak’s resignation the organizers called on the thousands who protested here to return once again on Saturday morning to help clean it up.

Anthony Shadid, Mona El-Naggar and Liam Stack contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/middleeast/12egypt.html?_r=1&hp&emc=na

De la Tunisie à l’Egypte, un air de liberté:Le monde arabe se révolte

La tension est à son comble en Egypte, où le président Hosni Moubarak a décrété vendredi soir le couvre-feu. Le président de la commission des affaires étrangères de l’Assemblée, membre du Parti national démocrate (PND) au pouvoir, a appelé le président Moubarak à « des réformes sans précédent » pour éviter une« révolution ». M. Mostapha Al-Fekki, dans des déclarations faites à la chaîne Al-Jazira, le 28 janvier, a ajouté : « L’option sécuritaire seule n’est pas suffisante et le président est le seul à même de faire cesser ces événements. » Des informations font état de fraternisation entre des soldats et des manifestants. Ces premières fissures annoncent-elle des craquements plus importants ? Que fera l’armée, le pilier du pouvoir ?

Il est impossible de répondre alors que ce 28 janvier, pour le quatrième jour consécutif, des dizaines de milliers d’Egyptiens ont manifesté au Caire, à Alexandrie, à Suez et dans les grandes villes du pays. Ils ont affronté partout la police et le pouvoir a pris des mesures exceptionnelles pour couper ce pays de 80 millions d’habitants du reste du monde – la coupure d’Internet est « une première mondiale », titrait une dépêche de l’Agence France Presse (AFP). Pourtant, les images transmises par téléphone portable ou par les chaînes satellitaires empêchent la mise en quarantaine du pays.

Au même moment, en Jordanie et au Yémen, des milliers de personnes descendaient dans la rue et appelaient à suivre l’exemple tunisien. Dans chaque cas, le contexte est particulier : tensions entre le Nord et le Sud au Yémen ; frictions entre Jordaniens « de souche » et Palestiniens ; question copte en Egypte, etc. Mais, dans le même temps, l’explosion est née de la même accumulation de problèmes, de frustrations, d’aspirations communes à l’ensemble de la région.

D’abord, le maintien de régimes autoritaires qui ne rendent jamais de comptes à leurs citoyens. S’il existe (ou plutôt existait) une « exception arabe », c’était bien celle-ci : ces régimes ont connu une longévité sans précédent, et même la grande vague de démocratisation qui a emporté l’Europe de l’Est, l’Afrique, l’Amérique latine s’est brisée sur le mur des dictatures proche-orientales et maghrébines : M. Moubarak est président depuis 1982, M. Ali Abdallah Saleh dirige le Yémen depuis 1978 et, à Amman, Abdallah II a succédé en 1999 à son père, qui lui-même avait accédé au pouvoir en 1952. Pour ne pas parler de la Syrie, où Bachar Al-Assad a remplacé son père qui avait pris le pouvoir en 1970, ou du Maroc où le roi Mohammed VI a remplacé son père en 1999, celui-ci ayant régné à partir de 1961, de la Libye où Kadhafi sévit depuis 1969 et prépare son fils à lui succéder. Quant à M. Ben Ali, il présidait sans partage depuis 1987.

De plus, dans des conditions différentes selon chaque pays, les droits individuels, politiques et d’expression du citoyen sont bafoués. Les moukhabarat, la police secrète, affirment leur toute-puissance et il n’est pas rare, en Egypte et ailleurs, que des personnes arrêtées soient maltraitées, torturées, tuées. La publication par WikiLeaks des télégrammes venus de l’ambassade des Etats-Unis au Caire confirment ce que tout le monde savait (y compris M. Nicolas Sarkozy) — mais qui n’empêchait pas les uns et les autres de saluer cet allié fidèle de l’Occident, tout en dénonçant vigoureusement des comportements similaires en Iran (« Egypte-Iran, deux poids, deux mesures », Nouvelles d’Orient, 27 novembre 2010). Cet arbitraire total, qui se manifeste aussi dans la vie quotidienne et qui met les citoyens à la merci des forces de l’ordre, alimente une révolte exprimant partout une soif de dignité.

Tous ces régimes ont accaparé non seulement le pouvoir politique, mais se sont imposés dans le domaine économique, agissant souvent en vrais prédateurs des richesses nationales, comme en Tunisie. L’Etat né des indépendances, qui avait souvent assuré à ses citoyens un minimum de protection, une certaine couverture sociale, un accès à l’enseignement, s’est délité sous les coups de boutoir de la corruption et de la mondialisation. Même l’accès à l’université, qui, naguère en Egypte, ouvrait l’accès au fonctionnariat, n’offre plus de possibilités pour une jeunesse de plus en plus frustrée qui voit se pavaner les « nouveaux riches ».

Dans les années 1970, le boom pétrolier avait offert une porte de sortie à beaucoup, qui émigrèrent dans le Golfe ; cette région n’est plus capable d’absorber les flux grandissants de chômeurs. Les chiffres de croissance affichés par ces champions du libéralisme économique — l’Egypte, la Tunisie ou la Jordanie faisaient souvent l’objet de rapports élogieux des organisations financières internationales — masquaient mal la pauvreté grandissante. Depuis plusieurs années, des mouvements sociaux s’étaient affirmés en Egypte – grèves ouvrières, luttes paysannes, manifestations dans les quartiers périphériques des grandes villes, etc. – comme en Tunisie (Gafsa), en Jordanie ou au Yémen. Mais jamais encore ne s’était exprimée ouvertement et massivement la volonté de changement politique. L’exemple tunisien a fait sauter un verrou.

On peut noter aussi que la lutte contre Israël, qui offrait souvent aux régimes du Proche-Orient un argument pour maintenir leur emprise – au nom de l’unité contre l’ennemi sioniste –, ne semble plus suffire. L’Egypte et la Jordanie ont signé des accords de paix avec Israël, et l’ensemble du monde arabe semble bien incapable de réagir au lent écrasement des Palestiniens. Que l’on ne s’y trompe pas : un éditorialiste américain, Robert Kaplan, faisait remarquer dans The New York Times (24 janvier) que « ce n’étaient pas les démocrates mais les autocrates comme Sadate ou le roi Hussein qui faisaient la paix avec Israël. Un autocrate solidement en place peut faire des concessions plus facilement qu’un dirigeant faible et élu. (…)  » Et, dans un appel aux dirigeants américains à soutenir les « autocrates » arabes, il s’interrogeait : « Voulons-nous réellement que des dirigeants éclairés comme le roi Abdallah de Jordanie voient leur pouvoir miné par d’importantes manifestations de rue ? »

Et maintenant ? Tout pronostic sur l’Egypte est hasardeux, et personne ne peut prévoir la suite des événements. Que feront les Frères Musulmans, très réticents à entrer dans une confrontation avec le pouvoir et qui ont finalement décidé de se rallier au mouvement ? Mohammed El-Baradeï, l’ancien secrétaire général de l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA) sera-t-il capable de fédérer les oppositions ? Quoi qu’il en soit, la révolution tunisienne a ouvert une porte et fait souffler, comme le chantait Jean Ferrat, « un air de liberté au-delà des frontières, aux peuples étrangers qui donnait le vertige »…

Alain Gresh

Dans Le Monde diplomatique de février, un dossier est consacré à l’« onde de choc dans le monde arabe ».

Dans Le Monde diplomatique

Dossier « Onde de choc dans le monde arabe » dans le numéro de février 2011, en kiosques mardi 1er.

• « Mais où est passée l’Egypte ? » (aperçu)
  par Sophie Pommier, novembre 2010.
  Condamnées à ressembler aux précédentes, les élections législatives égyptiennes de l’automne 2010 ne consolideront pas la légitimité du pouvoir. Pour y parvenir, M. Moubarak entend réaffirmer la place du Caire sur la scène régionale.

• « Retour vers le futur dans le monde arabe »
  par Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui, août 2009.
  Depuis la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, deux vagues successives ont submergé le monde arabe, celle du nationalisme et celle de l’islamisme politique. Leurs objectifs n’ont pas été atteints. L’émergence d’une troisième force permettra-t-elle de sortir de l’impasse ?

• « L’Egypte des ventres vides »
  par Joel Beinin, mai 2008.
  En Egypte, les salaires réels continuent de baisser fortement et le chômage augmente. Depuis la fin 2004, à mesure que la situation sociale se dégrade, manifestations et grèves se multiplient. La hausse du prix des denrées alimentaires ne fait qu’aggraver les tensions, mettant le pays en ébullition.

• « Les régimes arabes modernisent... l’autoritarisme » (H. B. A. E. A.), avril 2008.
  Depuis la première guerre du Golfe, les pays arabes ont connu une succession de bouleversements qui, partout ailleurs, auraient déstabilisé bien des pouvoirs. Pourtant, la plupart ont réussi à maintenir des structures archaïques que ni la seconde guerre mondiale ni la décolonisation n’avaient fait disparaître.

• « La lutte toujours recommencée des paysans égyptiens »
  par Beshir Sakr et Phanjof Tarcir, octobre 2007.
  Poursuivant son offensive contre toute forme de contestation, le gouvernement égyptien a dissous, en 2007, l’Association d’aide légale aux droits de la personne. A la campagne aussi, les paysans résistent au démantèlement de la réforme agraire lancée par Nasser dès 1952.

• « La lutte toujours recommencée des paysans égyptiens » (B. S. et Ph. T.), octobre 2007.
  Poursuivant son offensive contre toute forme de contestation, le gouvernement égyptien a dissous, en 2007, l’Association d’aide légale aux droits de la personne. A la campagne aussi, les paysans résistent au démantèlement de la réforme agraire lancée par Nasser dès 1952.

• « Révisions douloureuses pour les Frères musulmans d’Egypte »
  par Husam Tammam, septembre 2005.
  En Egypte, l’islam sert d’étendard à de nombreux acteurs de la contestation, mais ses interprétations diverses suscitent bien des débats, y compris au sein de la puissante organisation des Frères musulmans.

• « Controverse autour du bilan du nassérisme »
  par Kamel Labidi, juillet 2002.
  Il est loin, le temps où le Proche-Orient et le Maghreb vibraient aux discours du président égyptien Gamal Abdel Nasser. Cinquante ans après la prise du pouvoir par les Officiers libres, le 23 juillet 1952, le débat fait rage sur le bilan du raïs.

• « L’Egypte aux pieds d’argile »
  par David Hirst, octobre 1999.
  Chef d’Etat autocratique d’un régime figé et dont la représentativité politique est faible, Hosni Moubarak joue son avenir sur les réformes économiques. Mais celles-ci sont freinées, voire détournées, par un système de connivence qui s’est mis en place entre l’Etat et la nouvelle bourgeoisie.

Sur la Toile :

• « What’s Happening in Egypt Explained », Mother Jones, 27 janvier 2011.
  Un éclairage instructif sur les ressorts de la crise en Egypte, avec des informations régulièrement actualisées.

• « Egyptian Activists’ Action Plan : Translated », The Atlantic, 27 janvier 2011.
  Le mensuel américain propose sur son site la traduction en anglais de plusieurs pages du manuel d’instruction, circulant sous le manteau, à l’usage des contestataires égyptiens.

• « Egyptian government deploys police, shuts down Internet, ahead of mass demonstrations », par Johannes Stern and Stefan Steinberg, World Socialist Web Site, 28 janvier 2011.
  Un article sur les derniers développements en Egypte, diffusé par le centre d’information du Comité international de la IVe Internationale.

• SN
  Ce blog en français consacré au monde arabe suit au plus près l’évolution de la situation au Caire et dans les autres villes gagnées par le mouvement de révolte.

Récemment

2011

• Quand social rime avec préférence nationale…
• « Le Monde diplomatique » à Angoulême
• Ben Ali chassé de Tunisie
• Sur France 2, les ménestrels de la crise économique
• Algérie : les raisons d’un soulèvement
• L’échec des Nations unies en Haïti
• Rafael Correa : « Il y eut bien tentative de coup d’Etat »
• « Là-bas si j’y suis » : janvier 2011
• Le réveil tunisien
• La Poste aux mains du marché

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