The Salafi Cartoon Network

If you are a good, conscientious follower of world events, you are probably wondering about these "Salafis" that everyone keeps saying are gaining popularity across the Middle East.

In which case, you could do much worse than spend a few minutes reading Sarah Topol's Egypt's Salafi Surge.

"While the Brotherhood wants to talk about its plans to create new jobs, the Salafis will try to focus the debate in parliament on public social virtues, like headscarves, religious idolatry, and banning alcohol. The Brotherhood is also far more concerned with increasing the powers of parliament and sending the Egyptian military back to barracks, while Nour's red-meat issue remains the promotion of its conservative social agenda."

On the otherhand, if you are like Londonstani and would much rather have trends in international politics explained to you through the medium of an amusing cartoon, you sir (or madam) are totally in luck!

"Yeah, but.." UK AID in the world

Parliament's Commons Select Committee published a report today calling for aid programmes to be cut in countries that don't honour agreements or avoid transparency.

Definitely worth having a look at if you are interested in what the British government does abroad.

A couple of questions jump out to Londonstani:

1 - The report seems to assume that host governments are going to be cowed into good behaviour because they fear the loss of the UK tax payer's millions (or thousands, ok, maybe hundreds). What happens if, actually, the UK government's contribution is a small part of a country's total aid package?

2 - Even if the UK government is a major donor, does aid spending actually give you clout? Not as much as you might think if the Malawian president's decision to chuck out the UK high commissioner is anything to go by. "So you don't like private jets, Mr. Ambassador? Let's see you row home."

3 - What if the host country decides to thank the international community for paying for the care of its poorest, and then decides to hold those same vulnerable people to ransom if the donors get crazy ideas about demanding accountability or transparency.. cough Sudan cough..

Don't get it twisted, Londonstani agrees with the MPs recommendations - in principle:

"The MPs urge DFID to set out specific governance conditions under which it will provide direct budget support to fragile states, and any under which it will be withdrawn and apply these consistently. They also recommend that DFID invest more in community-led local initiatives which respond to community priorities and give communities more confidence to hold their governments to account."

.. but you gotta wonder if they've figured out how these ideas work on the ground.

Beards, bikinis and the politics of the new Arab world

When it comes to revolutions, it's the bullets, tear gas and chanting crowds that gets everyone excited, but it's what comes afterwards that ultimately decides the future.

Although, like many other Middle East new junkies, I get up in the morning and think, "put on the news! What's going on in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen?!", the future of the Middle East - whether it will become a stable, prosperous region or an unstable basketcase that makes the rest of the world nervous - is being decided by what is happening right now in Tunisia and Egypt.

The conversations taking place in most Western (and non-Arab Muslim) media fixates on a couple of labels; military rule, Islamists and democracy. In reality, the struggle playing out in Arab countries that have managed to overthrow an unpopular leader is about much more fundamental issues; namely, the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

Samer Al-Atrush, a freelance journalist based in Cairo writing for AFP and the Telegraph, had a great story out yesterday illustrating the political, societal and cultural tussle taking place away from the cameras that will nonetheless decide whether we are looking at a stable and prosperous Arab world or a region at odds with itself and the rest of the world.

"On a barren hill in Sharm el-Sheikh, not far from the famous beach resorts with their bikini-clad patrons, Islamist activist Ahmed Saber ponders the fate of revealing swimwear if his party comes to power."

Now, Londonstani and Samer were partners in journalistic crime a few years ago, so Londonstani has some idea of just how much pleasure Samer will have taken in mentioning Islamists and bikinis in the same sentence. The only thing that is likely to give Samer more satisfaction is that he has Salafis in there too. A Canadian-Palestinian with fluent Arabic and deep local knowledge, Samer has gotten to the root of the post-revolution debate.

Following foreign rule and then often military dictatorships of one form or another, the Muslim world in general, but the Arab world in particular, has had little opportunity to come to a durable consensus as to what confers legitimacy on rulers, what is expected of them and what the process of interaction between those in power and those they govern should be. In the absence of a debate, force has prevailed, buttressed by a substantial degree of bribery ("government jobs for all graduates! woohoo"), and blackmail ("it's your duty as an Arab and Muslim to support your great leader as he stands opposed to the devious activities of Zionists and imperialists").

This approach, in essence, characterises practically all political groups in the Arab world regardless of whether they call themselves "secular", "liberal", "democratic", "Islamist" or anything else. With civil society and media curtailed or subverted and education systems used to inculcate blind acceptance of the ruling clique's hold on power, there has been little space - until recently - to independently grapple with the basic issues of governance, rights and responsibilities, problems and solutions.

Until, that is, the likes of Mubarak and Ben Ali were removed and the puritanical ideal of the Salafis clashed with the practical need to tolerate bikini-clad tourists in order to keep the economy functioning.

"With the Brotherhood, at least we can have a discussion," he said...But the Salafis are different. They are used to sitting in mosques saying: "God commanded this, and the Prophet commanded that. And now suddenly they are involved in politics. It won't work."

Of course, the idea of bikini and beards at loggerheads has picked up media attention, but the principle of balancing requirements and satisfying divergent interests is what's important here. Those who end up ruling the (hopefully) post-dictatorship countries of the Arab world will have to address the issue of keeping people employed, providing law and order, improving social justice and building an economy in the real world - one where there is no perfect solution mandated by scripture (religious or secular), just a least-worst option.

* If you are into your political philosophy, you might see a hint of the fundamental questions that seminal thinkers like John Rawls grapple with when trying to address some of the same issues.

** And if you are of the "Arabs/Muslims don't need to learn anything from an American" school of thought, you might want to look at Zakariya Qazwini's Awaj bin Anfaq, Al Farabi's al Madina al Fadila and Nizam al Tusi's Sayasatnama

Kicking Off

After a six-month break from blogging, it’s time for Londonstani to once again put pixel to webpage.

But first, as a courtesy to those stumbling across Londonstani for the first time, this is probably a good time to explain.

Londonstani is the alter ego of Amil Khan, who – about four years ago, was working as a documentary journalist at the BBC and Channel 4 on projects that involved crime, gang warfare, extremism and armed conflict in far off places. Andrew Exum - aka Abu Muqawama – who was sharing a flat with Londonstani in East London’s Walthamstow area, featured some of Londonstani’s whispered ramblings on his counter insurgency blog.

It wasn’t long after that Abu Muqawama’s “violent Pashtun flatmate” started writing regularly for the blog, drawing on his privileged access to people and places as a journalist to analyse issues related to extremism, UK foreign policy and identity in Britain.

Blogging at Abu Muqawama gave Londonstani the leeway to delve unfettered into the topics Amil was being asked to cover as a professional journalist. Amil and Londonstani settled into a productive partnership. Amil would pimp his languages/professional background/ability to use a camera to get access to refugee camps/war zones or sink estates and Londonstani would bask in the freedom of the interwebs and write whatever he wanted.

The arrangement produced articles that Amil had to grudgingly admit he was glad to have collaborated on. Including:

An interview with an al Qaeda fighter returning from Iraq.

A series of three reports from Sudan’s Darfur conflict that looked at how traditional societies are affected by political upheaval and violence.

And, while Amil covered racism in a typical UK housing estate, Londonstani looked at the draw of the extremist narrative in less nice parts of modern Britain.

Amil arrived in Pakistan in 2009 to run a UK-funded counter extremism project that worked with religious leaders. Londonstani, of course, came along too. Pakistan was as newsworthy then as it is now (perhaps more so). Several foreign correspondents do a great job covering headline news events in Pakistan. So, as before, Londonstani stuck to exploring the issues behind the headlines in an effort to present a little context and background to those hoping to understand why people feel and/or act as they do.

Since then Amil has caught up to Londonstani with some writing of his own at Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel. As the Arab Spring rolled around, Amil couldn’t resist revisiting his first infatuation - the politics of the Middle East – and wrote a couple of articles looking at why Arabs had decided they had had enough.

With the situation in the Middle East evolving around us and Pakistan looking like its set for social and political changes as its young (65 percent of the population) look to have their voices heard, Londonstani will be going through a little transformative process of his own.

After nearly four years residence at Abu Muqawama, it’s about time Londonstani ventured out in the big wide world on his own. The Londonstani blog will look at the issues of violence and politics, much as before (ie. in the third person tense of plausible deniability). But as the world changes, Londonstani’s coverage will adapt to address it. The blog will still cover extremism and how to address it but will expand its horizons to encompass issues of political development (the developing ideas behind the politics of the Muslim world) and how to engage with emerging trends in a productive way. In addition, the Londonstani blog will come at these issues from a UK angle, because – well – Londonstan is part (by consent and not coercion) of a larger entity known as the United Kingdom.

There will doubtless be technical teething problems as the blog takes its first steps. Feel free to comment (if they work), get in contact (if that works) or get a hold of Londonstani via twitter @Londonstani.

Londonstani aims to be a resource for all those interested in the politics of the Middle East, South Asia and community relations in the UK. If nothing else, you’re likely to find out something you might not ever have known about a fascinating and underreported part of the world… like the ‘Stow.