Why We Believe in Amina Arraf

This past weekend, Syrian regime thugs purportedly kidnapped Amina Arraf who blogs at A Gay Girl in Damascus. I had been reading her blog for a few months and was quite upset at the news. Escaping a close call before, Amina refused to be silenced. And now she was in incredible danger.

Or, as it turns out, the truth may have been the one in danger. Since her alleged disappearance, serious questions have been raised about the blog's veracity. Amina may be a hoax.

I was tweeting about the whole situation when a producer for the BBC World Service's World Have Your Say asked me to come on the show. You can hear what I said here. I speak at 8:50 and at 19:00. My comments focus on why we want to hope for, and believe in, Amina.

I, like so many other of Amina's followers, want to believe in Amina. We hope that such a powerful voice for freedom is real. But in that hope, we also are effectively wishing that Amina is in incredible peril. I have been struggling to decide whether it's better to hope that a profound voice for liberty is in danger of being extinguished or that such a voice never existed at all.

There are many reasons why I might have been fooled by Amina, assuming she is in fact a hoax.My friend The Camel's Nose points to our limited ability to evaluate and process all the sources we encounter from Syria. As such, "our human brains took cognitive shortcuts to triage the fire hose of information coming at us." In addition, I have previously blogged about why social media seem particularly prone to misinformation.

But in this case, I think the problem is primarily neither one of cognition or transmission. Rather, it's one of emotion. We believed Amina's words because we wanted to believe them. We have witnessed such brutality in Syria, such ugliness, that we were bound to latch on to anything that offered beauty and hope. That is exactly what Amina did. We want to believe in Amina because she is something worth believing in.

But now we have reached a time for reckoning. We need to know the truth. Whether Amina is real or not, her story is certainly real. Over 1200 Syrians have died for the cause of freedom. Unknown more have been imprisoned and tortured. Each and every one deserve the attention Amina has garnered.

And that is why it would be so tragic if Amina turns out to be fake. So much time, energy, effort and emotion would have been wasted upon her as others languish and suffer. People outside Syria can only do so much to help, and currently that help is being directed primarily towards Amina.

If she is in fact a work of fiction, the time has come for her creator to fess up. His or her personal discomfort and embarrassment will be far outweighed by the good it will do for every Syrian currently locked in a struggle that is anything but a work of fiction.

But until such confirmation comes or definitive proof is discovered, we must assume Amina is real. As Andy Carvin worries, "this discussion about her identity could distract people from the possibility that should [sic] might be being brutalized in detention, and in dire need of support from friends and strangers alike."

UPDATE: Amina is in fact fake. I'm glad we now know the truth.

Fickle American Relationships

Bruce Reidel just posted an update on why India abstained from the UNSC resolution authorizing military intervention in Libya. According to Reidel, Indians are "puzzled" by America's inconsistency. He quotes one Indian observer, "the U.S. is both promiscuous and flighty" with its relationships.

Certainly our intervention in Libya is arbitrary. Plenty of other dictators have taken a far larger toll on their populations while incurring little more than an expression of American dismay. Moreover, while Qaddafi was never anything close to our ally, we certainly had a working relationship with him only two months ago.

Yet the fact India feels troubled by our about-face in Libya reflects a significant communication failure. This is especially troubling considering both the Bush and Obama administration has worked hard to forge stronger ties with New Dehli. Nuclear deals, state dinners, and support for permanent status at the UNSC apparently have not adequately proven our commitment to our friendship with India.

We must make it clear to the world that we have two kinds of allies abroad: transactional and substantial. We work with transactional allies because it serves our immediate interests. Mubarak got his fiefdom, and we got counter-terrorism and peace with Israel. While abandoning these relationships can be painful, we will do so once our interests are no longer served.

India is not a transactional ally. Our friendship is far more substantial. Of course, we gain significant benefits from our relationship with India. But that relationship runs deeper than simple trade-offs because we share values of democracy, freedom and pluralism. Just as with our European allies, we will not abandon India for near-term gain. Rather, we have every intention to deepen and broaden our ties.

Moreover, as those ties strengthen, pro-Indian constituencies will coalesce in the U.S. just as pro-American constituencies will coalesce in India. Unlike diaspora groups of authoritarian regimes who lobby for their home goverment's overthrow (e.g. Egyptians and Iranians), diasporas from democratic regimes push for stronger economic, political, and cultural ties. It is these groups that will ensure a strong U.S.-Indian friendship in the future.

If we make the distinction between transactional and substantive allies clear abroad, it will naturally apply pressure to leaders to make essential political reforms. Foreign leaders will come to understand that the only way to secure their permenant friendship with the United States is to uphold the universal rights of their populations. If they can only offer us temporary stability, as Mubarak did, then they will always have to fear their transactional relationship may fall victim one day to American fickleness.

If our close friend India has not heard that message, then it is unlikely any other leader, democratic or authoritarian, has heard it either. And that is a problem.

Egyptian Democracy When Pigs Fly

Last week, I went to an event hosted by the Wilson Center that featured Egyptian journalist Heba el-Koudsy discussing American democracy promotion in Egypt. You can see a summary of the event here. Or, for the more visually-inclined, the video is available online here.


During her lecture, el-Koudsy differentiated between external American and internal Egyptian pressure for reform. She argued it has always been the internal push for reform that has prodded President Mubarak into (insufficient) action. As such, the U.S. should focus on ways to support the internal drive for democratization by, for example, bolstering civil society.


At minute 53, I asked her how the potential candidacy Mohamed ElBaradei may provide a new source of internal leverage for reform on the Mubarak regime.

To give a quick background, Egypt will be holding its second-ever multi-party competitive elections for president in 2011. All experts agree that the presidency will remain in Mubarak's hands through manipulation and coercion. The only question is whether it'll be Hosni or his son Gamal who will be the Mubarak in charge.

Enter Elbaradei. Currently, he enjoys broad popularity in Egypt for his service as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. As such, the Wafd party - one of the oldest parties in Egypt and considered an opposition party - asked the historically apolitical ElBaradei to run as their candidate for president.


After mulling it over, ElBaradei announced he would only run in the very unlikely scenario that elections were "free and fair." Shortly after that announcement, he upped the ante again, declaring he would only run as an independent candidate. To translate for you, he basically said he'd run for president when pigs fly.

The Egyptian constitution, while technically allowing independent candidates to run for president, sets an overwhelming number of restrictions and qualifications on an independent candidacy. To give a domestic example, imagine if a candidate declared he/she would only run for president if the electoral college were abolished, and even then, as neither a Democrat or Republican. That's what ElBaradei is doing.

In short, it won't ever happen under the current constitution. And more importantly, everyone - including ElBaradei and Mubarak - know it will never happen. And yet, according to El-Koudsy, something is happening.

Egyptians are no longer only talking about Mubarak versus Mubarak. ElBaradei's announcement has stimulated Egypt's political conscious, sparking new debate and revealing new possibilities. But most importantly, Mubarak's farcical and cynical use of democratic institutions to mask his dictatorship have been laid bare. And that's exactly what ElBaradei sought to achieve by effectively refusing to participate in sham elections.

During his tenure as IAEA chief, he scoured the deserts of Iraq in search for the mythical weapons of mass destruction and negotiated endlessly with the intransigent Iranian regime. Now as an Egyptian politician, he seems to be prepared to put those experiences to good use: to continue chasing fantasy while tirelessly confronting an uncompromising regime.

And if he and other Egyptians persist, maybe one day that fantasy will be fantasy no more.

Puppet Dictators for Sale

Despite the weak economy, apparently people have enough money to buy an "Arab puppet dictator kit" for sale on Ebay (h/t Arabist). The kit includes "tools" that will help, among other things, to "give green light to any US agency for regional hegemony," steal natural resources, crush the people's "aspiration for true freedom" with "absolute brutality," and "respond very well to CNN and other tools of imperial propaganda." All for a current bid of $20.50!

Putting President Obama's Nobel prize aside, clearly the United States faces anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Some of the problem stems from image issues. You and I know the United States isn't out to crush freedom, but unfortunately that's not so obvious to many Arabs and Muslims who often have access to either incomplete, biased and even invented information.

But perceptions are only half the problem. While many Arabs were delighted by Obama's election (it's no coincidence the Ebay site features a picture of President Bush wielding a scimitar laughing), they are also quick to point out that they are waiting for tangible action. Sadly, we don't exactly have the best record when it comes to supporting dictators in the Middle East. Take, for instance, our plot to overthrow a democratically elected leader to install the Shah of Iran.

We must find a way to convince the Arab and Muslim world that - fifty years after that mistake - we're no longer in the nefarious business of CIA coups. Words won't suffice. So what actions can we take? We can begin by consistently supporting democratic reform and human rights rhetorically, diplomatically, technically and financially.

Should democracy be our only concern in the region? No. Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting extremism and securing our energy supply all require the cooperation of the region's autocratic leaders for the short-term. But for the long-term, only a democratic Middle East will lead to stability and prosperity. And only a stable, prosperous Middle East can keep America secure.