Religion and Press Freedom in the Digital Age – Part Two: Al Jazeera on Trial
The second in a series of posts on issues at the intersection of press freedom, religion, digital media and politics by Natasja Sheriff . Continue Reading →
Tag: mubarak
Religious Ghettoization of Egypt
From Marc Michael’s “Is liberalism killing the copts?” at Al Jazeera:
Imperial liberalism not only reinforced lines of fracture in local social fabrics, but often engineered them, by inventing traditions and mythological pasts, linguistic and ethnic groupings. To this day a majority of Copts subscribe to the “Hamitic Hypothesis”: that Copts are a separate race with a separate language, that they are not Arabs but descendants of the pharaohs, the original Afro-Nilotic people of the land; in biblical terms, the accursed progeny of Ham rather than Sham.
Friday's Reflections: Egypt Rises…And Triumphs
Yasmin Moll: After 30 years of autocratic rule, Mubarak stepped down today. The announcement came around 6 pm Cairo time. I had just finished giving an interview to a documentary filmmaker where I expressed great fear that Mubarak will continue to defy the demands of millions of Egyptians and cling to power. I have never been so happy to be so wrong.
Today is not just Egypt’s day – today is for all people living under despotic regimes and yearning to be free, especially in the Middle East. First the Tunisians and now the Egyptians have shown them that what just a little over a month ago seemed impossible is possible.
Indeed, February 11 2011 will go down in history not so much as the day Mubarak’s rule crumbled, but as the day the will of ordinary citizens triumphed. And contrary to the expectations of many, they triumphed not through violent upheaval, but through peaceful protest.
Tomorrow Egyptians will face some tough question marks about the future. But tonight we celebrate. Continue Reading →
Friday’s Reflections: Egypt Rises…And Triumphs
Yasmin Moll: After 30 years of autocratic rule, Mubarak stepped down today. The announcement came around 6 pm Cairo time. I had just finished giving an interview to a documentary filmmaker where I expressed great fear that Mubarak will continue to defy the demands of millions of Egyptians and cling to power. I have never been so happy to be so wrong.
Today is not just Egypt’s day – today is for all people living under despotic regimes and yearning to be free, especially in the Middle East. First the Tunisians and now the Egyptians have shown them that what just a little over a month ago seemed impossible is possible.
Indeed, February 11 2011 will go down in history not so much as the day Mubarak’s rule crumbled, but as the day the will of ordinary citizens triumphed. And contrary to the expectations of many, they triumphed not through violent upheaval, but through peaceful protest.
Tomorrow Egyptians will face some tough question marks about the future. But tonight we celebrate. Continue Reading →
We Are All Egyptians
by Yasmin Moll
There are tens of thousands of Egyptians in Tahrir today. And there are millions of Egyptians who are not.
If we believe some international media outlets and domestic opposition papers, these groups make up two distinct camps: those for democracy and those for Mubarak. And if we believe the state press, the dividing line is between trouble-making youths allied with “foreign agents” and law-abiding citizens.
From the vantage point of those of us in Cairo, however, the picture is much more complex, fluid and messy. And simplifying it for the sake of a sexy story or a catchy headline risks marginalizing the many Egyptians from all classes and backgrounds whose political stances don’t fit neatly into one or the other of these categories.
Take my friend Mansour.* On January 28th he and I attended the protest downtown after Friday prayer. Marching peacefully along with hundreds of others up Kasr Al-Aini street, we were met with a volley of tear-gas fired by the central security police blocking access to Tahrir Square. Continue Reading →
Whose Revolution Is It Anyway?
Slate gives us a don’t-miss slideshow of Mubarak’s biggest U.S. fans. Gawker tallies up the conspiracy theories they’re spinning. Continue Reading →
Mubarak's Reality: Baksheesh
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
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
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 →
Cairo Cops
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.