 Managing Director and Regional Trust Executive of U.S. Trust at Bank of America's Private Wealth Management and a Director of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. Before we begin the program, we're going to ask everybody to please silence your cell phones and any other electronic devices. And we are, however, happy to have anyone who feels so inclined to tweet from tonight's program now. Honestly, I don't even really know what that means. We would like to welcome you all and take a moment to tell you about an exciting lineup of events for the upcoming months. On March 15th, we'll be continuing our Eye on the Economy series with the Enquirer Business columnist Bill Dunkelberg and Wharton Business Professor Justin Wolfers on the timely topic of the employment, forecast, and consumer sentiment. And then on April 17th, we're really excited and honored to present the right honorable Tony Blair with our International Statesmen Award. This will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime event in the magnificent ballroom at the Hyatt at the Bellevue, where we're now able to offer additional seating. Then on May 15th, Deirdre Connolly, President of North American Pharmaceuticals at GlaxoSmithKline and Bloomberg News Executive Editor Amanda Bennett will join us for the third part in our Eye on the Economy series to discuss doing business in the 21st century. And finally, we've just received great news. Mark Grossman, the special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan will join us on May 23rd, one day after he participates in the NATO summit in Chicago. Ambassador Grossman will be followed by a panel of experts who will continue the discussion of President Obama's foreign policy, which is certainly of interest to our followers of international affairs. So it's quite an exciting season, and so for more information about these and other programs, please check out our website and our most recent newsletter, which also can be found out on the registration table. So these events, along with the support of our members and partners, enable the Council to offer its most important programs to a diverse group of over 2,100 middle and high school students in 80 schools throughout the Philadelphia area. Fostering the skills and sensibilities they will need in order to thrive and compete in a knowledge-based global community. And now I'm delighted to introduce tonight's speakers. An Edward Weintel Prize winner for international journalism, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin, is known for her extensive coverage of global issues. In the last seven years, Rubin has journeyed to Iraq 11 times, visited Afghanistan and Pakistan four times, and has reported extensively from China, Turkey, and the Israel-Palestine region. The author of Willful Blindness, The Bush Administration, and Iraq, and a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist for her commentary. Ms. Rubin was awarded the Arthur Ross Award for International Commentary from the Academy of American Diplomacy in 2010. Her column, World View, runs every Thursday and Sunday in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joining Trudy Rubin is Marwan Bashar, Senior Political Analyst for Al Jazeera English. As a renowned author and global politician, Mr. Bashar has established himself as one of the leading authorities in international US and Middle Eastern policy. He's the editor and host of Al Jazeera English's flagship show, Empire, a program that examines the agendas of various global powers. He was previously a lecturer of international relations at the American University of Paris and has had his writings appear in The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, and Newsweek in addition to many other well-known publications and outlets. His newest book, The Invisible Arab, The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution, is available here tonight. And Mr. Bashar has kindly agreed to sign copies following tonight's program. So please join me in welcoming Trudy Rubin and Marwan Bashar. I can get my mic turned on. Am I on? Can you see? Yes, yes. On? Oh, okay. That was easy. I'm going to apologize in advance. My brain is a little bit of mush because I'm a horrible head cold. So if I'm a little bit incoherent, that's my excuse. But since we're starting with just a few minutes each of conversation, I thought that what I would talk about is just how I'm trying to look at what's been happening in the Arab Spring and Autumn and Winter. Now, as opposed to how I was looking at it in February when I was in Egypt at the Tahrir Square Revolution. Snotter? No, it's not working. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, I'll just hold it. Let me get a swig of it. All right, we will try again. Ah, I just wondered. All right, can you hear me now? I just want to reflect a little on how I find myself looking at the Arab Revolutions, Revolts, Rebellions at this point compared to how I was looking at them when I was in Egypt in February and then again in October and November when I was in Tunisia for the elections, the first democratic elections and then back in Egypt just before the parliamentary elections started there. One of the things that fascinates me is that I think there are several different rebellions and revolutions going on, not just one. Back in January, February in Egypt, and I wasn't in Tunis when that outbreak happened, but in Egypt the initial upheaval, the organizers such as they were, I have decided that I sort of see them in one category. And then the people who came in, who followed them, whether they were the soccer players, whether they were ordinary working people who flocked to the square, whether they were a broad mass of Egyptians who felt some sympathy with what was going on. I'm beginning to see in another category the overarching word that I've decided that fits the whole revolution the best is the word dignity rather than the word democracy. Because it seems to me that the common thread between the educated young people, some in their 30s who were using Facebook and so forth, and the larger hinterland was this frustration that they were being treated with mules. It's interesting because you hear the same word used by Russians, a totally different kind of country, but I've been on the phone a lot to Moscow because I'm going next week for the Putin recarnation, or re-thefting. And again, the word in Egypt people were saying to me when I go to working class areas in February and again in October and then again in November, I was petrified. They talked about being treated like mules. In Russia they talk about being treated like cows. I don't know what the difference is here, but the point is the same, being treated like animals, we might say sheep. And it was this desire to hold one's head up, to have pride in one's country that I think is the unifying factor. I think that the educated people, and I talked with most of the leadership in the council that formed after January 25th and even before January 25th trying to organize these demonstrations, there were people who were thinking in more concrete political terms, thinking in terms of democracy. Many of them had been involved for quite some time. As you may know, there were opposition groups, civil society groups, that had been operating since 2005, some of them in some form or another even before. I was in Cairo in 2005 when there were pro-democracy demonstrations, but at that time the people on the streets were outnumbered by the police with Darth Vader helmets and shields and were very badly treated. Back in 2005 you also had judges involved. You had nascent civil society groups, you had women, but small numbers. People had learned from that, people had taken up the Facebook method of organization and there were young people, people who had been outside each of the people who were very aware of the outside world, and they were thinking in terms of democracy, institutions, parliament, change, governance. But what drew larger numbers of people to the square was this concept of dignity standing up over and over again. I had people tell me, one taxi driver that I wound up hiring and I went with him to Fustat, a very old district where he lived and met all his friends from the coffee house, and what they talked about was that they had given up on Egypt. That's the word he said, given up on. He said, I thought nothing would ever change. He said my wife used to yell at me for throwing garbage out of the window of my cab and I said, what difference did it make? And then he showed me a plastic bag that he had on the floor and now I put everything in there because now Egypt is my country again. And so people felt for the first time that they had a voice, a voice. They weren't thinking so much of a system. They were thinking of a voice and hoping that somehow having that voice would translate into better living standards, maybe too much expectation, definitely too much expectation, that something would change but not thinking systemically. And this is one of the things that I've been noodling on a lot as spring has turned to fall and fall has turned to winter. Where is the systemic thinking? I think that, again, the young people, the organizers were trying to look ahead and as we have seen and as was somewhat apparent at the beginning, they were not capable of thinking in terms of political organization. They were excellent at thinking in terms of street organization and demonstrations. But when it came to thinking in terms of political parties, it was much harder for them and it was also hard for them to come up with a message that resonated among the wider public at large. Now, where do the Islamists fit into this picture? And I think that's one of the most interesting questions. Because while the ordinary working class people I think were thinking of dignity and the educated young people were thinking of democracy, I think the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been working in Egypt, both underground and above ground for many years, which was able to elect people to parliament on an individual basis but was banned as a party, I think what the Brotherhood was thinking about mostly was, my God, is there a chance to come to power? Because the Brotherhood had an ideology long-homed. They had an organizational structure long-homed and very, very disciplined. So the question was now, could they spring into action? But in a way, the Brotherhood's ideology is an old ideology. I mean, it's an ideology that was developed in the 20th century, grown in the 20th century. And what's fascinating to me is that the younger Brotherhood men who broke off from their seniors were impatient with that ideology because it was a top-down control ideology where older men controlled the younger generation and didn't want to hear any fresh ideas. This is apart from the question of religion or not religion. It was an old organization with, in a way, a constipated organizational structure and it didn't seem to fit the new times. Then came the Salafis, the Salafi Islamists. So where did they fit into the picture? They weren't thinking about democracy at all. They had disdained it. They think it's a corrupt system, but suddenly they started as a vehicle to power and they are thinking of religious goals. So you had, I think, a Muslim Brotherhood interest in power, Salafis fascinated by the idea that they could say anything, do anything and maybe have the power to bring religiosity to the country. Young educated people thinking of democratic institutions and a large, massive number of people thinking of dignity and a better standard of life, a government that was responsible to them and less corruption, but impatient with disorder. So how does that add up into something that you can describe as a pattern, an ideology, something that leads in a certain direction? That, indeed, is the question. I'm not even going to, at this point, although I'm happy to, in question time, get into the other rebellions that have been proceeding by force, whether it's Libya where we basically didn't have a country and we just had a leadership with a people and no institutions whatsoever, so a country that's starting from scratch to try to build a political system. And Syria, a country where nobody knows what will emerge after Bashar al-Assad, but I haven't been in Syria for a long time, but the last time I was there in 2005 and I talked to all the heads of, it seemed like just about every head of a small opposition group, most of whom admitted freely that they and their membership could probably fit in, say, a room twice this size, most of them told me that the only force that had organization in Syria was in the mosque. So where those countries will go, I think is a whole broader subject. But what I'm interested in is where the countries with more structure will go is anyone in a position to lead these countries towards a specific new structure of governance that will respond to the desires of the people. And frankly, when I look at Egypt, I don't see the idea of men and women. I heard a lot of terrific ideas from young people in February, but they were new to this game. They don't know how to relate to their own hinterland and they don't know how to organize to get those ideas out to the vast mass of the people. I think some of those ideas about democracy could resonate because democracy does fit with dignity in theory. In theory, it does fit with less corrupt governance, but you have to be able to talk to the people. When I met these Facebook kids, I thought they would be better at it. I thought they would be able to organize out in the countryside. They talked about doing that, but they didn't. So where are the new ideas? And I'll just mention briefly where the only place I see them so far, my one may see many more elsewhere, but the place that I think is fascinating is the place to watch is Tunisia. And the reason I say that is because I think in Tunisia you do have thinkers who are in power. The problem is that these thinkers happen to be fairly well along in years, even though I think they have new ideas, they're old in years, and I don't know whether they can carry all of their followers behind them. I'm referring to the leaders of Tunisia's victorious Islamist party, Enada. Now Rashid Ganucci, the titular head of the party, and Mr. Jabali, who is now the prime minister, was the secretary general of the party. They lived in exile for many years. Now living in exile doesn't guarantee anything. I think there's a lot of political leaders of various tribes who lived in exile, including people like the Dawah party now ruling in Iraq, who didn't gain much from their years in exile in terms of broadening their thinking. But I think that Ganucci is a very unusual person, I believe, in that I think he looked around and he understood that in order to move forward, parties with Islamist groups must look to the greater world and must relate to it. That trying to create a political philosophy that bases itself on opposition to the West but not on positively creating something new is a loser. And so I see this kind of thinking in Ganucci and in the leadership of Enada trying to meld Islamism with an economy that reaches out to the West and creates jobs with mobility for people within the party but whether he will be able to control his own people, whether things develop that way, I can't say, but that's where I see the forward thinking in part inspired by Turkey and Turkey's party with Islamic roots, which is ruling AK Parti. When Turkey's leader, Prime Minister Erdogan, went to Cairo, he was welcomed by the Muslim brothers and then basically rejected because he talked about a secular state but Muslim values. I think that Enada in Tunisia is working on that concept and I think they are the place to watch but whether other countries in the region will adopt that thinking, I don't know. So we have a desire for dignity, a democracy, a question mark and what kind of political philosophy will come to dominate these rebellions too early to set and I'll stop there. Thank you, Trudy. Well, I guess Trudy has made my job a bit more difficult tonight. She's okay. I will try and start from where Trudy left off. I just came back from Tunisia and I actually sat down for an hour with Mr. Anoushi, the head of the Islamic party and I sat down for another hour separate with the president of Tunisia, Moussin Marzouk. Indeed, they are very interesting leaders, slash characters, slash former opposition, slash exiled Tunisians. Mr. Marzouk is a secular leader sort of left off center. Mr. Anoushi is sort of a centrist conservative religious. They arrived with some sort of understanding not an agreement, an understanding whereby they divided the parliament, the presidency, and the premiership among the three leading parties. And Mr. Moussin Marzouk became president in that form and it's a very interesting character and why I say that, because for a lot of us, especially living in this part of the world, sort of west of the Mediterranean, don't know such characters. They were invisible, as what happened in my book, would have it. They were invisible to the rest of the world. As early as 1970, Mr. Marzouk won, let's call it internship, if you will, to go for one year to India to study nonviolent action back in 1970. Before, for example, the guru of nonviolent action in Boston came to existence in the mid-80s, something like two decades before that. Those people were quite invisible and since, in the case of Mr. Marzouk, now the humane president of Tunisia have been working at the fore of civil liberties, human rights, and so on and so forth for decades or so. Mr. Vanouch is also quite similar. And what Mr. Vanouch told me is that he is more than excited to work with Mr. Marzouk, that he's known for a long time in exile, and that they understand what it means to be at the receiving end of use, misuse, and abuse of power. And that Tunisia that they envisioned would be quite different from Tunisia that was ruled before and that human rights would be at its core and that they would work both together for a civic constitution and that they both committed democracy. Mr. Marzouk, when it comes to the questions of foreign affairs, and I asked him point blank, I said, Mr. Marzouk, what about relations for the United States? Shall I leave the answer to the end of my language? Actually he answered what I'd known him for a long time and he answered the way I would expect him to answer, indignity. He said, so it's not the people only that looking for dignity, it's Arab leaders already looking for dignity. He said, I'm looking forward to better relations with the United States but as partners, not as clients. We would like to be dealt with with respect. We don't want to be dictated to. We don't want to be simply at the forefront of some kind of a crusade on terror or some sort. We would like to be treated on mutual respect and mutual interest, something that indeed President Obama mentioned three years ago around what happened to it, but then he mentioned it three years ago. Interestingly also that Mr. Manushi, and that I knew about him because I'm very familiar with his writing, and here I, let me just for the sake of excitement tonight, disagree with two little bits since she's pouring water. To say the following, indeed he was inspiring to the AK Party in Turkey rather than we around. His writings were picked up by Erdogan in Turkey and the AK Party activists as a new way of looking at what political Islam can offer and how it can adapt itself to the modern civic state. So indeed Mr. Manushi was part of what we referred to at the time in the early 90s as second Islamic international. Basically they were what Christian Democrats were in the early part of the 20th century. Just like we had Christian Democrats now we have a new wave of Muslim Democrats. That's a very interesting phenomenon and that tells us a lot about that perhaps here in this country in mainstream media and academia we should stop talking about Islam as some kind of a fiction in a museum and maybe stop talking about Muslims and how Muslims evolve with their religion. And that not everything is a sixth or seventh century phenomenon but that indeed a lot of Christians evolved over years to say it's to religious wars and so on and so forth and arriving to what we are today that also Muslims are capable of willing to also do the same. That was the spring but yes as truly said this has been or that's evolved into a revolution for all seasons and today coming here I had an espresso across the street and it's a wonderful dome at the Reds Colton and I picked up of course the Tate Enquirer and the international use page was there from the Middle East from the Arab world and you had two stories juxtapositioned one next to the other one was about Yemen and how there's a presidential elections there and you can tell from the mood in the article that this is more or less packaged you know all Yemen but perhaps with new possibilities and on the right there was the article about Syria with of course the bloodshed in Homs and the bloodshed in the country and the escalation to violence so that if you were to sort of the other side of the Arab revolution a sense of despair a sense of escalation to violence a sense of things are getting out of hand that the dream of freedom democracy of January 2011 has been to the nightmare of war and violence in January and to a certain degree yes we've been looking we've been watching certain setbacks in a number of countries things have gotten complicated in Libya a slow transition in Yemen that knows how long it's going to take certainly complications in Egypt and Tunisia yesterday I was saying today I was talking about in a radio show basically it says this is a doomed forget Egypt is just history it's just Islamists and generals and there's no point certain that question of Bahrain is also something to be looked at something where the revolution was themed by the royal family there with the help of the regional players and so on and so forth so this has evolved into a revolution of all seasons and yes it is specific to each and every country to each and every society and while it is perhaps more smoother in the questions of Tunisia and Egypt it is more complicated in the question of Syria and Libya and that as far as the specificities goes I am actually more interested in the generality in what is in common among all of those and why is this interesting first of all how come it's called Arab why what started in Tunisia went to Egypt and went straight into Libya Syria, Yemen and the Bahrain and so on and so forth why is it Arab why did it go elsewhere so what is so what is so collective about this this is just the Arabic language living under Arab sky is there something more to it is there a certain political grammar that we need to know about the Arabs in that part that's one question I asked the other question is what is the theme that would be looked at and that is beyond every Friday's prayers or after every Friday's prayer or every newspaper's headline every day or every other day what is more historic and less political for me there are a number of things and I think honestly these are the serious things these are the important things to look at because things will keep swinging and they will keep zig-zagging in the immediate and intermediate future I think what we have there perhaps upheavals here civil war there and uprisings in the other place but what we have across the board is a revolution of consciousness there is a revolution in the sense that people have broken with the past even in countries where change has not even showed up in any form or shape I think it's coming because there's something happening across the region from Morocco to Iraq where people now know what is their value what they are capable of and how they could go about doing it and this is not going to be stuff and it's just a matter of time in some countries in other countries it was easier and some countries were more complicated but even in countries where it's so complicated as in Syria where people go out to demonstrate knowing they will die they are going to demonstrate in bigger numbers in greater numbers once deterrence doesn't work it loses half of its value once then force is used and excessive force is used and still people go out in bigger numbers that means it's just a question of time for regimes to lose even in the most deadliest situations as for example that we see so across the board we have a break with the past what we also have break with fear this country, this region was all about fear dictatorship, deterrence torture and exile imprisonment and day-to-day impression was all about instilling fear in people's hearts people have broken the barrier of fear no longer are people afraid of that particular world the minds to accept themselves to do whatever needs to be done and even in places where it still hasn't been I think it's just a question so there's a number of phenomena like that that I think happen across the board as this happens of course those who have been there over the last several decades either resisting or struggling or sat in prison for decades or have something to say in the poor neighborhoods or in the local mosque or church for that matter of course now they are coming out and what we're seeing today are those who have been invisible to us for all these decades and what they have to say sometimes is not that coherent I was asked about that by a radio show from Denver I said but this is not liberal democracy it's not I agree if you lived in the United States for the last 200 years some of the discourse coming out of there doesn't sound like it is Thomas Jefferson that was constitutional the one who is not even liberal but projecting a revolution that is going on in the Arab world through some sort of set values and here let me wind it down and end with just a quick note for you to maybe open the discussion as I've come here to the States from the region I have that face whenever I get on an airplane people ask me to evaluate the flight I think they're going to get a good grade for some of this or I'll look like the ones who can actually get a long form and fill it and actually I took a 15 hour flight this time and I was as usual asked would you like to fill in what's new and it's very simple they ask you point of departure point of arrival are there stopovers is it convenient how is the service how is the security have there been delays was it your expectations maybe even house the food you fill it good bad ugly or something good bad best that is not how you create a revolution and that's the only thing I've been hearing for last year people are wondering where did this come from exactly what they did this I mean where's the point of departure so where's the point of arrival liberal democracy Denver style and why why haven't we arrived there in February 11 and now it's already February 2012 why aren't they there it wasn't really convenient it was too rocky perhaps the food isn't great having corn the service certainly hasn't been great the coverage and so so you've got my part revolutions could now be judged with certain projection with certain clinicals certainly not by projecting whatever we have in terms of fantasies whether here or elsewhere about what should or could happen I think it's miraculous what happened we have a miracle generation now against all odds those among us here in the east coast we keep talking about the young generation of Arabs as the reservoir of extremism as the demographic threats a burden on the world economy on our shores they're all creeping migrating sort of destabilizing our demographic demography and education systems that new generation of Arabs truth to have more interesting ideas than their elders truth to be better connected more cosmopolitan better universal more in touch with the universal values and universal rights certainly had better balcony to look at the outside world than their elders had more courage and they proved to be quite an asset, not a burden they are the promise they are the things to build on men and women, girls and boys and I think in a sense we will continue to live the nightmares of everyday Syria, Yemen ups and downs, more violence, less democracy Islam is speaking over here Salaf is speaking out loud there but I think when you look across the board in the overall there is reason to be optimistic that doesn't mean we lose our balance doesn't mean our feet are not on the ground but it's okay everyone said well just to be happy about something before getting depressed about it we are going to open it up for some Q&A for about 15 minutes 20 minutes does that work okay till 7.15 okay so we are a little microphone deficient so we will just do hands up and if you could just ask your question loudly the gentleman right there when you talk about the dignity of the Arab leaders and the dignity of the Arab people at this point in their house of revolution and you also mentioned how they are not yet quite organized and yet there are a lot of western NGOs over there and they are running into a lot of problems and yet those NGOs do not have organized and I just wonder how the western civilization can help without getting themselves into much trouble you know I think this is really a very very interesting question especially if you look at what is happening in Egypt first of all I should say that pro-democracy NGOs are not always that useful you know I have come across innumerable instances of projects that got USAID funds not just in the Middle East but all over the world in the former Soviet Union that really didn't fit and so forth the NGOs who are working in Egypt what makes it so interesting to me is that it's not just a question of these US NGOs it's a question of attitudes to its civil society and NGOs in general and the desire by the Egyptian military ruling council which really is in power and the minister who was pushed for these charges who's a mubarak hold over the only one of the cabinet is as far as I can see really to crush civil society not so much about the Americans but the Americans are the useful cover story for not only raising the nationalist flag but cracking down on the development of civil society as a whole but it does raise the question of how US pro-democracy groups can help because right now there are all these different forces at play and part of the question of dignity is a desire to prove that we don't need the help of the West we have grown up now we can do it ourselves the problem is that would be wonderful but what you see is that civil society is being crushed by the old order and the old order is still powerful to me the division in the Middle East now is between the forces of the future and the forces of the past and that cuts across leaders that crush people and right now the staff is a force of the past this minister is a force of the past not because they're bringing this ridiculous trial against the American NGO workers who I am pretty confident that haven't talked to them we're really just doing nuts and bolts teaching you how to do poll observation but because they are also eager to keep down Egyptian civil society because it questions what they are doing and their attempt to interfere with human rights but the problem is that for the mass of the public who's looking for pride and dignity now they can see any western involvement as symptomatic of the old days even if in reality western money is coming in mainly because Egyptian money is not permitted NGOs are kept down by a draconian law and liberal businessmen who might give to human rights NGOs I was told by Egyptian businessmen they're afraid to because they are afraid that they will be harassed bitterly or even brutally by the remnants of the past so I think the US has to step very very carefully I think that money to any kind of democracy projects should be funneled if possible through international organizations through multilateral organizations so that it just doesn't have the stamp of USA on it and I think it should be done very quietly not not covertly but just without a lot of hoopla and because I don't think it's bad in principle but I think it's bad if it reeks of an attempt by us at a very delicate moment in history to tell people who are genuinely trying to bring change what to do Do you see the military giving up power in Egypt in the near future or actually over the next couple decades Yes Do you foresee the military giving up its power in the next decade or in the foreseeable future Yes I do but you know nowadays I'm not myself I'm optimistic so ask for anything I would say that Standing on Tahir Square a couple of weeks ago and listening to the slogans against the head of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces you know you say this if this is the tone if this is as far as people can say to downgrade what is de facto the leader of the region that means this can go forward speaking of dignity they lost all dignity especially the so called the powerful 19 you know the Skaf the Supreme Council they said they lost all dignity because of the attacks on them continue and mount to the Egypt that's as far as the mood in the country but there is two caveats and they're important one is that they are probably in the process of making a deal with the main block in parliament and that's the Muslim and if they do succeed to do so and they will do so because both parties need one another meaning the Muslim brotherhood found itself majority in parliament and has absolutely no idea what to do and you know sometimes what do they say you have to be careful what we wish for it might come through but now they're stuck now they're not they can't just be snotty in the opposition now everybody is snotty towards them the first first session of parliament takes place and everybody is saying so what have you done for Egypt and they're walking around here you just met so in a sense the brotherhood needs the military in order to share responsibility for the for the upcoming failure and the military needs the brotherhood because we need some sort of popular support especially by those who have the major problem but limited because I think the expiration date is now having said that let me tell you what I said on Egyptian television the most popular Egyptian television and I really knew what I was seeing and how I said it because I knew I was going to go to the airport by the way it's on the web it's called Akher Kalam the last word for an hour and a half I was grilled on this and that and I'm not that I mean I don't allow myself to speak that intimately about internal politics of each and every country because no one should but anyway I just and I said the following and I said that as I said not because I'm going to be snotty towards them but I said the following Egypt needs its military establishment that's not full of sorts Egypt needs its military establishment like the United States needs its military establishment it is a power to be reckoned with it will lose its sovereignty if it loses its military so to talk about Egyptian military in kind of you know idealistic new generic terms of the web that's not working at the end of the day this is a very old institution it's quite entrenched and it has something to do in a region that is in turmoil and war have you said that that does not mean that the Egyptian military needs to control 30% of the Egyptian economy which it does that means it shouldn't be controlling gas stations it shouldn't be putting soldiers to work in farms that belongs to generals in some sort of a modern slavery and this by the way where the allies of Washington for the last some years because of the campaign that was all Jerusalem I think that the new Egypt is not going to be in Jerusalem so I think it's going to be interesting for Egypt to find the balance the balance is very simple you respect, you maintain you strengthen your military establishment as a sovereign country at the same time you get it out of politics you get it out of the economy and back into the barracks and I think that's where we're heading probably in Egypt if not in the short term what is your opinion about the outcome in Syria what's going to happen with Syria what is your opinion about the likely outcome in Syria I'd be a fool to make predictions here there's certain things that one can say that are fairly obvious the countries in the Middle East that will have the worst time are the countries whose institutions were most destroyed by autocratic regimes and that sadly is that Syria fits that bill not to the extent that Libya did I mean Libya really fits the category of tribes with flags I mean Libya Qaddafi did not allow any state institutions and you had all these regional and tribal differences but Syria Misskeen Syria is a country that should have had a better education system that had a business class that could have been encouraged to do real business instead of cronyism living off the handouts of the regime but Syria has basically been turned into a thief of the Assad family its relatives and cronies and you have the sectarian issue of course they belong to the minority al-awarid sect which is only 20% and now that the non-violent resistance which offered the regime a chance to transition gracefully and get out with their lives and their swiss bank accounts now that that non-violent resistance which held out for a long time has been brutally transformed into a violent resistance which has very little military means and its disposal but now has a lot of scores to settle and all that has happened its hard to see how it will end well and if the sectarian demon takes over in Syria now it will be worse in some respects than in Iraq in Iraq the two sides basically fought to a draw and the Americans helped broker a ceasefire but in Syria the minority is 10% and there's a huge amount of anger and this is going to be brutal but there is no and I repeat no organization on the side of the opposition because it was wiped out and its a testament to how little organized opposition there is that you keep hearing the names of exiled former Syrian leaders raised I mean people who have no more credibility as leaders of Syria than I do so as I said when I was last there it's a long time ago from talking to people who know Syria far away from it I don't think things have changed that much you have a situation where although the Muslim Brotherhood was exiled you had a lot of Islamist under the table semi organization in mosques because in Syria many many middle class people went to Saudi Arabia to teach came back with Wahhabi ideology I heard this over and over again when I was there in 2005 from liberals from leftists who didn't want it to be so but what they said is Assad prevented any organization except the Islamists and so after civil war which looks like it's in the cards how you're going to form the new institutions the new political class is a question that I certainly can't answer and whether you will have any coherent body of Islamist who are capable of looking to the future I mean we've just been discussing here in Egypt you have a coherent body of Islamist Muslim Brotherhood but they are still mired in the past only in Tunisia do we have theoreticians who are looking forward so what you're going to have in Syria when the bloodshed ends it's very hard to predict but I think it's easy to predict that it's going to be long, difficult and unhappy other gentlemen in the glasses my question is about Iran the relations between the United States and its allies the zero erase of the point where Iran gets totally desperate and decides to close the straits before moves and put up our oil supply do you think the United States and its allies should or will take direct military action to reopen the straits I'm I realize I speak in world affairs council so I'll try to choose my words carefully I am against any military intervention of any kind anywhere except in self-defense self-defense that's just my personal my personal position now let's do analysis instead I find it troublesome how we are talking ourselves to war in that part and that's when I say we I mean we collectively meaning Iran, Israel, the United States and its neighbors it's incredible after Iraq the lessons of Iraq how everyone I mean everyone I know with influence or with direct role in this issue whether it's mainstream media or al-Quds force and the Khamenei or Israel's prime minister and his foreign minister or Saudi king or some good number of Republicans and presidential candidates I'm honestly I mean when you look at it from the outside it's really bizarre how everyone is talking themselves to war if you try to decipher all of that and what you find is pompously running leaders trying to do some populous game swaggering through the Mediterranean with a fleet what fleet? two ships two ships you can pick them with a drone for God's sake and you know it's Obama's of course present Obama's new toy there's lots of drones out in the Middle East two ships swaggering through the Swiss canal and you know when you're in the media and you tweet and they tell you they've approached Sanaa they're up to the Red Sea they've entered the Swiss canal they took her life two ships I was wondering if they actually had a make-up to see Iran's defense budget is one percent of America's defense budget one percent it's seven beneath dollars six and a half they say you know it's not that it's a symmetrical warfare why would Iran wants to draw America's wrath I mean look at Iran's history including the Ayatollah's history Iran has not invaded the country for the last century more not attacked the country for the last century no more the Ayatollahs were attacked by Saddam Hussein they haven't even you know ventured out there they supported a bit of Hamas so-called proxies and that at the same time their north their northern western neighbor and their southern eastern neighbor were occupied by the United States by an administration that said we want regime change in Tehran so here you have a country with extremist Ayatollahs it's southern neighbors occupied by the United States it's another neighbors occupied by the United States and calling for a regime change in Iran so they make noise so they tell you you know we're going to close the Hormuz if you do this and etc etc I think it's more hot air than anything else and I think for a long time it's been more psychological warfare than anything else but now I no longer think so I'm actually worried I'm actually worried that everyone is going to talk to themselves into war and once they start closing Hormuz war in any conventional way that we know of that's the problem I mean the United States is going to have to attack every possible command center, military base missile base etc etc in Iran and that's going to spill into Iraq, into the Gulf region into Syria, Lebanon, Israel so that means regional war and Iran is not Iraq and Iran has not been kind of crippled with 10 years of sanctions it is able to respond in asymmetrical ways and those as I said will not be tanks and airplanes those will mean sleeping cells I don't know where oil prices are going to go sky right it means the economy is going to be crippled not just here, not just in the world, recession is going to come back and what for because everyone spoke everyone with their back to the world because you cannot sit down and figure some simple questions like okay so there's this nuclear question what do we do with it, what do you want in return, how do we can figure this out what do you want in the region you want to be a power, small power, big power media power, you want guarantees what guarantees do you want things that can be spoken, we are sitting in the world affairs council and I'm sure there's a good bunch of businessmen here and diplomats and we know how to do that so why everyone is speaking themselves to war, after 4,000 some killed American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis and so much loss of you know I'm going to go on and on so it's just all to say that I think if Iran does, which I don't think it will but I think if it does that means there's something severe happening which I think would mean original war and I think it would be both bad to everyone involved the United States is around the world as a businesswoman you've always mentioned businessmen, I want to give what your prediction is for the fate of women the role of women in what we hope will be emerging can you repeat that yes that's up, the question of women and the role of women and the question of women in by the way, apologies point will take businessmen and women diplomats gender withstanding you know this is one of the most encouraging signs of the Arab revolutions there's absolutely no one again you know as I told you earlier I'm against women interventions I'm also for women interventions and I think the fact that most of these early revolutions especially in places like Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and so on women played a central role they played sometimes more than an equal role to the young men I think that was a positive sign that things are going in the right direction because women in the Arab world young and older women in the Arab world you know had doubled, I mean suffered double or triple than the men especially in societies where they're not exactly practiced war but even in those they're the ones who ended up being with lost sons and husbands and having to take care of families and in the book, in my book I have a chapter a sub-chapter that's headed where are the men because when women were at the forefront not only in 2011 but before 2011 in the strikes leading to 2011 in Egypt the textile industry was crippled by women striking not men striking by women nudging men not vice versa in Yemen one of the most conservative countries in the Arab world indeed in the world women have been at the forefront of the revolution there in Tunisia a secular country again women were at the forefront the problem is that although they were at the forefront they were not rewarded because of the old structures of the political parties of the way things are done to represent themselves or to make the same difference in whatever elections are taking place in whatever post-revolutionary developments are taking place but I think that's going to be a question for you Can I say something? I'm much more pessimistic I think that in Egypt it's actually quite stunning how despite the enormous presence of women in Tahrir Square which we both saw actually the number of women in the organizing council of the Tahrir Square demonstration was very limited and subsequently the elections were structured in such a way that although parties were required to put women on their list they were not required in Tunisia to put them high up on the list and they all, especially the Muslim Brotherhood put them in such positions that they were guaranteed not to get elected and in fact I think if I'm not mistaken that there isn't one or maybe there are one or two women in the entire elected lower house in these recent elections in Egypt which is just stunning I mean it's worse than under Mubarak that's number one. Number two the Muslim Brotherhood is an organization that keeps women down they have places in the organization but their place is as wives and help needs and they are not allowed into positions of power they are not allowed to play roles beyond their limited and circumscribed job descriptions and whether the Muslim Brotherhood again I think this is one of the most interesting questions for Egypt whether they can look to the future the way the leadership and Banata has done the way the leadership with a lot of caveats of Aqqa party in Turkey has done although they are not great for women either or whether they are going to keep women in their place and they are the most powerful political force and then we haven't even come to the Salafis who got 25% of the vote in Egypt and whose idea of women's position is far far far more destructive than the Muslim Brotherhood and then in Tunisia what we have yet to see is whether Anada will be able to control the Salafis there who didn't run in the elections but who have draconian positions on women and seem willing to use intimidation and violence they've already started in the universities so women that I know in Tunisia are frightened women that I know in Egypt are angry and unable to figure out how to get their foot in the door and we haven't even come to the situation in Libya where religious forces have a very strong foothold conservative religious and we don't know what will come out in Syria so I'm very worried that women are actually going to be set back in Egypt because you have large numbers of educated middle class women something that Egypt was famous for Tunisia also a secular society where women's rights were guaranteed fully in the 1950s and I just am hoping that women despite their capacity and their education levels in large parts of society in Tunisia and Egypt will not experience more repression than they have had in previous years can we have time for one more question and I'd love to hear from one of the high school students and there's a young lady in the back there please you said that you thought young people had a voice and you also mentioned that the path towards the future so who would you ideally think would be in charge of the country to brave forward to what it is I think are you referring to something that yeah yeah the question is that I had said that young people were in the forefront of making the revolution young educated people but the question is whether they'll really have a role in the future you know one of the things that I one of the things that makes me sad about the Egyptian revolution so far and I totally agree that it's in flux it's in movement we don't know where it's headed is that there is a substantial segment of educated young people who have ideas about the future but it has been clearly revealed that either their ideas don't resonate with the vast bulk of the population well they haven't yet learned how to get those ideas out there many of these young people come from the big cities they've traveled abroad if not lived abroad not all of them but they don't have an easy familiarity with working class neighborhoods or with upper Egypt or the delta the vast rural or poor urbanized areas and they don't know how to talk to these people and as a result liberal parties did non-islamist parties did very poorly because the islamist parties know how to talk to these people they are from these people and they have dealt with them year in year out in the mosque in charitable organizations so these young people with ideas I mean some of them are still optimistic they're hopeful they will have to learn how to reach out how to ally with others there are for example young muslim brothers who broke from their organization because they feel that it is too rigid too backward looking and you know we will see I think that these young people have a message that could resonate but they don't know how to get that message out especially when state television is the main vehicle by which most Egyptians still get their news and understanding and it is totally under the thumb still of backward looking forces the military people who are left overs from the past so we don't know and it will be one of the most interesting questions to watch I think in the future what to add to that I can't live you with that through this pessimism I tell you there was one Palestinian non-Palestinian novelist who won Israel's best author award live it through your imagination he wrote a book by the name of Saeed the ill-fated pesottimist Saeed means happy everyone knows what that means pesottimist as in pessimist-optimist the main line of the story if you will that in that part of the world people are pesottimist because they always have a feeling that good news bring with it bad news always bring good news are pregnant with bad news that in the Middle East reality the bitter reality is always against an optimistic people by nature and hence we live continue to live that pesottimist reality I just have a feeling that perhaps we have broken away from that pesottimist reality that not all good news not not all good news are pregnant with bad news and as I said earlier if you take in consideration that 70% of the Arab world is under the age of 30 that means all these backward looking conservative this and that and the other thing are going to God be with them move on pretty soon and a new generation is coming to take 4 and that generation is the revolution generation that is the medical generation and like it or not for the general or for the muslim brother leaders and they all by the way over disrespect of course I am of that generation but they are all a retirement age and I think it is time to leave the field for the younger generation and I have hope that a younger generation of men and women even though they keep being pushed back even though they keep being pushed under that against all odds their rights there is no news that women have been kept down in the Arab world like they have been kept down in many other parts of the world it is not news what is news is that they have revolted against them what is news is that they have been leading demonstrations what is news is that they are and they have a new discourse that stands head to head but also is news that despite the attempts to keep them down and keep them out of parliament they continuing today in the public squares of the Arab world to struggle for their rights I am optimistic as long as I see people moving on struggling fighting for their rights I am optimistic fighting for freedom because it is not going to be parachuted from the sky it is not going to come on an American tank you all know that by now it is going to have to come from within and if there has ever been hope if there has ever been hope and in my lifetime there hasn't been it is not and in a sense I repeat a cliche this is the generation we have been waiting for so I think we are going to have to give them a chance it is going to be difficult at times it is going to be really dark and it is going to be dark winter not spring, yes I give you that and it might take longer and it is not going to happen without economic progress and finding jobs and rent I give you that but who said there was a set date for all of us to happen there has been an evolution to the revolution and there is going to be an evolution after the revolution and that is the fun ride this is the roller coaster that everyone needs to get into that is called life and I enjoy it and I think they will thank you thank you all for joining us tonight we have Mr. Bashar's book The Invisible Arab for Sale