Category: Arab World

“If the sun sinks in a sea of troubles. And a wave of darkness sweeps the world. And we can no longer see or understand and the way is lost in lines and circles. Then, all you wise and experienced ones, your only guide is the eyes of words.” – Ahmed Fouad Negm, Uyoun al-Kalamaz, “Eyes of Words,”(written in Egypt’s Qanatir prison, 1970).

Egypt and Iran: it’s complicated

Article published in openDemocracy and Egypt Monocle

When Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down on 11 February 2011, the clerics in Tehran beamed with a smug of satisfaction that the divine hand had chosen Iran’s Revolution Day for the Pharaoh’s downfall. It could not have been a more surreal start for the besieged Islamic republic seeking to break out of its isolation and gridlock vis-à-vis a regional reconfiguration.

Fast-forward to the recent reported saga at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Iran, in which Egyptian president Morsi (given the red carpet treatment and all) diverged from the Iranian script when he stated, “Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty as it is a political and strategic necessity.”

So close, yet so far. Morsi condemns the Syrian regime at the NAM Summit.

The Syrian delegation walked out in fury and Iranian state TV attempted to limit the damage to their Syrian ally by mistranslating Morsi’s words to the effect of “solidarity with the Syrian nation against the plot that has been implemented against this country.” Business as usual in Iran.

This was Iran’s opportunity to upstage the world by proving it has friends, and Morsi ruined the show.

The incident exposes deeper Iranian, if not regional, frustrations as to where Egypt’s foreign policy orientation is heading.
Continue reading “Egypt and Iran: it’s complicated”

Eating the democratic crumbs from the Arab ruler’s table

Published in the Guardian, openDemocracy and Egypt Monocle

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 a handful of tales to justify the current or past hegemonic orders and repressive figures.

tales and anecdotes were widely circulated on the benevolence of Anwar Sadat

One Egyptian I spoke to had longed for former president Anwar Sadat, based on this (I have yet to verify it) account: an owner leased out her Cairo apartment to the Portuguese ambassador in the 1970s. She fell into dispute with the tenant who was apparently not paying the rent and behaving badly towards the Egyptian owner. The owner went to Sadat to complain, at which the president picked up the phone and scolded the ambassador: “If you are treating an Egyptian like this in her own country, then how are you treating Egyptians in your country?” The ambassador was forced to pack his bags and return to Lisbon.

The lesson one can only deduce is that Sadat cared about Egyptian dignity first and foremost (unlike his successor Hosni Mubarak).

Whether this story is true or apocryphal is not the point. It has been quoted enough times, along with countless others, to be perceived as true.

What is of concern here is the problematic infatuation with Arab leaders’ words and anecdotes that bear no relevance to the day-to-day lives of millions of Arabs.

Continue reading “Eating the democratic crumbs from the Arab ruler’s table”

The Alexandria mafia’s new adversary: civil society

Article published in openDemocracy

I recently penned an investigative article entitled, ‘The real estate pirates behind Alexandria’s collapsing tenements’ that examined the spate of building collapses in the coastal city, particularly in the light of last month’s calamity in the heart of old Alexandria that resulted in 22 lives lost. Behind such events, as I noted, are a “loose network of land-lords, kahools [fall-guys], unscrupulous contractors, corrupt district engineers, crooked or apathetic police officers, and hired thugs making up what can only be described as Alexandria’s real estate mafia.”

The mafia have not only declared a war on safety standards, but on Alexandria’s cultural heritage sites as well. Post-revolutionary Egypt was visited by the semi-break down of law and order, and an Egyptian public that became distracted with the country’s tumultuous political transition. The real estate mafia went into overdrive mode, not only building unsound structures, but destroying in the process cultural heritage sites dating from the pre-1952 monarchical era in order to build more of their dodgy high-rise apartments.

Protesters fight to save the Cicurel Villa; courtesy of Save Alex

With an impotent heritage law and a governor who was daily signing off 150-180 orders to halt illegal demolitions to little avail, the only effective response was the collective effort of a new group “Save Alex” that gathered students from the colleges of fine arts, engineering, tourism and hotels, and others, as well as Alexandrians from all walks of life including academics, activists, civil servants and even nostalgic elders.

The group’s goals sought an end to the destruction of the city’s heritage sites and building code violations.

The mafia were not used to opposition, unless it came from law enforcement agencies. There arose a cat and mouse game, where a threat to one heritage site would bring out Save Alex.

The tools of the revolution were brought out again in full force – Facebook, Twitter, campaigns, vigils, brochure handouts. The public was a getting a taste of something novel – protests that have nothing to do with bread or bringing down a regime (or bringing down anything), but instead about preserving remnants of the past.  Continue reading “The Alexandria mafia’s new adversary: civil society”

The real estate pirates behind Alexandria’s collapsing tenements

Article published in Egypt Independent . To view the print edition (and longer piece) of the article, click here Alexandria’s Real Estate Mafia (PDF)

The perilous by-product of Alexandria’s Real Estate Mafia. Source: Walls of Alex

That just three people — a mother and her daughters — died when a building collapsed in Alexandria on Monday places the incident amongst the least deadly of the increasingly common collapses in the city.

One collapse in the Gomrok district took 22 lives down with it to the dust less than a fortnight ago. Yet, for all the tragedy, the collapse and the response followed a familiar pattern. The building owner illegally adds extra floors and the building falls, leading to deaths and injuries. Outrage follows and an arrest is made as the authorities promise to crack down on illegal developments, but the cycle is repeated elsewhere.

According to residents of Gomrok, in this case the owner ignored previous safety warnings, shunned civil engineers and architects, and bribed his way into adding additional floors.

Continue reading “The real estate pirates behind Alexandria’s collapsing tenements”

Egypt’s stake in the Syrian Revolution

Article published in:
Al Ahram, openDemocracy, Egypt Monocle, Saudi Gazette

Syrian protesters outside Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Alexandria Library)

When Tahrir Square was not playing host to Egypt’s revolutionary sequels, it became one of the chief unofficial nerve centres of the Syrian Revolution. Thousands of fleeing Syrians quickly connected with Egyptian activism, coordinated with the Syrian National Council (SNC), raised awareness amongst Egyptians, set up tents, launched weekly protests, collected donations, hosted conferences, pressured the nearby Arab League, and disseminated information from inside Syria with international media outlets and journalists based in Cairo.

Syrian activities could be found in the shadow of the Arab League building and on the steps of the Alexandria library, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In various protest marches, Syrian flags compete with Egyptian flags and Syrian accents become increasingly audible.

Syrian activism in Cairo developed major advantages over other regional capitals. Amman was overrun by Syrian intelligence operatives, Beirut saw Hezbollah and pro-Assad allies hand over Syrian activists and defecting soldiers back to the Syrian regime, and despite Turkey’s state-sanctioned benevolence towards the Syrian uprising (and Turkey has done much for the opposition), it is suspected by key Syrian opposition figures of harbouring Turkish, some would say neo-Ottoman, designs on Syria’s future. The minority Kurds who feature prominently in the SNC are at the forefront of such suspicions.

Continue reading “Egypt’s stake in the Syrian Revolution”

Egypt’s history repeating itself fallacy

Article published in:
Ahram Online, openDemocracy

In the nascent days of World War II, French Premier Paul Reynaud remarked to General Pilippe Pétain: “You take Hitler for another Wilhelm I, the old man who seized Alsace-Lorraine from us and that was all. But Hitler is Genghis Khan.” Reynaud’s subtext was clear: if you wish to use the ‘history repeating itself’ line, use the right history.

Using history as a guide, no matter how well intentioned, is often fraught with high risks: outcomes can vastly diverge from the history lesson sought initially. For example, the lesson of Munich (1938) ‘not to appease dictators’ set the tone for the 1956 Anglo-French confrontation with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in the Suez War. It turned out disastrous for the protagonists and left the young Egyptian leader with all the claims he might need to a political and moral victory.

Egypt today has a semi-emasculated Islamist president, a reinstated but uncertain parliament, the strong presence of the Muslim Brotherhood, an overbearing military council, a restless public, all mixed up with an economic crisis. Questions are being asked, is Egypt going to become like 1979 Iran, 1991 Algeria, Old model Turkey, 1999 Pakistan, or even 1954 Egypt?

Isn’t it possible that 2012 Egypt may be just that, 2012 Egypt – with all its idiosyncrasies, rotation of actors, socio-economic uncertainties, Pan-Arabism from below, digital youth; in an era of globalisation and changing geo-strategic realities, all the while taking into consideration the unique historical forces that shape these factors?
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Wired Citizenship: Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East

Amro Ali and Dina El-Sharnouby, “Distorting Digital Citizenship: Khaled Said, Facebook, and Egypt’s Streets” in Wired Citizenship: Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East. Eds. Linda Herrera (London: Routledge, 2014).

 

There is also my co-authored report with Dina El-Sharnouby (AUC) on the findings of the “Youth and Citizenship in a Digital Age” workshop that took place at the 13th Mediterranean Meeting in Montecatini, Italy, in 2012.
Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Era: Critique of an Emerging Phenomenon

Egypt’s morning after: against Dictatorship 2.0

Article published in:
openDemocracy
http://www.opendemocracy.net/amro-ali/egypt%E2%80%99s-morning-after-against-dictatorship-20
The Egypt Monocle 
http://egyptmonocle.com/EMonocle/%E2%80%8Bop-ed-against-dictatorship-2-0-2/ 

Subtlety is not a strong feature of the Egyptian landscape, whether you look at its overt religious piety, emphasis on a person’s title, the fragrance generously sprayed that heralds a person’s arrival from 15 metres away, the imposing pyramids, or Judge Farouk Sultan’s protracted defence of the ‘divinely-sanctioned’ electoral commission before he could get around to just announcing the presidential winner. Yet the least subtle of any Egyptian agency has to be the league of ‘extraordinary’ gentlemen – the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). In seizing all branches of government, ripping up the constitution and pre-emptively defanging the Morsi presidency, SCAF have not only sought to turn the self-styled ‘Revolution 2.0’ into a ‘Dictatorship 2.0’, but have done so with a degree of recklessness, desperation and lack of imagination that leaves their hand even more exposed than before.

Decoding the socio-political hieroglyphics reads like this: New politics (revolutionaries and liberals) reluctantly united with religious politics (Muslim Brotherhood) to fight the union between old politics (Felul, former regime remnants led by Ahmed Shafik) and military politics (SCAF). Old politics (and the revival of corrupt patronage networks) has been dealt a death-blow. Now a considerable number of revolutionaries find themselves stuck in a marriage of convenience with the Muslim Brotherhood to take on the military council and their supplementary constitutional declaration, the timing of the next parliamentary elections in particular and a painfully-slow transition in general.

Continue reading “Egypt’s morning after: against Dictatorship 2.0”

Revolution never sleeps

Article originally appeared in openDemocracy:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/amro-ali/revolution-never-sleeps

Egyptians may have been left with the dilemma of an Ahmed Shafiq-Mohamed Morsy reverse suicide pact (for the voter), yet the revolutionary forces’ tactical loss has been compensated by a strategic gain – their anointed candidate Hamdeen Sabahi vanquished his opponents in Alexandria in what could be a long-term game changer.

During the two day elections, I volunteered for Shayfenkom (‘We can see you’), an independent body that monitors voting irregularities. I overheard Sabahi’s name at every polling station I attended, including Muharam Bey, a traditionally Muslim Brotherhood base. If Sabahi could penetrate this heart of old Alexandria, then the city was sold to him before the results were out.

Continue reading “Revolution never sleeps”