Op-ed: Our fabled Arab rulers
BY AMRO ALI Saudi Arabia’s revered King Faisal once remarked: “If anyone feels wrongly treated, he has only himself to blame for not telling me. What higher democracy can there be?” This line of “reasoning” has permeated the thinking of Arab rulers in which somehow they are the personification of a popular mandate and that democratisation is misunderstood by the wider population. Yet it’s one thing when Arab rulers say it, it’s another when the Arab public quotes and endorses it. One of the ideational stumbling blocks to the Arab uprisings and democratic transitions is a public adept at citing…
Mubarak on life support
BY RANIA AL MALKY Cairo: Amid a slew of leaks, rumors and official statements by anonymous sources, along with much fear-mongering, news of ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s deteriorating health was met with a massive dose of skepticism. Initial reports on Tuesday evening that Mubarak was dead, soon gave way to a report by an official Middle East News Agency (MENA) report that he was clinically dead and on life support. By late Tuesday one of his lawyers denied the news, saying that Mubarak was in a coma after suffering a brain stroke and that he was moved to the military…
Mubarak and the “verdict of the century”
BY RANIA AL MALKY Cairo: Egyptians waiting to hear the thundering bang of the judge’s gavel announcing a guilty verdict against Mubarak his two sons and his security chiefs, shouldn’t hold their breath. Days before the verdict in the trial of the century — a superlative misnomer — three starkly revealing issues dominate the city chatter, everywhere from virtual social networks to the coffee shops lining the capital’s winding alleys: the unexpected ascension of Mubarak’s last Prime Minister and unabashed loyal subject Ahmed Shafiq to the second round of the presidential race; the commuted five-year sentence handed down to policeman…
