Tag: egypt

Mubarak’s Reality: Baksheesh

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Hosni Mubarak didn’t contrive his I’m the preventer of chaos reality all alone.  The tyrannical dictator of Egypt, who today told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that he’d love to step down but can’t, has for three decades been appreciated (both politically and financially) by the West for what he is not:  another critical voice in a troubled and troubling region.  Poverty, ineptitude, graft, corruption, injustice: all were no match for Western fear of creeping radical Islam, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood.  Mubarak’s spent his years making the most of Islamophobic rhetoric.  In a nation that’s neither rich nor poor, African nor Middle Eastern, friendly nor hostile, familiar nor understood, Mubarak’s benefitted from playing the foil for Western projection. Continue Reading →

Mubarak’s Reality: Baksheesh

Posted on by

Hosni Mubarak didn’t contrive his I’m the preventer of chaos reality all alone.  The tyrannical dictator of Egypt, who today told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that he’d love to step down but can’t, has for three decades been appreciated (both politically and financially) by the West for what he is not:  another critical voice in a troubled and troubling region.  Poverty, ineptitude, graft, corruption, injustice: all were no match for Western fear of creeping radical Islam, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood.  Mubarak’s spent his years making the most of Islamophobic rhetoric.  In a nation that’s neither rich nor poor, African nor Middle Eastern, friendly nor hostile, familiar nor understood, Mubarak’s benefitted from playing the foil for Western projection. Continue Reading →

Mubarak's Reality: Baksheesh

Posted on by

Hosni Mubarak didn’t contrive his I’m the preventer of chaos reality all alone.  The tyrannical dictator of Egypt, who today told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that he’d love to step down but can’t, has for three decades been appreciated (both politically and financially) by the West for what he is not:  another critical voice in a troubled and troubling region.  Poverty, ineptitude, graft, corruption, injustice: all were no match for Western fear of creeping radical Islam, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood.  Mubarak’s spent his years making the most of Islamophobic rhetoric.  In a nation that’s neither rich nor poor, African nor Middle Eastern, friendly nor hostile, familiar nor understood, Mubarak’s benefitted from playing the foil for Western projection. Continue Reading →

Egyptian Experience

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My friend Sam is in Egypt.  Here’s an excerpt from his recent blog post which can also be read at AOLNews:

They had us empty our pockets in the middle of the half open gazebo type station. The mob began to form around us as we were searched and questioned. Someone from the mob yelled “Palestinian son of a Dog” at me (a big insult in Arabic). One guy told them to let us go if I was from “48,” an Israeli Arab, he should let us go. The half uniformed cop, said that he we going to have the army deal with us. I said yes, please do.” This was a relief because the army is the most professional and even handed of the mobs. As he escorted us through the streets a small group of very scary looking armed busy bodies followed us on a crowed street of thugs. We walked about two blocks before we finally spotted a lone soldier standing in front of a demolished car. Half uniformed guy handed him our passports and talked him about the “bunga” and about the fact that I was Palestinian. I asked the soldier to take us away. The mob around us had grown to about 150-200 most with sticks, some with knifes and machetes. One toothless guy with a machete grabbed Pauline’s arm and said come with me, after blowing her a kiss. This was the worst moment of my life. I thought that they were going to try to separate us.

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Eyes on Egypt: What to Watch

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Abby Ohlheiser and Jessamy Klapper:  Below are some of the writers and resources we’ve been using to track the continuing protests in Egypt:

Liveblogs: If you burned out on Al Jazeera English’s live video feed (and the filling of airtime in between new news bits), or simply can’t access it online or on cable, the following ongoing projects update quickly with developments as they happen. Continue Reading →

Cairo Cops

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My friend, Sam, who live son a houseboat on the Nile writes:

As the protesters marched forward some policemen were left behind. About half a dozen or so jumped the fence onto the property next door. They were terrified. These were not the the boys with the riot gear. They were 40 something officers with stars on their shoulders. Rocks were being thrown at them as they hid on the side of the boat. They were between the protesters and the nile. As the crowd moved forward, they stayed on the ledge of the boat for hours. Asking me for water, and at one point, a change of clothes so that they could go home in civilian garb. “Please brother, can you throw us a used robe… an old dirty one is fine,” yelled a desperate man, who a few minutes before was commanding forces agaist civilians. My dilema was not whether to give it to them or not… I wanted them to leave. It was that the clothes that I brought to Cairo were my favorite ones. I wasn’t really ready to part with them. I asked them to hold on while I went through my closet and found “my cleanest dirty shirts.” I turned on my deck light, one floor above them, to throw the clothes over. This frightened them because they were no longer in the dark. They asked me to turn off the light while I threw, over a 10 foot gap in the Nile, some American Apparel t-shirts and thermals on to the 12 inch ledge that they we standing on. They changed and and asked for a shopping bag to place their uniforms. They stood on the ledge for another two hours before getting the courage to walk through the crowds and return home as the entire Cairo police force had just done.

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Oversimplification 3, 2, 1

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From Andrew Khouri’s “Getting the Story Right in Egypt,” a recent post at The Scoop, Diane Winston’s website at USC’s Annenberg School for Journalism:

But on Thursday, the Muslim Brotherhood—Egypt’s largest opposition group and a perennial Mubarak foe—announced it would join the large demonstrations that were planned after prayers on Friday. A Muslim Brotherhood spokesman called it “the day of the intifada.”

That is how an article appearing in Friday’s New York Times set the stage for what was no doubt a pivotal moment in Egypt, with thousands taking to the street, where they would face tear gas and baton-wielding security forces. The piece examined how religious factions, which have played little role so far, would affect the protest movement.

Cue oversimplification of religion in 3, 2, 1…

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