Deposed President Hosni Mubarak, Bibliotheca Alexandrina Director Ismail Serageldin, widow of the late President Anwar al-Sadat, Jehan, and former first lady Suzanne Mubarak; oversee the Library.
The piece examines the foundational politics and abuse of power behind the resurrected Library of Alexandria. “The library rests at the heart of international power plays seeking to carve out a stake in the ‘sacred drama’ of the Alexandria myth, Egypt’s political repositioning with the West, the Mubaraks’ unabashed narcissism, coupled with the self-styled “culture wars” of Alexandria’s elites. The foundational drama that midwifed the Bibliotheca would give way to a decade of corruption, abuse of power, while also positively shaping the socio-cultural landscape of the coastal city, even making it a vital player in the post-Mubarak environment.”
It’s hard to imagine the above photos are two different events. Yet one took place at the turning point of the 18 day revolution, when pro-Mubarak thugs came out on 2 February 2011 on horseback and camels to scare the protesters away, and the latter was on Friday, nowhere near the level of the Battle of the Camel, but disturbing enough. What they do have in common, besides the striking visual parallel, is citizen versus citizen, which has not happened at any time in between those two events
The backdrop to Friday’s case could not be any more tragic, the perpetrators of the notorious Battle of the Camel that resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injured (Exhibit A) were acquitted on Wednesday. So what do pro-Morsi supporters do? They gave us a re-enactment of the Battle of the Camel, the very event they came out to protest against. Continue reading “Tahrir Square: rent-a-thug culture”
Once when a Saudi diplomat whom I knew greeted me as Ostaz(Mr) and I replied in kind with Ostaz, he shouted “Doctor!” I was taken aback at the response. Did I miss something here? The Arab world’s social fixation with ‘doctor’ titles can really be burdensome if at times comical.
When Egypt’s TV satirist Bassam Yousef opened the floor for questions following his opening peroration, a number of Egyptian audience members started off with, “I’m doctor so and so”. Yousef remarked, “we seem to have a lot of doctors in the house today” to the laughter of the audience. At a Cairo conference on the Arab uprisings earlier this year, a female Egyptian academic pleaded with the audience during question time in what was only a semi-joking manner: “I worked so hard for my PhD, so the least I can ask of people is to call me doctor.” This was cringe-worthy, given the number of overseas academics in the session who could not care less if you addressed them as doctor.Yes I can hear the cries already, “This happens all around the world, not just the Middle East!” Sure, the old guard of scholarly circles in Italy and Germany get irked if you fail to address them as such, but it is on the wane. I’m no blind egalitarian that believes titles should be done away with. There is a time and place for titles, such as first meetings, formal ceremonies, application forms and business cards. I’ll use it more out of respect for an elder than anything else.
But we are talking about the abuse of the title ‘doctor’ to the extent that it even makes it into people’s signature, caller ID’s. Merely registered PhD candidates get called doctor, and the expectation that the title confers upon someone is an all-knowing command of any subject. You hear statements like, “I have a PhD in veterinary science, but I do know a bit about the changing Middle East socio-political landscape”.
My co-authored piece with Palestinian-Australian writer and author, Amal Awad.
Published in the (Fairfax’s) Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times and Canberra Times
Please note: The piece does not advocate censorship or clamping down on free speech in any way, but to spark a debate about the role of exercising responsibility with the freedoms we have. For example, Alan Jones was within his “freedom of speech” rights to say the outrageous comments about the Australian Prime Minister’s father (RIP), but was it the responsible thing to do?
WITH ”savage” freedom comes ”civilised” responsibility.
Carlos Latuff on the issue of hate vs free speech
The word ”savage” has made a comeback. Pro-Israel posters were recently plastered on San Francisco buses and on New York subway walls proclaiming: ”In any war between the civilised man and the savage, support the civilised man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”
You know the ad crossed into heinous territory when Fox News censored it, despite one of the ad’s sponsors, conservative US blogger Pamela Geller, being a network darling. Even the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York dissociated itself from the ad, despite its ”unwavering support of Israel”. ”We find the ad’s content to be decidedly prejudiced and dangerously inflammatory,” a statement read.
The situation climaxed last week in an altercation between Mona Eltahawy, the prominent Egyptian-American activist and recent Sydney Writers’ Festival guest, and Pamela Hall, one of the ad’s supporters, who filmed Eltahawy spray-painting the ad. Continue reading “WITH “savage” freedom comes “civilised” responsibility”
Saeeds of Revolution: Demythologizing Khaled Saeed has now been translated into Arabic
ارتفع اسم خالد سعيد بسرعة حتى أصبح يعادل اسم روزا بارك. وأصبحت صورته الفوتوغرافية السمة المميزة للحركة الثورية في مصر على الدوام. وأصبح ميدان كليوباترا، المجاور لمسرح الجريمة، “قبلة” ومحطة يسير عبرها المتظاهرون وهم يرددون بأشكال مختلفة “كلنا خالد سعيد”.
My tweets appeared in Forbes, Examiner, NPR, and others, following Newsweek’s attempt to capitalise on its sensationalist front cover that showed enraged Muslims over the Prophet film (it’s a scary cover!). So the responses were hilarious #MuslimRage tweets from around the world.
Some of my highly trended tweets included:
“Get angry when the self proclaimed MSN Messenger pops up. There can be no other Messenger!” #MuslimRage.
On a conference visit to Rome a few months ago, I was taken aback by what I saw upon my arrival at the main train station, Roma Termini – out on the street was a homeless man, in torn, dishevelled clothes, reading a book. The sight in some ways entranced me. Here was a man who had lost everything in life, but had not lost his dignity to live and re-live through the written word.
I found myself bleakly registering the contrast with Egyptian university graduates who will rarely pick up a book following their formal education. Forget leisure reading, they would no more think of taking out a book in a cafe as taking out a gun. Ask a young Egyptian why don’t you read, and the response is, “I only read if I have to.” In other words, if it is work-related or an obligatory part of some curriculum.
It is in this context of a defanged reading culture that police raided the book sellers on the historical Nabi Daniel Street in Alexandria – the city that spawned one of the wonders of the world, the ancient library of Alexandria. The street – where I could pick up a copy of a 1960s Time magazine or some other yellowing Egyptian periodical – strewing books all over the pavement and sending shockwaves throughout the literary world followed by accusations of Muslim Brotherhood-style censorship. Continue reading “Turning the tide on Egypt’s sinking book reading culture”
