In all of the raruraru about Egypt...

This is THE best article I have seen on the people behind the popular uprising that led to Mubarack resigning.

Early in 2008, workers at a government-owned textile factory in the Egyptian mill town of El-Mahalla el-Kubra announced that they were going on strike on the first Sunday in April to protest high food prices and low wages. They caught the attention of a group of tech-savvy young people an hour's drive to the south in the capital city of Cairo, who started a Facebook group to organize protests and strikes on April 6 throughout Egypt in solidarity with the mill workers. To their shock, the page quickly acquired some 70,000 followers.

But what worked so smoothly online proved much more difficult on the street. Police occupied the factory in Mahalla and headed off the strike. The demonstrations there turned violent: Protesters set fire to buildings, and police started shooting, killing at least two people. The solidarity protests around Egypt, meanwhile, fizzled out, in most places blocked by police. The Facebook organizers had never agreed on tactics, whether Egyptians should stay home or fill the streets in protest. People knew they wanted to do something. But no one had a clear idea of what that something was.

The botched April 6 protests, the leaders realized in their aftermath, had been an object lesson in the limits of social networking as a tool of democratic revolution. Facebook could bring together tens of thousands of sympathizers online, but it couldn't organize them once they logged off. It was a useful communication tool to call people to -- well, to what? The April 6 leaders did not know the answer to this question. So they decided to learn from others who did. In the summer of 2009, Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and April 6 activist, went to Belgrade, Serbia.

(I bolded that bit as a teaser.)

I will not c&p the rest of it - as strong as the temptation might be. It is a detailed piece of power writing.

And, I suspect, it highlights why the orthodox "great powers" have come to grief in their attempts to introduce democracy to...[name the country of your choice].

Read it, think about it. It is one of the best I have read in a very long time.

Ahmedinejad and over-reaction...

Be clear on one thing. I have even less time for Ahmedinejad than I had for GWShrub and his cohorts. With that perspective clear, I can continue.

Ahmedinejad uses fora such as the UN General Assembly in exactly the same way as America's uber-right uses Fox and the internet. That gives rise to the first difficulty. He has to try and cram as much condensed invective and hatred into his annual 15 minutes of fame.

For that reason, Ahmedinejad's criticism of the difference in public America's attitude between the stoning of a woman in Iran for adultery, and the State-sponsored murder in America of a woman arranged the death of her husband gets lost.

Had Ahmedinejad concentrated on just that one difference in attitude he might well have had far fewer delegations walk out on his speech.

Diplomacy - 1

On my bedside table these past two weeks has been (courtesy of my local library) a slim volume of speeches given by Terence O'Brien in various fora in NZ between 2002 and 2009. (I recommend it to anyone interested in why things happen the way that they do - ISBN 978-0-908772-31-5)

His name would mean little to most NZers let alone further afield, but he has been a man of some import in the relationship between NZ and the rest of the world. He is a career diplomat and has held many important posts including Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador to the UN in New York, and Ambassador to the European Community in Brussels. He also held the post of President of the UN Security Council. All in all, his name would be widely recognised and respected in the arena of international diplomacy.

The book is appropriately titled "Presence of Mind; New Zealand in the World". The predominant theme, as one would expect, comes from O'Brien's personal experience and knowledge of NZ's place in the international community, and of the way that successive NZ governments have directed our involvement in world affairs.

His expression of the historic background to modern diplomacy he describes as -

In 1900 there were some 60 independent states; by 2000 there were nearly 190...

...the result is that the majority of states today (103 countries) have populations of 10 million or less. Of these, some 87 countries have populations of no more than 5 million... When the 1945 UN Charter was signed by the original 50 members, New Zealand was amongst the six smallest signatories... Going back to 1900, New Zealand was, amongst the established democracies, one of the very few that extended suffrage to include women and indigenous people, groups who were still [electorally at least] disadvantaged in other and more assertive democracies for up to half a century or longer.

Among the first of the diplomatic parameters O'Brien runs through, centres on "Values". The principles of life, liberty and core economic and social freedoms form an unprecedented structure for the (now) history of the second half of the last century. The point is made (to my surprise) that the UN has now "some 67 agreements, codes and standards". O'Brien continues -

All of these conventions derive from the UN Charter... There exists in the Charter however inherent deficiencies that in practice substantially shackle the human rights cause. First, its provisions are designed to promote, not guarantee, human rights.... The rights are not legally enforceable, and anyway the international community possesses no means for such a task.

The primary observation O'Brien makes is the persistent resistance of the "West" to "accountability for their own perceived human rights infractions". For that reason, human rights like foreign policy must "start at home" rather than being imposed from without.

Now if you think that human rights is a peculiar angle from which to start a treatise on diplomacy and foreign relations, O'Brien ties the two in this way -

The reason why human rights occupy so prominent and formal a place in international affairs is because powerful nations believe that it is in their self-interest that the issue should figure in this way. It is a precise illustration of the part power plays in shaping international politics...

Until now, I must confess, the most prominent aspects of NZ foreign policy were (in my mind) our anti-nuclear policy, our occasional involvement in (so-called) peace-keeping missions, and apparently desperate attempts at retaining a livable overseas income from the sale of our agricultural products. In that last quotation there are two words that, for me at least, have epitomised the processes of international relationships; self-interest and power.

However O'Brien describes the process of diplomacy in these terms -

It is a product of managing [the] tensions of living on this planet with others who are different, and who are either too close or too important to ignore. Modern diplomacy ... is the conduct of business between governments by peaceful means... activity to promote and protect a nation's political and economic well-being; ... entails dialogue and bargaining; ... acting upon that which is relevant to the national interest.

Which leads to -

For small countries in particular, it is a reactive business, often involving nimble improvisations in the face of intractable events. New Zealand is no exception to that rule.

Diplomacy in the twentieth century was transfigured by the revolution in communications technology and the rise of the media... .

He continues when discussing "God Defend New Zealand - From What?" -

Globalisation ... has tamed the tyranny of remoteness [of New Zealand] while retaining a moat of protection against trans-boundary risks... [such as] the spread of crime, of weapons, of drugs [the current amphetamine epidemic accepted], of illegal immigration, of health epidemics (both human and animal), and of terrorism.

As importantly, and another aspect which I had not previously considered, are the risks associated with that process; the risk of mis-assessment or incorrectly formulated response -

The absense of a well-defined concept of risk, or of a refined ability to assess risk, is therefore an occupational hazard of foreign policy making...
...
exaggeration [of risk] is part of a venerable tradition amongst foreign policy makers to vindicate chosen policies or expansion of military power or indeed both together.
...
To define risks or threats to a country's security merely, or principally, in military terms in today's world is a false image of reality. True security depends on much more than military prowess, on factors such as economic strength, competitive industry, quality of education, adequate public health, wholesome environment, social welfare and effective leadership.

I am going to leave it there for the moment. It is a convenient point to stop; I have been brewing this for the past week; it leads to the next step quite nicely.

Points to note -

As is my practice, my comments and clarifications inside of quoted portions from O'Brien are enclosed in square brackets [].
I have left out (and hence the ellypses scattered throughout the quotes) those portions of O'Brien's writing where he has given extensive descriptive and clarification of the fundamental statements I have extracted.