On Mubarak and Myspace...

Briefly on myspace now, don't want to give it the time of day but I do have an additional gripe I wanted to get off my chest. It seems like proof myspace is determined to become the North Korea of social networking sites. I decided, as you might have realised, the stop using myspace as a blogging space. That was why I first went there, so it's been my main blog home for over five years. Once I'd set up this page I posted final entries on my myspace page blogs letting people know I'd moved here. When I tried to click on the link I posted in the myspace blog (to come here) I got this message:

Sorry, you have reached a link that is no longer accessible due to one or more of the following:

-      A reported spammer site

-      A reported Phishing Site: A site designed to trick the user into giving up user name and passwords.

-      A site which contains malware

-      A site that currently contains a lot of spam

-      The user entered HTML syntax was inaccurate.

My initial reaction was that I must have somehow put the link in incorrectly, so I returned, edited the blog, made sure it had the right URL, put in the right html, but all to no avail. Myspace is blocking links to blogger... which means myspace thinks blogger is a spammer/phishing/malware portal or it is deliberately trying to isolate itself from the increasingly integrated social networking community. It shows that the team Rupert Murdoch has put behind myspace, since they bought it, haven't understood what makes social networks tick: you have to get the user generated content right first, ease of use and compatibility with other popular sites (not dogged resistance to them and poor attempts at copying them). Know what you're good at and do it well, once you're good at it the community will build and you can start trying to turn a profit from them, not the other way round.

Now for Mubarak; I want to write about him because I am aware that there is a lot of unrest in Egypt at the moment, a popular movement (somewhat inspired by the Jan 14th uprising that overthrew Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia), but I realise I know very little about him. What follows will sort of be thinking out loud - getting an overview (using limited web based sources of information - primarily the questionable source of wikipedia - I'm not trying to get definitive answers just slightly broaden my knowledge base).

Mubarak became president after the assassination of President Anwar El Sadat. Sadat was killed by Islamists who, amongst other things, were outraged at his peace treaty with Israel in a series of meetings facilitated by US president Jimmy Carter. Mubarak continued friendly relations with the US, when George Bush snr. wanted allies for Gulf War I in 1991 Mubarak and Egypt eagerly stepped up. At the end of the war Egypt was forgiven about 14 billion of its national debts by America, the Arab states of the Persian gulf and European allies. Mubarak maintained a strong alliance with Israel, but was opposed to George W's Gulf War, as he felt it was more important to settle the Israel/Palestine issue first.

Mubarak has stayed in power this long whilst maintaining the thinnest veneer of democracy. In his wikipedia entry it doesn't say he was elected president in '81, it says he 'assumed the presidency'... whatever that's supposed to mean. Mubarak and his family are extremely wealthy; estimates put him at having a personal/family wealth of around $40-70 billion USD, much of this wealth accumulated from military contracts while he was in the air force according to an ABC News report. I don't suppose it's the norm for military officers to expect such massive remuneration for 'service'. Mubarak was Commander of the Air Force, Egyptian Deputy Minister of Defence and air chief marshal before becoming president, showing how powerful a force he was within the military.

Mubarak was able to win referendum elections in '87, '93 and '99 largely because no one could run against the president due to the fact the Peoples Assembly played the main role in electing presidents (presumably Mubarak also had control of the Peoples Assembly to guarantee those re"elections". Under pressure for reform there was a multi-candidate presidential election in 2005, but with Mubarak controlling the media, the electoral institutions and security it was unsurprising he won. However there have been growing independent media outlets and of course internet access (I saw a graph on the bbc a week ago that said 20% of Egyptians used the net, much higher than most of their neighbours) and so popular displeasure at Mubarak's undemocratic reign and policies have grown to fever pitch. It looks like he'll be stepping down soon enough.

It's funny that I visited Egypt in 2008 and had absolutely no idea about any of this, and no one told us, or hinted at it. Our guide had been explaining a newspaper to me, but I guess it must have been one of the many in Mubarak's pocket. Although I learnt that the Egyptians didn't have any time for Sarkozy; and not much for Blair, no one was going to turn around and tell me that Mubarak was essentially a military dictator in all but name. I suppose America were inclined to keep him in place because although his reign has been most likely illegal (according to international law) he has contributed to stability in the region (in America's favour) by keeping peace and diplomatic ties with Israel (who are largely rejected by members of the Arab League).

Similarly Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia has a military background, having earned degrees in American and French specialist military schools (the Special Inter-Service School and Artillery School, both in France, and the Senior Intelligence School and the School for Anti-Aircraft Field Artillery, both in America). After high profile military and diplomatic careers Ben Ali -ahem- 'assumed the presidency' on the grounds that the incumbent, Habib Bourguiba, although Fulvio Martini, former head of the Italian secret service later said that Ben Ali had been put in power by the power of a military putsch, allowing Bourguiba to flee (and preventing him from performing rough justice executions on the bombers).

In '99 Tunisia had its equivalent of Egypt's 2005 presidential elections: only Ben Ali got a highly unlikely 99.4% of the vote. Under Ben Ali's thinly veiled military dictatorship human rights suffered along with freedom of the press (surprise, surprise). Ben Ali won another sham election in 2009, but it would seem the high employment caused by the global reception has galvanised people against him, leading to the popular uprising that overthrew him last month. In the aftermath arrest warrants have been issue for the fleeing Ben Ali, for illegally taking money out of the nation, and illegally acquiring real estate and other assets abroad.

I wonder if Mubarak will face questions about those old military contracts that made him so personally rich, but I suppose there are ways of legally enriching immorally, such as the UK bankers receiving excessive bonuses, despite the financial collapse and the fact they were bailed out by public money - or the shocking figures Tony Blair now makes for consulting work. I figure Blair probably handed out a few of those lucrative military contracts during Gulf War II to assist him in accumulating so much wealth after office.