Little Portugal Created a Lusophone World

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

People are usually surprised to hear that in the western hemisphere, Portuguese is a more important language than French.

While French is spoken in parts of Canada, French Guiana, the French islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon, Guadeloupe, and Martinique, as well as the former French colony of Haiti, Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, a country almost the size of Canada and, with a population of more than 190 million, the fifth largest in the world.

Apart from Brazil, the Portuguese have left a very deep and wide cultural footprint around the world. Of all the European countries involved in colonial acquisitions from the 15^th to the 19^th century, this little Iberian kingdom “punched above its weight” more than any other.

Portugal’s empire lasted almost six centuries, and was spread throughout a vast number of territories.

How did this happen? Little Portugal was first off the mark in imperial expansion. Even before Columbus set off across the Atlantic in 1492, Portuguese sailors under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator had rounded the coasts of Africa. By 1498 they had reached India, and soon thereafter present-day Indonesia.

Though Portugal would later lose much of its empire to stronger powers such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands, its legacy remains impressive.

Brazil, the crowning jewel in the empire, acquired its independence in 1822. It was by then far bigger and wealthier than the mother country. But the rest of the empire remained intact for another 150 years or so.

There are a number of important former Portuguese colonies in Africa. Angola and Mozambique are two large southern African states, with populations of 18.5 million and 23 million respectively; also on the mainland is Guinea-Bissau.

As well, there are two island republics off west Africa, originally “stepping stones” for Portuguese exploration of the continent and trans-Atlantic trade: Cape Verde, and São Tomé e Príncipe.

In Asia, the Portuguese enclave of Goa on the west coast of India and the island of Macau in southern China were acquired by those two Asian states in 1961 and 1999, respectively.

But the eastern part of the island of Timor, conquered by the Indonesians in 1975 after the Portuguese left, fought a war to liberate itself from that Muslim-majority country and in 2002 became the independent state of Timór-Leste.

While the rest of what had become the Dutch East Indies remained Muslim, East Timor, after four centuries of Portuguese rule, was now predominantly Roman Catholic.

Though Portugal divested itself of its empire (except Macau) by 1975, its former colonies continue to exhibit both cultural and political affinities and in 1996 formed the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

These Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) nations are home to almost 250 million people located across the globe, with a combined area of about 10,742,000 square kilometres. The seventh CPLC summit was held in Luanda, Angola, last year.

While the British, French and Spanish empires eventually overshadowed that of Portugal, this country of 11 million people has certainly left its mark in the world.

Will Islamist Parties Vie for Power in Tunisia?

Henry Srebrnik, [Toronto] Jewish Tribune

Authoritarian states may appear powerful and stable when viewed from afar, but since they have little legitimacy, they are built on sand. We have just witnessed another example of this in the North African state of Tunisia, where president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been toppled after 23 years in power.

Many observers were taken by surprise by this spontaneous uprising, perhaps because Ben Ali was more circumspect than neighbouring autocrats such as Libya’s mercurial Muammar Qaddafi (a supporter of Ben Ali’s, by the way). 

Ben Ali’s regime was viewed as “friendly” towards the West, and he was in the good graces of the former colonial power, France. He also sought to curb Islamist extremism.

But Ben Ali ran a kleptocracy. He and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, along with their families, amassed untold wealth, while Tunisia’s youth, including university students, found themselves without jobs or hope. 

It all began to unravel on Dec. 17, when a university graduate set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid over the lack of jobs, sparking protests. Within a month, Ben Ali’s hold on power collapsed, with many of his cronies now arrested or killed. 

Jews have lived in Tunisia for more than 2,000 years. Though the country was once home to a sizable Jewish community – in 1948 the Jewish population was an estimated 105,000 -- only about 1,000 now remain, in a population that numbers 10.5 million.

Most Jews left after independence in 1956, and by 1967 only 20,000 remained. During the Six Day War, there was a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment. Jews were attacked in riots and almost all the rest emigrated, mainly to France and Israel.

Tunisia served as the HQ of the Arab League between 1979 and 1989. It also was home to Yasser Arafat’s PLO between 1982 and 1993. The PLO’s headquarters were bombed by the Israeli air force in October 1985, in retaliation for the murder of Israelis in Cyprus.

Today most of the remaining Jews live on the island of Djerba, which is home to the El Ghriba Synagogue. It has been attacked twice, in 1985 (following the Israeli raid on the PLO offices) and 2002. There were anti-Israeli demonstrations in the country during March and April 2002, and on April 11, a truck fitted with explosives drove past security and detonated at the front of the synagogue, killing 21 people. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility.

Despite the current turmoil in Tunisia, there has so far been no sign of large scale emigration by the country’s remaining Jews. 

Though a Muslim Arab state, Tunisia’s political culture has been largely secular. However, since the 1980s, there has been a rise in Islamic fundamentalism. The Islamic Tendency Movement (MTI), founded by Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, a philosophy professor, began to flourish despite attempts at suppression by the government. Ghannouchi was jailed between 1981 and 1984, and went into exile in Britain in 1989. The party was banned under the Ben Ali regime.

In the past, Ghannouchi has condemned Zionism and westernization, and dedicated a book he published in 1993 to Iran’s late Ayatollah Khomeini. However, in more recent years, he has pledged his adherence to democracy and the electoral process. “Islam recognizes as a fact of life the diversity of peoples and cultures,” he told an audience in London.

The current “jasmine revolution” was not the work of clerics; Tunisian Islamists had a minimal role in overthrowing Ben Ali. But Ghannouchi, now the leader of the Tunisian Islamic Hizb al-Nahda Party (successor to the MTI), has stated that he plans to return to Tunisia shortly.

Ali Larayedh, another leader of the party, was imprisoned and tortured for 14 years by Ben Ali’s regime. He too claims that the party has enlarged its views to “encompass Western values.” But it still opposes what he terms American interference in Arab countries.

Tunisia’s new rulers have pledged to release all political prisoners and to recognize the outlawed Communist and Islamic parties. 

“The Islamist movement was the most oppressed of all the opposition movements under Ben Ali. Its followers are also much greater in number than those of the secular opposition,” remarked Salah ad-Din al-Jourchi, a Tunisian journalist and expert on Islamic movements. The elite for its part has neither the knowledge nor the experience it needs to deal with Islamists. “Its effect could be large,” he concluded.

The political outcome in the country remains far from certain.

A Power Structure Built on Sand

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Pioneer-Journal

Authoritarian states may appear powerful and stable when viewed from afar, but since they have little legitimacy, they are built on sand.

Their rulers rely on repression and naked force, and when these no longer work, their downfall is swift. We have just witnessed another example of this in the North African state of Tunisia, where president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been toppled after 23 years in power.

Many observers were taken by surprise by this spontaneous uprising, perhaps because Ben Ali and the nomenklatura that ruled the country were more circumspect than neighbouring autocrats such as Libya’s mercurial Muammar Qaddafi (a supporter of Ben Ali’s, by the way).

Ben Ali’s regime was viewed as “friendly” towards the West, and he was in the good graces of the former colonial power, France. He also sought to curb Islamist extremism.

For many, that was enough; they thought it prudent to overlook some of the less savoury aspects of the regime, including the torture of political opponents by the security forces and the stifling of all dissent. As long as there was a veneer of political competition, including fixed elections, things were fine.

This is a country that has had only two presidents since independence in 1956. Habib Bourguiba, a westernized intellectual and leader of the nationalist movement against France, ruled until 1987, when, deemed too old and incapable of governing, he was toppled by Ben Ali.

But Ben Ali ran a kleptocracy. He and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, along with their families, amassed untold wealth, while Tunisia’s youth, including university students, found themselves without jobs or hope. It was only a matter of time until this would blow up in their faces.

It all began to unravel on Dec. 17, when a university graduate set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid over the lack of jobs, sparking protests. Within a month, Ben Ali’s hold on power collapsed, with many of his cronies now arrested or killed.

This “jasmine revolution” was not the work of clerics; Tunisian Islamists had a minimal role in overthrowing Ben Ali. But Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, the exiled leader of the Tunisian opposition Islamic Hizb al-NahdaParty, who is based in London, has stated that he plans to return to Tunisia shortly. The party was banned under the Ben Ali regime.

Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi has taken over as interim leader and pledged to release all political prisoners and to recognize the outlawed Communist and Islamic parties, as well as hold free, internationally monitored elections within six months, but, as a former member of the hated regime, it is unclear how much power he really wields.

The political situation in the country is in such a state of flux at the moment that all we know for sure is that the president has departed to Saudi Arabia and his wife to Dubai – though even as she was getting ready to leave the country, Trabelsi managed to get hold of 1.5 tons of gold ingots, worth $59 million, from the central bank.

Numerous groups in civil society and in the military are vying for control of the nation and the outcome remains far from certain.

From Mugabe to Mubarak, Many African Dictators Still Reign

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
 
From Robert Mugabe in the south to Hosni Mubarak in the north, Africa still has its share of “big men,” as its dictators are often called.

Even when they hold elections, the results are known in advance, thanks to intimidation of opposition candidates and their supporters; lack of media coverage for opponents; and, finally, ballot rigging.

The most recent example was last fall’s presidential election in the Ivory Coast, where the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, actually lost to rival Alassane Ouattara, yet has refused to step down, despite calls from ECOWAS -- the Economic Community of West African States -- and the United Nations to do so.

The UN was invited to certify the election results in Ivory Coast as part of a peace agreement signed by all parties after a 2002-2003 civil war divided the country in two.

It endorsed the findings of the country’s electoral commission, but the constitutional council subsequently declared Gbagbo president after throwing out more than half a million votes from Ouattara strongholds.

The result may be a resumption of the civil war pitting the largely Muslim north, which supported Ouattara, against the Christianized south, where Gbagbo was the favourite.

Egypt’s Mubarak, who intends to have his son Gamal succeed him as president, himself fixed a legislative election last year.

Claims of fraud and bullying marred the vote, in which the main opposition Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates were forced to run as independents, was all but wiped out. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party won 420 of the 444 contested seats.

A presidential election is scheduled for later this year in Egypt. Many leading political figures in Egypt, fearing a fix, have already announced that they will refuse to take part.

Zimbabwe too plans a presidential election later in 2011. Mugabe seems fed up with sharing power with his decade-long rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change. They were forced into a coalition government after a rigged 2008 election which had exacerbated a severe economic crisis.

But Tsvangirai has stated that before polls can be held this year there must be a referendum on a revised constitution which will include electoral reforms, and an end to violence perpetrated by members of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF Party.

“When the police, army, militia, war veterans are used to intimidate, coerce, and cause torture and death to the people, that is the kind of violence we need to contain,” he declared.

Neighbouring Zambia will see Rupiah Banda of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy running for his first full term as president. Banda narrowly beat his main challenger, the Patriotic Front’s Michael Sata, in a vote in 2008 after the death of president Levy Mwanawasa.

There was considerable violence following the 2008 election and many fear a repeat this year, as both men will again be running for the top job.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian Ijaw from the southern part of Nigeria, plans to contest the 2011 election in his own right. The former vice-president, he became head of state in 2010 following the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua, a northern Fulani Muslim who had won the presidency in a highly controversial election in 2007.

However, many Nigerian Muslims feel that it should now be the turn of a Muslim to sit in the presidential palace in Abuja. So the presidential contest might feature one or more northern Muslim candidates opposing Jonathan, against a backdrop of ongoing ethnic and religious violence and an insurrection in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

The election “could lead to post-election sectarian violence, paralysis of the executive branch, and even a coup,” according to John Campbell, a former American ambassador to Nigeria.

Apart from these countries, 14 other African states will be holding presidential contests. In many of them, challenges to those in power will be met by harassment, electoral manipulation, and the withholding of resources from those who support competitors. This promises to be a year of high political drama in Africa.

The Gulf War of 1991 and its Aftermath

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

It has now been 20 years since the start of the 1991 Gulf War. Overshadowed by the more recent war in Iraq, it should nonetheless be remembered as an event with far‑reaching ramifications.

Saddam Hussein’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990 led to the American-organized coalition, which included Canada, to force him out of the oil-rich emirate. From Jan. 16, 1991 to the end of February, most of the Persian Gulf region was drawn into war.

The victory over Iraq did not end conflict in the region; it was followed by unsuccessful armed rebellions against Saddam Hussein by Kurds in the north and Shi’ite Muslim Arabs in the south. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled into neighbouring countries.

Why did Iraq lay claim to Kuwait?

The states of the Middle East are not national entities in the sense that most European countries are. Lines on maps are often a relic of the imperial age and have little to do with a sense of identity. 

Only since the end of World War I has the Middle East been divided into a large number of small states, rather than being governed by one or another large empire. And for many, this is an unnatural state of affairs which resulted in the independence of small, weak, and rich states such as Kuwait.

Before 1914, Kuwait was technically part of the Ottoman Empire, as was present-day Iraq. Turkey’s defeat in World War I allowed the British to carved Iraq out of its Mesopotamian holdings. 

At the Uqair conference, held in 1922, the borders between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait were drawn by Sir Percy Cox, the British high commissioner then stationed in Baghdad. The states involved had little say in the matter. 

So pan-Arab nationalists came to look upon Kuwait and some of the other tiny sheikdoms as products of European imperialism, artificial states of dubious legitimacy.

The new state of Iraq wanted to incorporate Kuwait, even when it was itself largely under British domination. In 1961, when Kuwait became independent, the revolutionary regime in power in Baghdad, massed troops on the Kuwaiti border, and only pulled back after British, and then Arab League, troops were dispatched to protect Kuwait. Iraq massed troops on the border again in 1967 and 1973. 

Saddam Hussein, ruler of Iraq after 1979, wanted to make Iraq the dominant player in the region. He also blamed Kuwait for a fall in oil prices in the late 1980s, because the emirate was ignoring OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) production quotas. 

As well, Kuwait in the summer of 1990 asked Iraq to repay the $17.6 billion it had lent Saddam Hussein during his 1980s war with Iran.

Angered by this request, on Aug. 2, 1990 Iraq again massed forces against Kuwait, but this time conquered the entire country. Saddam decreed Kuwait Iraq’s 19th province, declaring, a few days after the invasion that “the branch has been returned to the tree.” 

 The UN Security Council on Nov. 29 passed a resolution authorizing member states to use “all means necessary” against Iraq unless it withdrew from Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991. A day later, coalition forces invaded Kuwait. By Feb. 26 Iraqi troops had been chased out of Kuwait, but Saddam’s regime in Iraq survived.

How did the Gulf war affect the region in the long run? Iraq lost some degree of sovereignty within its own territory -- Washington declared an area north of the 36th parallel in northern Iraq a refuge for Kurds who fled Saddam Hussein’s armies, and UN sanctions against Baghdad were put in place.

Though Saddam never threatened Kuwait again, the lingering animosity between Baghdad and Washington would eventually lead to renewed conflict in March 2003, and the final overthrow of Iraq’s Ba’athist regime.

This second war lasted much longer and its outcome remains murky. Despite the immense amount of money expended and casualties incurred by the United States, the main beneficiary of Saddam’s removal may yet prove to be Iran.