Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

PROTESTERS chant anti-government slogans during a protest condemning the death of soccer fans at Port Said stadium, near the Interior Ministry in Cairo, Feb. 2For the third day in a row, Deadly clashes continue to rage in Egypt over football riots leaving 12 killed and more than 2500 wounded in street clashes over authorities’ failure to stop Port Said football violence.

State media reported renewed scuffles between members of the security forces encircling the building of the ministry of interior and demonstrators who included hardcore soccer fans, aka Ultras, known for confronting the police and who were on the frontlines of protests against the military throughout the last year. The Ultras played a prominent role with anti-government activists in the uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak a year ago, and a spokesman on their behalf has suggested pro-Mubarak forces were behind the soccer incident, or at least complicit.

The soccer violence will likely strike news followers as most unfortunate and tragic accident, but for the supreme military council of armed forces of Egypt (SCAF), a council reluctant to relinquish power, it will definitely strike a different chord. For a military institution that is supposed to hand over power to civilians by next July, after a monopoly of power for more than six decades, any incident that would allow chaos and insecurity to prevail will certainly be welcomed.

A stampede is an act of mass impulse among a crowd of people in which the crowd collectively begins running with no clear direction or purpose. But last Wednesday’s soccer violence that left 74 killed and at least 1,000 people injured in the Egyptian coastal city of Port Said when soccer fans invaded the pitch after local team al-Masry beat Cairo-based Al Ahli, has been no accidental stampede. The fingers are once again pointing at the police’s complicity in the bloody incident as well as the overall instability and insecurity that has been afflicting the country since the fall of Mubarak.

The scenes and initial investigations proved all the gates to the football pitch were deliberately ordered open minutes before the end of the match, and also showed the police forces stood still and did almost nothing to prevent the disaster. “It seems the whole thing had been planned beforehand.” said Mahmoud el-Sayed, one of the football players at Al-Ahly club (the most famous football club in Africa)

While the violence escalated in Port Said stadium, the police forces practically did nothing to prevent it. While a whole year has lapsed since the Egyptian revolution erupted, it is getting more and more obvious every day that toppling Mubarak was the easy part of the revolt and the real battle, if you like, that has been raging throughout the last year is between the will of the people and the mighty apparatus of the police and the military, who have practically been running the show in Egypt since 1952. What happened in the stadium of Port Said, a continuation of the security vacuum policy, could only be explained as part of a plan by the military council and the interior ministry to push the country into chaos and force Egyptians to embrace military rule.

That fact that SCAF succeeded in securing parliamentary elections (completed in January 2012) across nine different governorates but were incapable of securing a football match where clashes were possible raises few legitimate doubts about the hidden motivations behind the soccer riots and the seriousness of the military to cede power to a civilian government as well. Egypt’s ruling generals have put themselves on a collision course with the country’s new parliament after declaring that MPs will not have the final say over the drafting of a fresh constitution. Being referred to as “the guardian of constitutional legitimacy”, SCAF is pushing for a constitution draft that includes guiding principles for Egypt’s new constitution, but also, and most importantly, introduces amendments that would shield the military from civilian oversight.

SCAF is being pressured to hand over power to a civilian administration and a civilian president as soon as possible. But the top brass, refusing to get out of the scene empty handed, suggest the armed forces should have the final word on major policies even after a new president is elected. But that is not likely to resonate well among the revolutionaries and political activists and will be the more reason for protests and violence to escalate on the Egyptian street, for the Arab spring has confirmed one thing: the army is not fit to govern – neither in Egypt nor in Syria or Yemen.

Aijaz Zaka Syed

THEN the history of these interesting times is written, the people of Syria will perhaps take their place right at the top. Of course, the courage and leadership demonstrated by the people of Tunisia and Egypt in challenging the old, ossified order will forever define the Arab Spring. It was their resolve and courage under fire that turned the region around, heralding a democratic dawn that has become a metaphor for change around the world. However, most inspiring as the epic sacrifices of the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen are, they seem to pale against the price being paid right now by the Syrians. They were the late bloomers of the Arab Spring, coming out on the streets diffidently, almost apologetically, much after the tsunami of change set off by Tunisia had turned the region upside down.

Those peaceful and polite Syrian protests acquired an infectious momentum of their own in no time after they provoked the same vicious and casually ruthless response from Bashar Assad that seems to come naturally to all “socialist Arab republics.” And look what the people of Syria have already been through. It’s nearly a year since they took to the streets and they have offered thousands of lives in their fight against the regime. It is a totally one-sided war — peaceful and defenceless multitudes facing the full power of a pitiless regime.

This lopsided fight looked doomed from the start — even before it had begun. At least, that’s how it had appeared to the rest of the world. However, the Syrians are hanging on in there, fearlessly facing the cowards who call themselves their leaders. They remain steadfast in the face of death and destruction, even as they go about patiently burying their loved ones in scores and hundreds across the country on a daily basis. And the world watches, horrified — and utterly helpless. So much for the international community and its fine institutions! Where’s the civilized world when it’s needed most? What is the point of institutions like the United Nations when they cannot stop the endless, cold-blooded massacre of a helpless people at the hands of its own rulers and army?

Much has been said about the Western double standards and hypocrisy, including by yours truly. But what Russia and China have just done to torpedo a UN resolution against the killers in Damascus even as the world watches the carnage on television screens is as shameful as what the US and its allies have repeatedly done to protect Israel in the world body. The Russians and Chinese have Syrian blood on their hands. They are guilty by association, just as the West is.

God knows I am no fan of foreign interventions to put out domestic fires, given the long history of Western adventures in the region and around the world. However, when innocents, defenceless people are getting killed in cold blood for demanding what’s their right, the rest of the world cannot remain a mute spectator. It must act and act fast. I am not suggesting another Western adventure a la Iraq and Afghanistan. How about an international peacekeeping force headed by the UN? After all, protecting peace is the world body’s job. Ideally, this should have been done by the Arab and Islamic world. But there’s nothing ideal about the long divided Muslim world. There should have been a regional or Arab-Muslim peace force, along the lines of the NATO and African Union. But this is perhaps asking too much of those who themselves are critically dependent on others for their protection!

Nevertheless the Arab League, long reproached for its laidback ways, has redeemed itself by reaching out to the besieged people of Syria and repeatedly confronting the killer clique in Damascus that has outdone itself and all such regimes in savagery and brutality. Indeed, the League had abandoned its hallowed tradition of studied indifference and “non-interference” in the affairs of member states when Libya’s Qaddafi diverted all his manic energy and firepower at his disposal to obliterate his people. Which is what Assad is doing now, eyes wide shut to the fate that befell Qaddafi and other fellow travellers before and after him. The end of this evil regime is a foregone conclusion. But before it crumbles under the weight of its own crimes, it could kill thousands of more innocent and helpless people and totally raze Syria. The scenes of women and children running for their lives — captured in videos posted on YouTube and Aljazeera — as the tanks pound homes in Homs and towns and cities all across the country are heart rending. Are Moscow and Beijing watching?

Indeed, tanks were pounding Bab Amr and other neighbourhoods in Homs even as a poker-faced Assad was promising “dialogue” to Russia’s Lavrov. The UN veto seems to have actually fuelled the regime’s thirst for Syrian blood, as UN rights chief Navi Pillay suggests.

Where do we go from here? There’s no help coming from the UN. The world body is a pawn in the hands of world powers. It’s not just Russia and China. Even the West doesn’t appear too keen to upset Assad’s applecart for fear of the Islamists replacing the Bathist regime. This will have to be sorted out by Syria’s Arab and Muslim neighbours. The expulsion of Syrian envoys by the Gulf States couldn’t have come sooner. More effective steps are needed though to stop the carnage, as suggested by Turkey which was the first to stand up to Damascus, just as it had confronted Qaddafi and before him the Israelis. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, who has slammed Russia and China for the UN veto, is pushing for the Arab and Muslim states to work with the rest of the world to rein in the regime. It’s time for Syria’s long time friend and ally Iran to get its act together too. By choosing to look the other way even as Assad decimates his people, Iran has let down all those who have stood by it in the face of Western plots. This is not an issue to be seen from a Sunni-Shiite prism. Raining death and destruction on a powerless population, this regime is as despicable and criminal, if not more, as Qaddafi’s Libya was. There’s nothing Islamic or Shiite about it. What’s going on in Syria is not a Western or Zionist conspiracy either, as some liberals have persuaded themselves. Syria’s people are fighting for liberation from long decades of tyranny and the world must stand by them. The longer the world community dithers in dealing with Damascus, the more innocents it will be guilty of sending to their death. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, as Edmund Burke cautioned, is that good men do nothing.

Lan Xinzhen

BIG crowds and foul air on the train, frighteningly long queues and fierce clashes at the station...these are common scenes during China’s Spring Festival travel rush. The annual travel peak is known as the world’s biggest human migration. This year’s stampede is still ongoing. Lasting over 40 days, people began returning to their hometowns on January 8 and the final stragglers will make their way back to the cities by February 16. The railway is the major means of transportation during the period. Although its capacity to transport people has been strengthened by newly opened express routes, the situation for most passengers remained extremely difficult. “Although the railway’s transport capacity exceeded that of previous years, it still couldn’t meet the demand,” said Hu Yadong, Chinese Vice Minister of Railways.

“The difficulty in organizing transportation for the Spring Festival was in fact bigger than previous years as passenger flow surpassed transport capacity,” said Liu Tienan, Deputy Director of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The Ministry of Railways (MOR) initiated a number of measures to deal with the seasonal surge in demand. It introduced telephone ticket booking and real-name online ticketing services to prevent ticket scalping. Additional temporary train services were also introduced to relieve the huge transport pressure.

However, these efforts failed to save the ministry from extensive criticism and accusations that it did not do enough to deal with passenger demand. Many travellers said they found it extremely difficult to get tickets home for the Spring Festival and to return to work after the festival. The ministry however claimed that it had used every single means at its disposal to increase transport capacity during the festival.

The average number of train departures hit 2,064 pairs a day, a record high for festival transportation and an increase of 131 journeys compared to the period before the festival. Some 5.88 million passengers were being conveyed per day. The ministry estimated the total number of train passengers would reach 235 million, an increase of 13.52 million, compared to the previous year.

Why is it so difficult?

The sheer number of people travelling during the festival has drawn considerable attention to the reasons behind the human stampede that takes place every year. Why do so many people choose to travel during the festival? This is due to two realities in China. The first is the imbalanced economic development between different regions. Many people from central and west China work in economically developed eastern coastal cities or major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, of Shenzhen’s total population of 14 million, 12 million are migrants; and of Beijing’s total population of about 20 million, more than 7 million are classified as floating. And this floating population mainly consists of migrant workers. The other reality is the strict difference between having an agricultural and non-agricultural registered permanent residence in China. It is hard for migrant workers to register as permanent residents in the cities that they work in. Therefore millions of people work in cities, while their families remain in their hometowns.

Since the Spring Festival is the most important traditional holiday for the Chinese people, the vast majority of people choose to spend the festival with their families and are therefore prepared to travel home, regardless of the difficulties they face in terms of transport. Thus a mass migration is formed. Shortly before the festival, a huge number of migrant workers travel to inner China from eastern coastal cities. Then after the festival, they go back to eastern coastal cities to make a living. The huge traffic load is the result of so many people travelling within such a short period of time.

To meet the demand for transportation, China has greatly increased its investment in road and railway construction projects over the past few years. According to statistics released by the NDRC, in 2011, China added 11,000 km of expressways. In total, China now has 85,000 km of expressways, just behind the United States. Along with the completion of a number of high-speed railway lines, such as the Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway, China now has over 3,000 km of high-speed rail track, more than any other country in the world.

However, the increase in transport capacity, while sufficient to meet day-to-day demand, is insufficient to deal with the sharp spike in passenger numbers over the Spring Festival. Since the Spring Festival transportation program started in 1989, when migrant workers began to hunt for jobs in eastern coastal cities, the number of passengers during the festival has surged from 800 million to more than 3 billion.

Solutions

Spring Festival transportation has proved to be a stubborn problem. Some people have suggested solving the problem by enhancing the railway’s transport capacity. But the fact is China cannot construct its railways according to the demands of the Spring Festival, as that would lead to enormous waste and overcapacity on a day-to-day basis. According to statistics from the MOR, normally Chinese railways only need to handle a daily passenger load of about 3 million. But during the Spring Festival, this number tops 5.8 million. The second possible solution to the problem is to tackle the underlying causes behind the mass migration. Why do people travel so far from their hometowns to search for jobs? “The major reason is the huge income gap between different regions,” said Su Hainan, Vice Chairman of the China Association for Labour.

There are some severe imbalances in China’s economic layout. In the eastern coastal cities, the development of secondary and tertiary industries has created numerous jobs. Job opportunities in inner China on the other hand remain quite limited, and salaries in those regions are significantly lower. As a result, a large number of workers have been attracted to more developed regions. The income gap, both between urban and rural areas and between regions, is widening. This has contributed to an increase in the migrant population. “The fundamental way to ease Spring Festival transport pressure is to promote balanced development between different regions through a more rational economic layout,” said Su.

“If the imbalance can’t be solved, passenger numbers won’t be reduced and transport pressure will remain the same,” said Su. However, this sort of rebalancing can’t be achieved overnight. The Chinese Government has been striving to achieve more balanced development between different regions for several years. Some encouraging results and tendencies are being reported. Labour-intensive, low value-added enterprises have begun to move to central and western regions. But the number of such businesses remains quite small and the income gap is still large.

“The best solution to the Spring Festival transport problem is to change the current system of registered permanent residence while striving for balanced regional development,” said Zhang Xiaode, an economics professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance. “The social security discrimination behind the registered permanent residence system means that migrant workers lack a sense of belonging to the cities they work in,” said Zhang.

Faced with a number of problems including education, medical care and old age pensions, few migrant workers are willing and able to move their families to the city. Zhang said that changing the registered permanent residence system would allow migrant workers’ families to join them in the cities, thus reducing the population flow during the Spring Festival.

“But this suggestion may not be approved as many officials worry about the burden an influx of migrant families would place on cities,” said Zhang. “The process of absorbing migrant workers as urban citizens can be carried out little by little,” said Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at the Renmin University of China. If cities can provide favourable policies for migrant workers that have worked in the city for more than five years, offering them low-rent housing funded jointly by enterprises and the government, this would reduce the Spring Festival migration, said Zhou.

Zhou’s suggestion is just a temporary expedient. According to the NDRC, China’s urbanization rate will reach 65 percent by 2030. This means each year 20 million migrant workers become urban residents, and by 2030, about 400 million migrant workers and their families will have become urban citizens. Zhou also suggested adopting flexible ticket prices to control passenger flows. For instance, one month before the Spring Festival transportation, tickets can be sold at a 20-percent discount. With the approach of the festival, prices would keep rising, reaching 110 percent of the original price. This would drive migrant workers to return to their hometowns as early as possible and thus ease some of the huge transport pressure.—BR