Op-ed: Rape of a nation
BY REHAM BARAKAT Last December India witnessed a horrifying gang rape crime in Delhi. A 23-year-old woman was raped by five men on a bus. I won’t get into the morbid details, but suffice it to say that the victim of this barbaric act has died of her injuries. We have been brought up naively and falsely to believe that incidents of this kind do not happen in Egypt. But I remember thinking that when news of the Delhi rape broke that surely similar crimes are committed in our nation but are hardly ever reported or covered by the media….
Op-ed: New faces, old lies, same denial
BY ASMAA EL GAMMAL The morning after Tuesday’s massive demonstrations against President Mohamed Morsi’s recent constitutional declaration, the Freedom and Justice Party’s message was loud and clear: Tahrir is not to be taken seriously. On the front page of the party’s newspaper, the headline read: “Revolutionaries, folol (former regime remnants) and peddlers in Tahrir Square. Disregarding the chants of tens of thousands of protesters outraged by the President’s declaration of invincible powers, the FJP’s mouthpiece chose to focus on a handful of corn-sellers to suggest that it was nothing more than a gathering of revolution-haters and petty salesmen. …
Op-ed: From Khaled Saeed to Malala Yousafzai
BY AMRO ALI While reading the horrific case of Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the face by the Taliban for championing girls’ education, I came across a photo of a young supporter of Malala that triggered memories of a similar image that has forever been engraved in my mind: in June 2010 an Egyptian youth protesting the tragic killing of Khaled Saeed, the 28-year-old Alexandrian who was beaten to death by policemen that would trigger the rapid countdown to the 2011 Egyptian revolution (See my detailed June piece Saeeds of Revolution: De-mythologizing Khaled Saeed.) The…
Op-ed: Owners of the revolution
BY REHAM BARAKAT It’s Eid. Kahk (cookies) is overflowing; amateurish and almost dangerous fireworks light up the sky; fire-crackers are startling and there is an assumed spirit of joy.But not for everyone. There are millions of Egyptians living below the poverty line. In extreme cases, we know that unlike what we were brought up to believe, that “nobody in Egypt sleeps hungry,” some people are eating out of piles of garbage whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. I say this because unfortunately there are some people who ignore these facts or even worse, believe that it’s not a…
Op-ed: Can laughter change Egypt?
BY MARK PETERSEN Oxford, Ohio That Egyptians are funny is a well-known Arab stereotype. Egyptians are said to be khafiift id-damm (light of blood) — able to turn things that would make anyone else’s blood boil into a joke. Before the revolution, this was often expressed in everyday life through political satire – jokes about politicians, the police and the president himself challenged the status quo and poked fun at the pretensions of the powerful. But because these jokes were told privately, among friends and family, they had little effect upon the regime’s grip on power. However during last year’s…
Compromise and the revolution
BY NOUR BAKR At its height, the defining mantra of Egypt’s tumultuous uprising was the famous cry “the people want the fall of the regime.” That the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), along with many remnants of the Mubarak era remain key players in the country’s politics is widely held as proof that the revolution ultimately failed. Whilst partially true, the electoral successes of the Muslim Brotherhood do not, as many have argued, completely betray the ultimate aim of the uprising. Rather the successive victories of Mohamed Morsi and the FJP signify the triumph of a compromise on…
Higgs and Egypt’s revolution
BY WAEL AFIFI Bread, liberty and dignity are the noble unifying goals of the revolution. As the daily political struggles continue to refine, define and often improvise on the shape and the numerous components of these goals, I would like to throw into this mix the tool of scientific literacy.Defined as “an evolving combination of science-related attitudes, skills and knowledge,” it’s important to stress that scientific literacy isn’t an elitist concept.While it is true that combating poverty, illiteracy, disease, and other societal and political ills that plague our country remain the foundation of any revolutionary thinking; it is also true that…
Egypt holds its breath
BY OMAR ASHOUR Cairo: “You are the authority, above any other authority. You are the protectors, whoever seeks protection away from you is a fool … and the army and the police are hearing me,” said Egypt’s president-elect, Mohamed Morsi, to hundreds of thousands in Tahrir Square. A man imprisoned following the “Friday of Rage” (January 28, 2011) took the presidential oath in Tahrir on a “Friday of Power Transfer” (June 29, 2011). But he almost did not. Ten days earlier, on June 19, I was with a group of former Egyptian MPs in Tahrir Square. One received a phone…
Our “nasty” revolution
BY KHALIL AL-ANANI No matter who will be Egypt’s next president, the fact is that the military will wield power for years to come. So instead of wasting our energy in following a bogus transition, let’s celebrate our “nasty” and humiliating revolutionary spirit. Many of the so-called liberals and secularists have betrayed their liberal ethics and values by backing the military’s recent coup with the addendum to the constitutional decree. While they are fully aware of the consequences of such a coup, they chose to stand with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Their panic from the Muslim…
Away from reactive politics
BY FIRAS AL-ATRAQCHI Cairo: Since the January 25 popular uprising that unseated President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians from all walks of life have found their long-dormant voices, pushing the boundaries of the public space and molding civic discourse as independent media desperately tried to catch up. Some of the emerging political stars and those former stalwart NDP members who survived the “purge” were forced to follow suit, catering to the voice of the revolution. Suddenly, Egyptians were seeing the first semblance of political public relations, irrespective of how genuine the presidential candidates and their campaign responsiveness were. But in a zero sum…
