The Qalandia Checkpoint

First, some context: it’s been nearly a month since I’ve last posted, during which time much has happened in Egypt (elections, street violence, etc.) that I will try to write about in due time. For this post, however, I am skipping all of that in order to chronicle an experience I had last week as I was traveling in Israel and the West Bank with my friend Trevor. To all readers of the blog, Merry Christmas (belated), Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year (in advance).

The ride from Jerusalem to Ramallah is short. In less than hour, after zipping through the Qalandia checkpoint that separates Israel from the West Bank, Trevor and I found ourselves in the heart of Palestine. After spending two and a half days in Nablus and Ramallah (with quick trips to Bethlehem and Taybeh, a small village southeast of Ramallah that is home to the Arab world’s only microbrewery), we decided it was time to go back to Israel.

The ride from Ramallah to Jerusalem is long. After about 25 minutes, we arrived once again at Qalandia, where everyone on the bus jumped from their seats and clamored to get off as fast as possible as if their lives depended on it. Bemused, Trevor and I took our time exiting and had to retrieve our bags from underneath the bus. We had heard about the difficulties that Palestines faced in trying to pass through Qalandia, but we assumed that there would be some other way for foreigners like us to bypass that messy process and waltz back into Israel. There was not.

We assumed our place in line behind the rest of our bus in a space that can only be described as an animal pen built for humans. Metal bars on both sides of the corridor hemmed us in, and a revolving metal door at the end regulated the flow of traffic into the security area. No official was in sight, nor were there any guardrails that might have enabled us to line up in an orderly fashion. In the absence of supervision, jostling and pushing soon resulted in the formation of a giant blob of humanity pressed up against the walls and the gate.

The Qallandia Checkpoint (photo: www.holylanddispatches.blogspot.com)

Five people were allowed into the security area at a time. When they passed through, a buzzer above the gate emitted a prison-esque beep and the red light turned green. The revolving doors unlocked abruptly, and the blob pushed forward in an effort to squeeze through. This cattle carousel came to an abrupt end after five more people made it through, and there was often one unlucky person who found himself literally stuck in between the revolving metal doors and the bars on either side. Each prisoner stood with a forlorn, distant look in his face for a few minutes until the buzzer sounded again to let five more through.

We inched forward ever so slowly, and the congestion worsened significantly as we approached the gate. An older woman behind me clucked disapprovingly to her companion: “mithla hayawanat ihna!” (It's like we're animals!). In front, I watched through the bars as an old man was refused entry because his papers were not in order. He gestured angrily at the border guards (who were invisible from our vantage point), but finally threw up his hands in resignation and began to look for a way to return to the Palestinian side. There was no side door. Everyone waiting in and next to the metal gate had to move back to let him pass back the way he came, head down and cursing to himself.

After some time – I don’t remember how long exactly – we finally made it through the gate. As we were walking the several feet from the gate to the x-ray machine, an old woman walking between us didn’t see a piece of concrete sticking up on the ground, tripped over it, and fell onto her knees. The contents of her bag spilled onto the ground, and she looked up at me with a desperate, exhausted look that I will not soon forget. She picked herself up – no time to nurse your wounds in the no man’s land between the gate and security area – and shuffled forward.

We put our bags through an x-ray machine, walked through an unmonitored metal detector, and handed our passports to two Israeli soldiers sitting behind soundproof glass. I handed them my passport with stone-faced stare, mirroring the one I was receiving from the soldier. After flipping through it with a few cursory glances, he handed it back and waved me away dismissively. As I walked toward the bus that would take us from the checkpoint to Jerusalem, I was serenaded with one last buzzer sound and creak of the metal gate as five more humans – mithla hayawanat – pressed through.

New Look, Same Blog

As regular visitors to this blog will realize, I have decided to give it a new look. I started this blog a few years ago as part of an assignment in Arabic class (hence the creative name "mkarabic.blogspot.com"), but it has since become a place to muse about Egyptian politics and society based upon my daily experiences here in the land of the pharaohs.

The new name is a nod to the uniquely Egyptian word "fahlawa." While it defies a precise translation into English, fahlawa is basically a way to describe how the majority of Egyptians survive on a day-to-day basis. With high rates of unemployment and a lack of social stability, most Egyptians earn their daily bread in the informal sector. A person who embodies the idea of fahlawa is one who can swiftly assess any new situation that he finds himself in and figure out if there is a way to profit from it. As a foreigner in Egypt, I have "fahlawa experiences" on regular basis, and they tend to be alternatively hilarious, frustrating, and enlightening. For a good example of fahlawa, check out this post that I wrote during my semester abroad in Alexandria in 2010. Finally, for a full, eloquent definition of the word, I strongly encourage everyone to visit the "al-Bostoni" blog - he hits the nail right on the head.

So, without further ado, I invite you to join me at www.fahlawamusings.com!

An Analysis of Last Week's Events in Tahrir Square

Egyptians returned to Tahrir Square en masse last week in what many dubbed the “second revolution”. What began as a largely Islamist protest on November 18 against the attempts of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to insulate itself from civilian oversight and play an active role in politics turned into an extended sit-in as thousands of protesters, with the support of all of Egypt’s liberal parties, clashed with central security forces and sought to bring down the SCAF. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, which had a heavy presence in the square on November 18, was noticeably absent from the subsequent protests.

The dynamics of the most recent Tahrir Square protests shed further light on the distinct strategies that Egypt’s liberal and Islamist groups employ to achieve similar goals. Both groups descended upon Tahrir Square to voice their opposition to the SCAF’s ongoing rule. The Islamists, however, made it clear that they view the ballot box as the most effective means to combat the SCAF. After their brief stint in the square, they refused to officially support the ongoing protests and strenuously resisted calls to delay this week’s parliamentary elections (which, by most accounts, they are poised to dominate). Liberals, on the other hand, demonstrated once again that the square is their preferred forum to express discontent and try to effect change. Although elections were less than a week away, nearly every liberal party turned its attention away from their campaigns and supported efforts to topple the SCAF. While both sides are participating in the elections, the liberals have had little success in expanding their base of supporters and thus have little to lose by continuing to protest. The Islamists, on the other hand, seem ready to take aim at the SCAF through the institutions of state – namely the Parliament. The diverging tactics employed by both sides reveal fundamental differences in the groups’ faith in the democratic system as a framework within which to achieve their goals.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, Egypt’s two most prominent Islamist groups, began the Tahrir saga on November 18 with a major protest against a SCAF’s proposed supra-constitutional principles. The most contentious aspects of the document included a stipulation that the military budget would not be subject to civilian oversight and an effort to ensure an active role for the military in the constitutional process. Both Islamists and liberals opposed these principles on the grounds that they would enable the military to remain outside the control of any civilian government. The Islamists were particularly vehement in their opposition, however, because they feared that the principles would also empower the military to intervene in politics – a direct threat to the Islamists’ strategy of gaining control of political institutions and working through them to oppose the military. The Islamists crowded the square with thousands of supporters and spent the day inveighing specifically against the supra-constitutional principles.

While the Islamist supporters left the square, a few family members of those killed and injured during the January revolution who had spent the day in Tahrir decided to remain. On Saturday, a group of central security police officers violently flushed them out. As news spread of the officers’ use of excessive force, thousands of Egyptians came down to the square to support the protesters. By the end of the night, protesters had retaken the square and running battles with the police continued on the outskirts of Tahrir. Compelled by the spread of videos showing the police treating the dead with utter disrespect, the crowd in Tahrir continued to grow. By Sunday night, one of the streets leading to the square turned into a de facto war zone between riot police and protesters.

With thousands of protesters in the square, the array of Egyptian political parties faced a choice: support the protesters and demand the resignation of the SCAF or call for calm and a truce to end the fighting. The response from the liberal side was overwhelming: activists who had played a major role in the January revolution set up camp in the square, twitter buzzed with activity, and the chants calling for the SCAF to step down grew louder by the minute. Furthermore, liberal parties released official statements of support for the “million-man protest” on Tuesday, November 22. The Free Egyptians Party, one of the most prominent liberal parties, distributed a list of seven demands that included the widely-echoed call for the formation of a “National Salvation Government” to take control of the country. Such a government, which protest leaders had proposed would include a representative distribution of Egypt’s political interests led by the respected presidential candidates Mohamed al-Baradei (a liberal) and Abu Monem Abul-Fatooh (a former Muslim Brotherhood member), represented the ideal solution for Egypt’s liberals: the end of SCAF rule and a transfer of power to a government headed by a trusted liberal leader with popular support.

As the violence continued and the ministers of the sitting government submitted their resignations in protests, the SCAF’s hold on power seemed to weaken. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, remained on the sidelines. The group equivocated, stating that it would not officially participate in the protests but supported the right to peaceful protests and sit-ins. When some of the group’s younger members joined the protests in defiance of orders from their superiors, the brotherhood released a statement on its website reaffirming its original decision not to participate.

For their part, the liberal parties were not prepared to match some of the most extreme demands of the activists in Tahrir. As pressure from many activists for a delay or boycott of the elections grew in light of the violence, most liberal parties did not officially support such calls. Indeed, the speed with which those in the square forsook the elections in favor of concentrated opposition to the SCAF indicates the particularly low value that many hardcore revolutionaries place in the electoral process as a means to achieve their goals. Nevertheless, the liberal parties stood in solidarity with the protesters against the SCAF throughout the week.

For the time being, the SCAF has regained its hold on power. After soldiers stepped in to end violence, the protesters found themselves unable to maintain the support that they had received out of sympathy for those who had died or been injured while fighting the police. Now, as the liberals’ immediate and direct challenge to the SCAF’s rule seems to have temporarily softened, the advent of parliamentary elections means that the Islamists’ real efforts are just beginning. In the end, however, both sides will likely realize that they are most likely to achieve their common goal of knocking the SCAF out of power through coordination and cooperation. A combination of intense protests and parliamentary pressure – drawing on the resources of both the liberals and Islamists – may well be the straw that breaks the SCAF’s back.

Why?

Fighting rages on tonight in Tahrir Square. Tear gas, birdshot, live ammunition. Protesters have hurled a steady stream of stones and molotov cocktails at lines of police officers for almost four days in a row. Protests and skirmishes between police and protesters have erupted in Alexandria and other cities and towns throughout the country. Field Marshal Tantawi, leader of the ruling military council, went on television tonight and delivered a Mubarak-esque speech expressing sympathy for the martyrs' families while at the same time calling for protesters to end the violence immediately. He also accepted the resignation of the current transitional government (almost every Egyptian I've talked has no trust in the government, so the resignation is essentially a moot point).

Protesters want the military council out; that much is clear. The post-revolution elation and optimism about the military's potential to responsibly guide the country through the current transitional period is gone. It gradually dissipated throughout a spring, summer, and fall that saw a flurry of military trials for civilians, a ratcheting up of media censorship, and generally incompetent leadership on all fronts.

What is still unclear, however, is why the protesters and police continue to fight. The fighting has been concentrated for several days now on Mostafa Mahmoud Street - one of the streets that leads to Tahrir Square - and the battle lines have scarcely moved.

One possibility is that the protesters are trying to break through the police barricades and reach the Ministry of the Interior (MoI). The MoI was and still is one of the hated state institutions, and one of the central demands of the January revolution was that it be completely reformed. That reform hasn't yet happened. But do the protesters really think that they can break through a police line, huge barbed-wire fences, and then several more phalanxes of police and soldiers protecting the building? Even if protesters were able to break through, the death toll would be horrific, and they would be no closer to actually achieving their goal of reforming the ministry.

Another possibility is that the police are trying to fight through the line of protesters in an effort to reach Tahrir Square and drive out its occupants. But why would the police concentrate all of their resources on just one street? Clearly, if they wanted to remove protesters from the square by force they would launch a multi-pronged assault (that happened on Saturday, by the way, but the police then withdrew from the square and protesters reoccupied it).

Despite the absolute lack of logic, the fight continues. Ambulances make runs to and from the front lines, field hospitals in the square are jammed with people suffering from head wounds and excessive tear gas inhalation. Everyone screams slogans against the military council and the police, but no one stops to think about whether thousands of Egyptians continuing to throw rocks at hundreds of police officers is actually achieving anything.

The situation defies logic, but that might be the point. We may have arrived at the point where Egyptians are fighting just for the sake of fighting. To the protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the police are the representatives of a dictatorial system that still hasn't died. They are expressing their frustration and anger with every rock that they throw. That may be why.

But what does the future hold for this country? No one knows.

The Need for Police Reform in Egypt

I just published my new piece on Fikra Forum today focused on the importance of reforming Egypt's police force (read it here). With so much attention being devoted to Egypt's upcoming parliamentary elections (the first since Mubarak's fall in February) it is easy to overlook the underlying problems that plague the country's security services. As I argue in my piece, however, political and economic development cannot occur in the absence of fundamental changes in the relationship between the police and Egypt's citizens. My other two published articles on Fikra Forum can be found here and here.

Election Season Begins in Egypt

Mohamed, my friend and ex-Muslim Brotherhood member, left Cairo two weeks ago for his hometown Damietta. He is going to be there for a month and a half, and he hopes to come back to Cairo in the beginning of November as a newly-elected member of the Egyptian Parliament. If his party, the “Egyptian Movement” (it makes sense in Arabic), wins 60% of the votes in his electoral district, Mohamed will win a spot in the first Egyptian Parliament in the post-Mubarak era.

Before he left, I had a chance to sit down with Mohamed for an extended chat about his political ambitions and platform at one of Cairo’s many cafes nestled in a downtown alley. Before discussing his election campaign, Mohamed first laid out the basics of the electoral system in Damietta. As he described it, his party is competing primarily with a party composed of former Mubarak supporters (known in Arabic “falul” – the remnants). The residents of Damietta will be voting on two separate ballots: one is a party-list system, in which voters vote for a specific party which is then allocated a number of seats in Parliament proportional to the percentage of votes it receives. The other is for independent candidates, running without a party affiliation, whom the voters choose based on their individual merits. Mohamed is running on a party-list, and he is ranked fifth out of eight candidates on the Egyptian Movement’s party list (Damietta will have eight party-list seats, so if a party won 50% of the votes, for example, its top four candidates would earn seats in Parliament). If you find this system unnecessarily confusing, you are not alone – there has been a lot of griping over the past few months about the complexity of the electoral system and its vulnerability to fraud.

Mohamed began describing his platform with a simple statement: “I am running in order represent the interests of Damietta’s youth.” Before diving into his views on specific political or economic issues, Mohamed detailed his plan to revamp Damietta’s educational system, which he considers one of his core issues. Arising from the belief that the education system fundamentally sells Egypt’s youth short and inculcates them with useless information through its emphasis on rote memorization, Mohamed wants Damietta’s youth to take matters into their own hands. He plans to identify 300 of the brightest students in the area (“for their critical thinking skills, not their ability to score well on Egypt’s secondary school exit exam”) and provide them with six month scholarships to study education in Brazil or Malaysia. After learning about those countries’ educational systems, they would then return to Damietta and begin working in local schools as teaching assistants and administration advisers in an attempt to change the curriculum to better serve the students’ needs. At the same time, Mohamed wants to open a new high school for exceptionally smart students (50 per year) that would be modeled after the American educational system (read: critical thinking skills, hands-on learning, liberal-arts style breadth and depth).

In addition to his proposal for education reform, Mohamed also has a distinct economic philosophy that he describes as “socialist and centered around the needs of the poor.” Damietta is a large manufacturing center, and Mohamed commented that the many factory workers are all inclined to vote for candidates with socialist economic policies. He is calling for the Egyptian government to play a significant role in supporting certain industries with tax breaks and investment subsidies, while identifying others that it deems less essential and will thus tax stiffly. “How can Egypt export grain,” Mohamed queried, “when we have to import other food from abroad in order to feed our own people?”

On top of emphasizing domestic production and imposing stiffer government oversight on Egypt’s exports and imports, Mohamed plans to focus on ensuring that all of Egypt’s workers have a minimum wage of 50,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately $8,500) per year. Given that Egypt’s current GDP per capita is just under $3,000, that goal seems nearly impossible to reach in the near future. Suffice it to say that Mohamed’s economic plan, were it actually implemented, would represent a major shift away from the Mubarak regime’s efforts to promote liberal economic reform.

As to foreign policy, Mohamed declared that Egypt should emulate the Turkish “zero problems with neighbors” model. In his own words, Mohamed emphasized his belief that “dignity” should be a core concept of Egypt’s foreign policy: “If other countries respect us, we will certainly respect them.” Beyond the rhetoric, however, he did not go into many specifics. When I asked him about his position on Egypt’s relationship with Israel, he replied that he did not inherently oppose the idea of Israel as a Jewish state nor was he opposed to the idea of Egypt and Israel continuing their economic and diplomatic relations. He did say, however, that “as long as Israel continues to kill our soldiers [on the Sinai border] and Palestinian children, we cannot accept it as a legitimate partner.”

Taken as a whole, what is there to make of Mohamed’s policy positions? In my opinion, his platform as a whole seems high on rhetoric and low on substance. He is enthusiastic and full of ideas, but none of them seem to be grounded in a sober analysis of the political and economic realities in Egypt. Can the Egyptian government actually pay for any of the social programs he proposes? Would it be able to carry out a major realignment of the tax system? Will the Parliament be able to wrest any control over the country’s foreign policy away from the military? Mohamed, like many other candidates for Parliament, does not have any political experience. While he and his fellow Egyptians are bursting with enthusiasm at the prospect of what they hope will be the country’s first set of transparent democratic elections, no one is quite sure how that enthusiasm will translate into the reality of writing, passing, and implementing legislation.

In addition to that uncertainty, the elephant in the political room is, of course, the military. It remains as powerful as ever, and, as of yet, has not laid out a firm timetable for completing the transfer of power to a civilian government. In the battle for power between a Parliament filled with green politicians and a military council composed of experienced soldiers who have access to extensive financial resources and support from the behemoth that is Egypt’s security apparatus, it is hard to imagine that Mohamed or any of his peers will have much success carrying out their plans without the military’s approval.

For now, however, Mohamed has the luxury of ignoring the rocky road ahead. He left his job as a sales representative at a medical services company to focus on his election campaign. From now until election time, he will be doing what politicians do when they campaign: attending public events, meeting with voters, spreading his message as widely as possible. After we had finished our last cups of tea, I wished him good luck: “rabina yuafuqk!” – May God grant you success.

Egypt's Treason Law: Using Mubarak-era Tactics to Keep Mubarak's Cronies Out

Earlier this summer, I wrote an article for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's "Fikra Forum" about the ongoing economic debate in Egypt. Today, I just published my second piece on the site. This article is about Egypt's newly-amended "Treason Law," which is aimed at keeping Hosni Mubarak's former cronies in the now-defunct National Democratic Party out of Egypt's future political scene. As you will see in my article, however, this law has the potential to backfire and open the door to a new era of dictatorship in Egypt. You can find it here on Fikra Forum.

A Firsthand Look at the Muslim Brotherhood

Since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has emerged as a legitimate political force that is sure to play a large role in shaping Egypt’s future. Both Egyptian and Western media organizations have devoted a large amount of focus to analyzing the MB’s political prospects, its power structure, and its position in Egyptian society. While most Egyptians have plenty of opportunities to form their own opinions about the MB from their own interactions with members and the Egyptian media’s coverage of the subject, the only exposure to the MB that many non-Egyptians have is through the Western media. Those articles and news reports have alternately described the MB as a widely popular, democratizing force, or terrorist sympathizers bent on war with Israel and ensuring that Egypt becomes another case of “one man, one vote, one time.”

While I do not consider myself an expert on the MB, I want to share with the readers of this blog some of my experiences with the Brotherhood throughout the past few months in Cairo. Before this year, I had not had the opportunity to meet any Brotherhood members. Open membership in the MB during the Mubarak era could easily lead to expulsion from college or the loss of a job. This year, however, everything has changed. Membership in the Brotherhood no longer puts one at risk of intimidation or state-sponsored violence. As a result, I have had the opportunity to meet and befriend an MB member, and I think that his story is quite instructive for anyone wanting to learn more about the role that the MB plays in Egyptian politics and society.

The story begins with a discussion group that I attend every Thursday afternoon at a Cairo think tank. A group of Egyptian political activists and interested citizens from all sides of the political spectrum come together to discuss a specific political issue with an expert in the field – past meetings have focused on the relationship between religion and the state, the continued sit-ins in Tahrir Square, and analyzing the recently released electoral laws. I generally do much more listening than talking at these meetings (I consider it an achievement that I am merely able to understand much of what is being discussed…), and I consider each meeting one of the highlights of my week.

My friend Mohamed, a 27 year-old man who works at a pharmaceutical company, is the leader and organizer of the group. Until this past March, Mohamed was a member of the MB, but he and several hundred other young members formally split from the Brotherhood a few months ago. Mohamed had been a part of the Brotherhood for 12 years. While we had discussed politics and international relations several times previously, I did not learn Mohamed’s personal story until my last week in Cairo this summer. After we finished our weekly meeting, he asked me if I would come with him to a local café and serve as a translator for an interview that a Czech researcher had scheduled with him. The interview lasted an hour and a half, and, in addition to learning firsthand how tough it is to serve as a translator, I was fascinated by Mohamed’s story.

Mohamed grew up in a town in the Nile Delta near the Mediterranean coast, the son of a politically indifferent mother and a socialist father. At age 15, he decided to join the Muslim Brotherhood. He respected the local Brotherhood members and believed that there was a natural synthesis between the Islamic principles that the Brotherhood espoused and the establishment of a just, transparent government in Egypt (i.e. the opposite of the Mubarak regime). While Mohamed’s father was initially opposed to his participation in the MB, Mohamed recalled that his father’s opposition softened over time as he saw that Mohamed’s participation in the MB seemed to make him a more focused student and well-rounded person.

Mohamed climbed the ranks of the Brotherhood, and he continued to play a role in it throughout college and after graduation. He eventually reached the fifth and highest level of Brotherhood membership (although if he had stayed on he would have had a ways to go before obtaining a provincial or national leadership position). He participated in the January revolution that toppled Mubarak, but in the wake of Mubarak’s resignation Mohamed found himself caught in the divide that has currently split the MB in two.

In a meeting on March 26 with several hundred members of the Brotherhood’s younger generation, Mohamed and his colleagues declared that they were officially cutting ties with the MB. As Mohamed was careful to point out, he did not split off from the MB because he disagreed with the group’s political or religious principles. Instead, he fundamentally disagreed with what he saw as the MB’s mixing of preaching and politics as it sought to garner political support leading up to the first elections in the post-Mubarak Egypt. While Mohamed himself had taken part in both fields (preaching and politics), he steadfastly maintained that two must remain separate. The MB devotes a great deal of effort to maintaining a presence at local mosques and spreading its version of Islamic values to the attendees therein. In Mohamed’s opinion, however, the MB’s preaching had begun to cross over into the political realm. As he explained to me in one of our earlier conversations, bringing politics into the mosque has the potential to sow division and detract from the Brotherhood’s political and religious goals. “Politics is a matter of choice,” he said, “you pick the person or the party that you think best represents you. Disagreement is normal. The problem with mixing preaching and politics is that if someone disagrees with your politics, that disagreement can carry over to religion, too. Our opponents will then seem to be arguing not only against our politics, but also against religion as a whole. If that happened, it would sully both our name and Islam as a whole.”

That was Mohamed’s official reason for leaving the Brotherhood, and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. At the same time, however, he and his fellow youth defectors did not disavow the Brotherhood’s ideology. He joined a new party called the “Renaissance Party,” which he described as embracing almost all of the Brotherhood’s values without mixing preaching and politics. He also supports former Brotherhood leader and current presidential candidate Abd-Munam Abu-al-Futuh (who was expelled from the Brotherhood upon declaring his intention to stand in the presidential elections – the MB is not fielding an official candidate for this year’s presidential elections). Mohamed’s continued adherence to Islamist political platforms suggests that there is another factor that contributed to his decision: the split between the older and younger generations of the MB.

While people often think of the Brotherhood as a monolithic institution devoid of any differentiating views on politics or religion, it has become quite clear since the January 25 revolution that the Brotherhood is actually quite diverse. The Brotherhood’s leadership is largely composed of the old guard members whose political views have been hardened by years of repression under the Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak regimes. The younger generation, however, has shown itself much more amenable to cooperation with non-Islamist groups. Furthermore, the younger generation has publicly chafed against the old guard’s hesitance to turn over leadership positions to them. This split in the Brotherhood continues to grow, and, with defections such as those of Mohamed and his colleagues and the rise of more hardline groups such as the Salafis, the MB no longer has a monopoly on Islamist politics in Egypt.

Seasons of Love in Egypt

Have you ever sat on a subway platform with your significant other, making small talk and whispering sweet nothings to each other as train after train passes by? Or found a cozy spot for cuddling under an overpass that cuts through the middle of the city? Probably not - unless, that is, you see an element of romance in urban transport infrastructure.

In Egypt, however, such public places are considered prime spots for young lovers to meet and spend time with each other. It is common to see couples huddling close together in adjoining seats in subway stations, busy sidewalks, and even grassy medians in the center of large streets.

At first glance, this phenomenon runs counter to the conventional wisdom that Egypt is a conservative society where the two sexes remain largely separate until marriage. Dating, at least in the American sense, is much less widespread here, and premarital sex is taboo. If a man and woman are interested in each other, they are generally unable to visit each other at either of their houses. Even after graduating college, most unmarried women live with their families. Every man knows that if he were to call on her at her family’s house he would either be turned away or, if he were allowed in, would not be able to spend any time alone with the object of his desire.

In response to these social constraints, the younger generations have realized that the best way to keep love hidden is to bring it into the public view! The subway stations, parks, and streets that lovers populate at all hours of the day are open to people from all walks of life. At the same time, however, there is a level of anonymity in these spaces that does not exist at home. While it is rare to see people kissing in public, there is plenty of PDA. Hand-holding, cheek-to-cheek contact, and pecks on the cheek that could almost be considered kisses are commonplace, even in the midst of a cacophony of horns or the crush of riders entering and exiting the subway.

Taking a page out of Romeo and Juliet (minus the bloody ending, of course), young Egyptians have proved once again that true love is always able to overcome any obstacle in its path.

Jon Stewart Comes to Egypt

For nearly 60 years, Egypt’s ruling class used rumors of foreign conspiracies to divert attention from the country’s internal problems. Sticking to the script, the Mubarak regime did its best to convince the Egyptian people that agents from Israel, the U.S., and Europe were driving the January 25 uprising. It failed. Unfortunately, though, loose talk about foreign agents, hostile elements, and, of course, Israeli spies seeking to undermine Egyptian interests continues to play an unsettlingly prominent role in the media in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Thankfully, the counter-conspiracy campaign has begun, and its leader is a man named Bassem Yousuf (pictured here doing his best Mubarak impression).



Yousuf, who models himself after Jon Stewart (and looks a bit like him, too), began to broadcast satirical news segments soon after the fall of Mubarak in which he focused on exposing the many audacious claims about foreign conspiracies that fearmongerers had been making during the 18-day uprising. Using tried and true Stewartian tactics, Yousuf interspersed clips from Egyptian news and talk shows with his own sarcastic commentary. In some cases, such as the aftermath of the divisive constitutional referendum in March, he would also use his bully pulpit to speak out against polarization or sensationalism and appeal for tolerance and calm. Just as Stewart often appears to be the voice of reason above the fray, Yousuf has carefully avoided associating himself with any specific political party or ideology.

Yousuf has found an audience in Egypt, especially among the youth. Several friends and I had the pleasure of listening to him speak at a local cultural center last weekend, and when we arrived we found that the lecture hall, which seats at least several hundred people, was filled to the brim. Nearly all of the attendees were under the age of 30, and they listened with rapt attention as Yousuf stressed the importance of critically analyzing every news item or opinion that they see on television or read in the paper. I was also particularly heartened to hear his comments on the need for civil discourse about key social issues: “We Egyptians are not used to serious conversations about important issues like sex, religion, and gender,” he said, “but we need to have these conversations, and the only way that they will be constructive is if we debate ideas instead of attacking the personality or allegiance of someone who does not share our viewpoint. We can disagree, but we must remember that at the end of the day we are all Egyptians and we all want to make our country better.”

Amen.

PS: After a several month hiatus, Yousuf’s program was picked up by an Egyptian television station for the month of Ramadan, and rumor has it that he now has a contract that runs for the rest of the year. For any Arabic speakers reading this blog, you can find the Ramadan episodes here and the earlier episodes here.

Two Must Read Articles

It's almost been a year since the "Arab Spring" began, and now that the wild jubilation has cooled off in most parts of the Middle East, it is time for the nitty-gritty of electoral laws, campaigning, and constitution drafting to take the spotlight. I highly recommend the following two articles for anyone looking to gain some perspective on what is happening in Egypt and the region as a whole. Enjoy!

1) How Bad Electoral Law Could Crash Egypt's Revolution (Atlantic)

2) The Arab Counterrevolution (New York Review of Books)

Emotion Trumps Rationality

One of the most noteworthy aspects of the 18-day Egyptian uprising in January and February was that the protesters were focused almost exclusively on the internal issues plaguing Egypt: unemployment, rising prices, corruption, etc. External issues that long played a major role in Egyptian political consciousness, primarily the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, were put on the backburner.

Any illusion that the Arab Spring would magically cure Egyptians’ dislike of Israel and lead them to focus more on fixing internal issues than settling external scores, however, was just that: an illusion. What little tolerance Egyptians had for the continuation of the status-quo in their country’s relationship with Israel after the revolution was reduced to nothing last month. In an effort to hunt down the Palestinian militants responsible for attacking a bus near Eilat, Israeli helicopters accidentally killed five Egyptian security officers in Sinai. That led to an outpouring of rage and serious protests outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and the protests reached a new peak last night as protesters broke down the security wall and stormed into the embassy. Israel pulled out almost all of its diplomatic corps in Egypt in the middle of the night.

From a vantage point on our roof, we saw large groups of youth sprinting down the main street near our house towards the embassy. Ten minutes later, some of the same youth came sprinting back the other direction, just as a large group of riot police departed from the police station next to our house in the direction of the embassy. Smoke was rising in the distance from the embassy area, and sirens blared throughout the night. Rumor has it that Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and his cabinet may tender their resignations today.

Today, life on the streets is pretty much back to normal. In my personal opinion, however, the outbreak of these protests could not have come at a worse time. Elections are coming up in November and the electoral laws are still muddled and in need of urgent reform, serious fissures have emerged between the Islamists and the liberals, and dissatisfaction with the ruling military council continues to grow. Every ounce of energy spent engaging in Quixotic missions to break into the Israeli Embassy is one less ounce of energy spent focusing on the real problems that plague Egypt right now. There will most certainly be a time for Egyptians to have a serious debate about how they think their country should deal with Israel, but it is not now!
Furthermore, the last thing that Egypt needs is to give the military council an excuse to crackdown on dissent, which it might very well try to do in response to last night’s events.

Egyptians feel like their government has allowed Israel to run roughshod over them for more than thirty years, and the pro-Palestinian sentiment on the Egyptian street has always been strong. Currently, however, emotion is blinding rationality. Nothing productive can come out of the sort of raw expression of rage that Cairo witnessed last night. I just hope that the consequences are not too serious, either.

A Ramadan Unlike Any Other

While I was trekking through Turkey during the month of August, Egyptians were busy fasting during the day and partying at night during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

I managed to return just in time for the end of Ramadan. Daily life in Egypt between the hours of 9 AM and 4 PM during Ramadan is surprisingly normal. People go to work, the streets are full of cars (and the accompanying noise is just as annoying as ever), and you would never know that they are doing all of that without any food or water! As several friends explained it to me, you make it through Ramadan for three reasons: (1) Over the course of the 28 day fast, your body adjusts to eating large meals at night and nothing during the day, (2) Everyone else is doing it, so there is a feeling of companionship and brotherhood with your fellow fasters, and (3) you have a giant party to look forward to once the sun sets!

Unfortunately we non-Egyptian city dwellers did not have as much access to the party scene as we would have liked. The real parties, as I was repeatedly told, happen in the countryside where families gather together for huge feasts every night with their neighbors and the music blares deep into the night. While that description might include a little bit of embellishment courtesy of my Egyptian friends who were wishing that they could have been celebrating at home, I don’t think it is too far from the truth…

Celebrating iftar, the sundown break-the-fast meal, was still pretty fun in the city. Every restaurant is packed with families, and the glum, tired faces brighten the second after everyone hears the muezzin’s call signifying that the sun has set. After dinner, people pour out into the streets to socialize and shop, and many of them stay there until the wee hours of the morning.

None of those observations about Ramadan, however, represent anything out of the ordinary. Indeed, the reason why I refer to this past Ramadan a Ramadan unlike any other has nothing to do with the normal traditions. Instead, this was the first Ramadan in the post-Mubarak Egypt. No longer did the newspapers carry headline pictures of Mubarak and his wife praying together at his favorite mosque on the outskirts of Cairo. Furthermore, the celebratory Ramadan banners hung between houses in narrow alleyways and on traffic roundabouts now carried the names of a variety of political parties. Prominent among them were the Salafi “Hizb al-Nur” (“Party of Light”), representing the hardline Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Hizb al-Huriya wa al-Adala” (Party of Freedom and Justice). Seeing banners openly promoting the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafis’ political wings would have been unthinkable a year ago.

After Ramadan ends, Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr, a three-day long celebration that includes gift-giving and, of course, more feasting. The first day of Eid begins with morning prayers at 6:00 AM. Mosques throughout the country overflow, and the attendees who can’t find space inside spill out into the streets and listen to the imam’s sermon on mats under large canopies.

I spent Eid with an Egyptian friend in Alexandria. While I was unable to drag myself out of bed at that early hour to attend prayers, my friend returned later that morning with a full report. After opening his front door and stepping onto the adjacent main street, he was confronted with two choices: to his left were canopies filled with Salafis, and to his right were canopies filled with supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Members of both groups were milling around in the crowds distributing party literature and membership information.

“So which side did you pray on?” I asked him.
“The Muslim Brotherhood,” he replied and added with a laugh, “I didn’t have a choice! They’re crazy, but not as crazy as the Salafis!”

The debate between the religious and the secular parties is really heating up here. I’ll have some more posts on this topic in the coming weeks.

A Long Turkish Jaunt

After four weeks of traveling in Turkey, I returned to Cairo last night. While we were ostensibly "on vacation" in Turkey, I hesitate to use that term because this trip was anything but a relaxing, beach resort experience. We traveled nearly 2,500 miles by bus (including several overnight trips), and we spent many hours under the hot August sun visiting historical sites, hiking, and, of course, gorging ourselves on delicious Turkish food.

Our itinerary included pretty much every region of Turkey: we spent a week on the Aegean coast, a few days in the middle of the country, another few days near the Black Sea in the northeast, a week in eastern Turkey ("Kurdistan," as many easterners prefer to call it), and then a week in Ankara and Istanbul.

Aside from our ambitious schedule, the biggest challenge of the trip was certainly the language barrier. While Turkish contains some words imported from Arabic (colloquial Arabic also has borrowed a number of Turkish words), the grammatical structures of the two languages are completely different. Because so few Turks spoke English, we were compelled to communicate using the most basic of basic vocabularies (we managed to learn simple questions and numbers) and hand motions. That caveman-esque communication system enabled us to scrape by, but we had very few opportunities to connect with Turks in the way that we are able to connect with Egyptians.

Thus, while we learned a great deal about Turkey throughout our four weeks there, I cannot write with any authority on the subject of Turkey's politics or culture. For now, I will sum up my experience in Turkey with a few photographs. Because of my aversion to taking photos, the credit for these pictures goes to my travel partner Chris Opila.


An ancient volcanic eruption at Nemrut Dagi, Turkey's second tallest mountain, left a huge crater with a beautiful lake perfect for swimming.


Ataturk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, made his name at the battle at Gallipoli in WWI, holding off a joint Australian, British, and French assault aimed at taking the Bosphorus.


Ani, once an old silk road city in northeast Turkey, has been reduced to ruins on a grassy plain.


The Sumela Monastery, carved into the mountains near the Black Sea coast, was one of the most breathtaking sights that we saw during our four weeks in Turkey.


With its several thousand years of history, Turkey often combines the very old with the very new. The hilltop ruins of Pergamon, an old Roman city, overlook the new town of Pergamon.


The hot springs at Pamukkale, Turkey's version of Yellowstone.


Finally, despite Ataturk's militant secularism, Turkey is still very much a Muslim country and has a rich Islamic history as well. The Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul was built in the 16th century during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent, one of the most famous Ottoman sultans. The inside of the mosque is just as beautiful as the outside.

The End and the Beginning of Summer

I apologize for my two week hiatus from posting - it's been a busy last few weeks of summer classes, political developments, and a few trips outside of Cairo. While I would love to sum up all of those events with a nice long post, it is now late at night and I have still not packed yet for my trip to Turkey tomorrow. After finishing summer classes on Monday, I spent the day yesterday with my friend Galal at his house in the countryside. My "summer" (summer vacation, that is) officially begins tomorrow afternoon in Istanbul. Four friends and I will be spending a month traveling around Turkey. I'm not sure if I will have internet access there, but, if I do, I will certainly try to update this blog as frequently as possible with news of my travels in the land of Ataturk...Now it's time to pack!

Article about Tweet Nadwa

Last week I was invited to write an article about the Tweet Nadwa and the general economic situation in Egypt for Fikra Forum, a website associated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

You can find the article here. It was also translated into Arabic here.

Tahrir Comes Back to Life

Since last Friday, Tahrir Square has once again become the center of the Egyptian revolution. What started as a nationwide day of protest calling for police officers and government ministers accused of murder and corruption to be brought to justice has now turned into a full-fledged movement demanding the resignation of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi (the leader of the ruling military council) and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.

I am not going to spend a lot of time going into the specific political demands of the protesters. For that information, I suggest Al-Jazeera or the blog of my housemate Chris, both of which provide constant analysis of the latest political developments. Instead, I want to provide some general perspective on the overall environment in the square.

While Tahrir is technically a public place, a strong security contingent has sprung up at every entrance to the square. In order to avoid potential conflict, there is absolutely no police presence in the square. Instead, the protest organizing committee has enlisted groups of young men and women to check ID cards, search bags, and perform pat-downs for everyone entering the square. When I attended the protests on Friday, the makeshift security apparatus was initially hesitant to let me in to the square, but they were mollified when an Egyptian friend who I was with vouched for me. In what seems to be a holdover from the Mubarak regime, there are still people who believe that there are rogue actors and foreign conspiracies attempting to hinder the revolution. Nevertheless, despite a few wary glances and three requests to see my AUC ID card, I found nearly all of the protesters whom I talked with to be quite welcoming and interested in hearing my perspective on this new occupation of Tahrir.

During the large protests last Friday, Tahrir resembled a summer music festival in the U.S. There were stages in various parts of the square with politicians and activists addressing the crowd and chanting slogans. Large, colorful banners adorned all parts of the square, echoing the chants of the protesters who were calling for justice, freedom, and an end to military rule. Some vendors, taking advantage of the mass of people and the oppressive heat, hawked drinks and food throughout the day, and others sought to capitalize off the revolution by selling patriotic flags, shirts, and hats. It is impossible to estimate exactly how many people came to Tahrir on Friday, but the number was certainly in the tens of thousands.

It is hard to generalize the types of people who have been in Tahrir for the past few days. While there is a large youth contingent, I also saw plenty of middle-aged and older protesters, too. While there are women in Tahrir, the square remains largely male-dominated. I would estimate that it is about an 80/20 ratio of men to women. Public space in Egypt is often male-dominated (especially at night), and Tahrir is no exception.

Although the Friday protests came to an end and there were no specific activities in Tahrir on Saturday, a diehard group of revolutionaries continued to occupy the square. They have set up a large tent camp in the middle of Tahrir, and the square has remained under the supervision of the volunteer security guards and closed to traffic. The protesters intend for their occupation of Tahrir to be a symbol of resistance to the military council, but they have achieved another significant accomplishment: there has been a dramatic reduction in traffic and noise-pollution in downtown Cairo. The dowsha and zahma that often characterizes the square has been replaced by lively political conversations, live music, and poetry readings. While Tahrir will certainly re-open to traffic at some point, I can’t help but wish that the square would be made into a pedestrian-only area…

As Egypt is back in the middle of the work week, the square is fairly calm during the day. Everyday after 5 PM, however, when most Egyptians have finished work and the weather has cooled off, the square comes back to life. While it is unclear whether these protests will actually force the military council to bend to the demands of the protesters, it is undeniable that the spirit of the revolution has once again returned to the center of Cairo.

The Focus Turns to Midan Al-Tahrir (Again)

"Friday, July 8 is the single most important day in Egypt since Mubarak's ouster on February 11." -- Alaa Al-Aswany, Egyptian writer and political commentator

Hundreds of thousands (possibly one million) Egyptians are expected to descend upon Tahrir Square tomorrow in what will likely be the largest protest in the square since Hosni Mubarak relinquished power in February. The protest enjoys the support of all the major political parties in Egypt (including the liberals and the Islamists), and the parties are claiming to have cast their ideological divisions aside in order to come out as a unified force tomorrow. All the groups have gathered under the banner of economic reform, freedom, and social justice. There is also a big focus on pushing the military council to speed-up the judicial process for both the elements of the Mubarak regime charged with corruption and the police officers charged with murder during the January revolution.

In general, many Egyptians that I have talked to over the past few days feel that this is their best chance to "put the revolution back on the right track." There have been several clashes between protesters and police over the past few weeks - largely in response to several trial postponements that have been interpreted as attempts by those on the military council to protect their former cronies. In addition to the growing discontent with the military council, many people have become disillusioned by the petty fighting between the many political parties and the growing rift between the liberals and the Islamists. Furthermore, the country's economy is still suffering from a drop in tourism and foreign investment after the revolution.

Over the past month, I have felt that Tahrir has become more of a "Speaker's Corner" than the center of a revolution. Everyone is always eager to talk, but it is unclear that those gathering there have anything to show for it. Tomorrow, however, may well be different. The sheer spectacle of a mass of humanity once again in the square, united by a list of simple demands, might push the military council to bow to the will of the protesters. On the other hand, there is also a chance that tomorrow's protest could lead to violent clashes (especially if a group of people try once again to attack the Interior Ministry). As Egyptians like to say: "rabina yestoorna" (may God protect us).

I will be back with an update tomorrow. For those of you following on twitter, use #tahrir, #jul8, and #egypt

Across the Egyptian Twitterverse

Tonight I attended a “Tweet Nadwa” in Cairo. This nadwa (which translates into English as “seminar” or “conference”), as its name suggests, was organized via twitter and facebook and brought together Egyptians for a discussion about social justice and the future of Egypt. Try as I might to summarize the meeting in 140 characters or less on twitter, I simply cannot do it. Instead, I’ve turned to the blog, which gives me much more space to discuss and analyze tonight’s nadwa in detail.

The event was held in a theater nestled in the alleyways of downtown Cairo, and the room was already packed when I arrived a few minutes before 6:30. I was one of the lucky ones who was able to find a spot on the floor – a few minutes after I sat down, the theater was filled entirely to capacity with people in seats, on the floor, and in the aisles. This being my first twitter-organized event I didn’t quite know what to expect…I assumed that everyone might be spending the entire time with their noses buried in their blackberries, focusing more on their tweets than on the actual content of the discussion. As the moderator explained, however, the event was meant to be much more of a town-hall style meeting and, while a projector screen displayed a live feed of tweets from the audience members, audience members who wanted to contribute would be given a microphone instead of a smartphone. The moderator posed a topic for discussion, and then passed the microphone around to audience members and five prominent tweeters who were sitting on chairs in the front of the theater. Each person could speak for no more than 140 seconds (a nod to Twitter’s 140 character limit). Knowing what sort of rhetorical gems town hall meetings in the U.S. have yielded (e.g. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare”), I was quite excited to see how this concept would play out in an Egyptian context.

Before getting into the actual content of the discussion, a few observations about the overall feel in the room. The audience was generally young, quite politically and socially liberal (both from the nature of the discussion and their preferred styles of clothing), and clearly very tech-savvy. As far as I could tell, there were no Salafis (who often sport long beards and traditional robes called galabiyyas) and no one who publicly identified with the Muslim Brotherhood. A sense of excitement pervaded the room as the discussion began, and as an outside observer it was hard not to get swept up in the moment. I never imagined last year when I was in Alexandria that this sort of discussion would be taking place just one year later in a post-Mubarak Egypt. It was impossible not to be inspired by several hundred people voluntarily coming together to talk about the future of their country. The level of energy and passion in the room – fed by the feeling that there is a real window of opportunity right now to shape Egypt’s political and economic future – was infectious.

Tonight’s topic was social justice, and the conversation mainly focused on economics. The microphone swiftly changed hands in the beginning of the meeting, with most of the attendees striking idealistic notes about the necessity of improving healthcare and education, raising the minimum wage, etc. Nothing revolutionary, but nevertheless a good way to start the program. After a brief digression in which the attendees argued amongst themselves about how the stock market functioned and whether it was or wasn’t necessary for the country’s future, the discussion heated up when a proud Communist stood up and admonished the crowd for not focusing on the real issues. “You all are forgetting the critical problem here,” he declared, “we need to stop talking about the minimum wage and the stock market and start talking about how to end the capitalist plague that is destroying our country! We must return to the basics and realize that capitalism is inherently unfair!”

The crowd’s attention instantly turned to broad, ideological issues. Instead of clapping, the moderator told the audience members to raise their arms and wave their hands when they agreed with a certain point, and judging by the amount of raised hands and smiles after that mini-Communist manifesto, the man had many allies in the room. Several like-minded thinkers expressed their support for the idea of completely overhauling Egypt’s system, inveighing against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (among other foreign countries and institutions) for making the rich richer and the poor poorer while tacitly approving the pervasive corruption in the Mubarak regime.

The capitalists in the room were not as vocal, but a few brave souls did stand up to defend their position. “What we had in Egypt for the past 30 years,” one said, “was not capitalism. It was simply despotism.” Another chimed in: “we’ve tried socialism and it didn’t work!” While nobody endorsed the Mubarak regime’s version of capitalism, the capitalists did win a fair amount of head nods and raised hands during their responses to the communist and socialist salvos.

The back-and-forth debate between the capitalists and the communists/socialists continued for some time, but there were two speakers who I found particularly engaging. One man stood up in the middle of the debate and, quite calmly and skillfully, attacked both the capitalists and the communists at the same time: “This question of whether we should have a capitalist or a communist system here in Egypt is not as important,” he declared, “as this question: who will administer the system? If there is anything we have learned in the past 60 years, it is that no matter what ideology we follow, we are ultimately doomed to fail if we have bad leaders. Pick either one of these ideologies, but remember that our success or failure will ultimately be determined by who is making the decisions and not some theoretical framework for how things should work.” While I didn’t speak at the meeting and generally refrained from reacting to any of the statements from one side or the other, I couldn’t help but raise my hand in support of that statement. Soon afterwards, another man stood up and brought up an equally important point: “While it is important to talk about macroeconomics and large companies,” he said, “we also have to focus on small-scale issues. So many young people have business plans or inventions that they want to capitalize on, but our system makes it unbelievably hard for anyone to open their own business. Why should we have to get 15 permits from the government to open a small shop, and why is it so hard for us to get any start-up capital? Change has to come from the bottom, too, and we need to start by completely overhauling the system to make it easier for us young people to go into business for ourselves.” I, and many of the other people in the room, raised our hands in support of this point, too.

Finally, I was very interested by the constant comparisons of Egypt to other countries. Many people backed up their statements by saying “in America they do this” or “in Scandinavia they do that,” and there were several points in the discussion when people used specific examples from American political or economic history. Many of the moderates in the room advocated that Egypt look to northern European countries as models for how to balance capitalism and social justice, but just as many people shook their heads emphatically whenever someone said that Egyptians should look to foreign countries as they design their own system. One speaker garnered a sea of raised hands when he declared simply: “screw capitalism and communism, let’s invent a new and better system here in Egypt!” Nevertheless, America was certainly the most commonly referenced foreign country throughout the discussion. Interestingly, while there were occasional mentions of developing countries such as Brazil and Korea, no one said anything about the Chinese model.

As a whole, I would characterize the discussion as decidedly more focused on social justice and closing the gap between the rich and the poor than most discussions about economic issues in the U.S. Despite a rising culture of consumption here in Egypt and a tendency for the rich to flaunt their wealth, I think people are very conscious of the huge class divide that emerged during the Mubarak regime, and they want to take definite actions to solve the problem. “We must judge our government,” one woman declared, “on the basis of how it treats the weakest people in our society.” If this twitter nadwa is actually representative of the Egyptian liberal movement as a whole, I would expect to see a definite shift to more populist policies if they liberals gain a significant amount of seats in the parliamentary elections.

As I have written before, someone walking the streets of Egypt these days who didn’t know about what happened in January and February would probably not think that this country is undergoing dramatic changes. There are specific times, however, when the gravity of what is happening in Egypt hits you like a tsunami. Tonight was certainly one of those times, and I will certainly be returning to the next twitter nadwa. The attendees’ enthusiasm, optimism, and genuine desire to change their country for the better was truly inspiring.

The Arabeezy Phenomenon

The American University in Cairo is by far the most well-endowed university in Egypt. Its facilities resemble those at most universities in the United States, and its tuition is comparable to its counterparts in the U.S. as well. Because the cost of an AUC education is well beyond the means of an ordinary Egyptian family, the Egyptian students at AUC are primarily from the upper crust of society. As part of CASA’s “cultural exchange” program, we have had the opportunity to get to know a group of Egyptian AUC students. After several potlucks lunches, picnics, and other get-togethers, I have become particularly close with a few of the Egyptians. Like many of my friends in Alexandria, my AUC friends are smart, charismatic, and intellectually curious. They are just as interested in learning from us as we are in learning from them.

Most if not all of these AUC students speak English very well. Like other Egyptians who speak English with a high level of proficiency, however, they often speak a mixture of Arabic and English. This hybrid language is known in Egypt as "Arabeezy" (a mixture of "Arabic" and "Ingleezy," the Arabic word for English). Arabeezy speakers generally combine basic Arabic verbs, pronouns, and conjunctions with more complex English nouns and phrases. Sometimes an entire sentence will be in Arabic save for one key word (e.g. "I had a tough day at work today because there were so many customers" - every word would be Arabic except for "customers"), but I have also heard people intersperse Arabic and English words one after another throughout the sentence (e.g. "I'm studying economics because I want to work at a foreign company that has an office here in Cairo").

This code-switching seems to occur completely naturally. At the same time, I am highly skeptical that they are simply unable to distinguish between languages when they are speaking. Instead, I view Arabeezy as a status symbol related to class and education.* English is taught in every Egyptian school, but often not very well. When I taught English last year in Alexandria at a private learning center, for example, my college-aged students who had taken English throughout their primary and secondary education were still making entry-level mistakes. For them, Arabeezy consisted of trying to speak a few words in English followed by a lapse back into Arabic because they couldn't find the appropriate English word to finish their sentence. For these AUC students, however, their seemingly unconscious code-switching between English and Arabic clues anyone listening to them into their command of English -- a skill that is intimately tied to class and means. While I am not sure if they are purposefully trying to impress us Americans, there definitely seems to be an element of superiority compared to the average Egyptian who knows only the most basic English words and phrases.

There are two other factors that encourage the Arabeezy phenomenon as well. First is the tendency of many upper-class Egyptians to follow Western pop culture religiously. Many of the AUC students have seen more American movies than I have, and I was shocked by how many of them knew the lyrics to American songs that we sang together on our outing to a public park in Cairo last weekend. The desire to speak English instead of Arabic follows from this general interest in pop culture. Secondly, it is undeniable that English proficiency is a huge advantage in the Egyptian labor market. Many of the well-known companies in the Egyptian private sector conduct their business partially or sometimes fully in English, and English is also a basic requirement for anyone going into a tourism-related business. Thus, Egyptians may see Arabeezy as a way to practice their English - especially when they are speaking to native English speakers whom they know will understand the English words that they use.

As a student of Arabic, I find Arabeezy incredibly frustrating. While I understand the factors that drive Egyptians to want to speak English with me, I would much rather have them speak to me fully in English or fully in Arabic. Combining the two languages, however, prevents both of us from learning anything. One of the most important benefits of listening to native speakers speak is that you learn how to construct sentences and use vocabulary in the proper context. Code-switching in the middle of sentences distracts attention from sentence construction, and it also does not help the speaker learn how to use English phrases and words in the proper context. Having the ability to speak more than one language is truly a gift, but with great ability comes great responsibility. So, to all the Arabeezy speakers out there, I beg you: at the beginning of every conversation, just pick a language and stick with it!


* I am not this first to make this argument. For an excellent window into the political and social developments in Egypt over the past 60 years, see Galal Amin's book Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?.

The AC Revolution

Just a month after graduating from Tufts, I am now back in the midst of academia. Classes have picked up, and I took a weekend trip to Alexandria last weekend that prevented me from posting anything new on the blog. Today, however, is the closest thing we will ever have to a snow day this year. Clashes occurred between protesters and the police in Tahrir Square last night and this morning, and the program has canceled classes today due to ongoing uncertainty about the situation there. I would recommend logging on to Al-Jazeera or BBC to follow the situation, and for those of you who use twitter the best hashtags are #tahrir and #jun28.

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Speaking of revolutions, I was involved in a mini-uprising last weekend on the train from Cairo to Alexandria. While many aspects of Egyptian public transportation either don’t work or are very uncomfortable for anyone with long legs, the train between Cairo and Alex is a clear exception. Roomy, air-conditioned, and fast, it is by far the easiest and most comfortable way to travel between the two cities.

Last Friday, however, the train service fell short of my high expectations. After leaving 30 minutes behind schedule (no explanation given), I and my fellow passengers soon realized that the air-conditioning in our car did not work. While a broken air-conditioner would not have been an issue in the winter, riding a train in the early afternoon on a summer day without air-conditioning is not very fun.

Ordinarily, this would have been what I call a “Maalesh” moment. Maalesh is a staple of Egyptian dialect, which means, in this context, “oh well, there’s a problem but it’s not going to get fixed and we’ll just have to grin and bear it.”

One woman, however, decided that she was not going to surrender her right to air-conditioning without a fight. She looked to be about 50 or 60 years old, from the middle or upper class, and spoke both English and Arabic. She began to complain right when the train left the station, and she continued to do so until the ticket-taker walked down the aisle in our car about five minutes later. “Where’s the AC?” she demanded to know. The ticket-taker shrugged and was about to continue his journey down the train when the woman piped up again, “How is it that the AC always work on these trains during the winter, but it breaks during the summer?! Go bring the maintenance man and fix this, please!”

The exasperated ticket-taker sighed and asked her to please calm down. That was a mistake. “Calm down?! The AC is broken and you refuse to do anything about it! This is not right!” The woman then turned to the rest of the passengers in the train car, who, up until this point, had been quietly listening to her exchange with the ticket-taker. “Nobody should be silent right now!” she said. “We cannot accept this sort of second-class treatment. We have to demand our rights as passengers!”

“Demanding rights” was one of the trademark phrases of the January revolution, and it effectively stirred up feelings of indignation amongst the other passengers on the train. Amidst a chorus of calls demanding that he bring the maintenance man, the ticket-taker retreated from the train car and muttered that he would be back soon.

After the ticket-taker had left, everyone on the train worked themselves into a frenzy. A woman in a niqab (a full-face covering with a small slit for the eyes) stood up in the aisle and encouraged everyone to get off together and demand a refund when we arrive Alexandria. Several riders used newspapers to fan themselves as the temperature continued to rise. A few men joined with the woman in the niqab in calling for everyone to work together in order to secure a refund in Alexandria.

A few minutes later, the ticket-taker just came back to tell us that the AC was broken and that neither he nor the maintenance man could fix it while the train was running. Before the entire car erupted in fury, he assured us that we could get a partial refund in Alexandria. "How can we be sure that is going to happen?!" simultaneously cried the woman in the niqab, the father of two young girls sitting next to me, and the middle-aged woman who started the whole issue. “Don’t worry,” the ticket-taker said, “everyone who has a ticket showing that they rode in train car number five can bring it to the ticket office and they will give you a refund.”

About twenty minutes later, with the temperature continuing to rise and perspiration visible on everyone’s foreheads, the maintenance man came back into the car and tried to improve the situation by opening up the four small windows in the front and back of the train car. The plan backfired. Upon opening the first window, a cloud of dust blew into the train, further agitating the riders in the front of the train car. Then, as he went to open a window at the back of the car, an old man began to yell at the maintenance man that he didn't want that window to be opened. The maintenance man claimed that it wasn't the man's choice, the whole train needed air, which only made the old man angrier. As the maintenance man left the car, the man continued to yell at him, screaming “kalb!” (dog!), which is considered a serious insult in Arabic.

As the journey continued, the train car remained abuzz with chatter. People declared that they were tired of things not working, we planned our group march to the ticket office to secure a refund, and others inveighed against the employees of the train company. There was an army officer on the train, too, and as the chatter continued one of the riders asked him to speak up: "Are you not a citizen just like us?!" The woman in the niqab led the charge, standing up next to her seat in the front of the car and exhorting the rest of the riders to be sure to stay together when the train arrives in Alex and march together to the ticket counter to get our refunds. "We won't accept this kind of second-rate treatment from the train company!" she asserted.

Train trips are usually solitary adventures. While I sometimes strike up a short conversation with the person sitting next to me, I often spend the two and half hours between Cairo and Alexandria reading, sleeping, or gazing at the scenery outside the train car. On this journey, however, everyone in the car became the best of friends. I spent a few minutes talking to the woman in the niqab (the first time that I had ever spoken directly to a woman wearing one), and I schmoozed with the other passengers for the remainder of the journey as well.

As the train pulled into Alexandria, I hurried out and onto the platform because I had to buy a ticket for my return journey and I didn’t want to get caught up in the mass of humanity that surely had the same idea. I reached the ticket office before the rest of my compatriots from train car number five. After a few minutes of standing in line, a group of the train revolutionaries suddenly appeared inside the ticket office and instantly recognized me (probably because I was the only tall blond in the building). I waved them over to my line, and was planning to wait with them until it was our turn to talk to the ticket agent. The woman who started the AC revolution, however, was not as patient. She forced her way to the front of the line and rapped on the glass with her wedding ring, instantly gaining the attention of the bewildered ticket agent. “Refund! Refund!” she demanded. The ticket agent, after consulting his colleagues for a minute, returned and proceeded to disburse the refunds. Each of us received 6.50 Egyptian pounds (a little more than $1), which was 20% of the original ticket price.

The middle-aged female revolutionary received her money first. As she turned to walk away, I congratulated her on a job well done. She turned to me with a mischievous gleam in her eyes and said: "Nobody messes with Egyptian women! We get what we want!"

While maalesh moments still happen quite often in post-revolution Egypt, I do not think that this AC Revolution would have happened last year. It would never have begun without the middle-aged, upper-class female revolutionary, but when she began to speak up everyone soon joined in. This type of mini-social movement is easily exportable to other aspects of daily life in Egypt. When one person speaks out against injustice or mistreatment, frames it in the context of "demanding our rights," and manages to attract supporters to the cause, things can change for the better. Here's to the continuation and escalation of the AC Revolution!

Taking the Long View in Egypt

One of the nicest things about being in Egypt this year is that I have been able to see many of my friends from Alexandria University again. I had the pleasure of hosting Omar (pictured above), one of my best friends last year, last night at my apartment in Cairo. He is in Cairo this weekend because he is being honored at a ceremony today as the top student in Egypt! After being named the top student at the Alexandria University Medical School, he went through a series of interviews and tests on the national level and emerged in first place. Omar was quite modest about his achievement (I didn’t realize that he had won the top spot until we were about to go to bed last night and I asked him about the specific details of today’s ceremony), but, from what I can tell, this is the real deal! The award is well-deserved.

As is usually the case with conversations these days, we talked primarily about politics and the changes that have occurred since the January revolution. I was impressed by Omar’s ability to articulate what exactly the revolution meant to him and what type of effect it will have on the country as a whole, so I will share some of his thoughts here:

1) On Mubarak – Omar recalled a friend of his posting a question on Facebook after the fall of Mubarak along the lines of “if you could say one thing to Mubarak right now, what would it be?” Omar wrote that he would ask Mubarak how he felt when he saw the outburst of patriotism that emerged during the revolution. “What do you think,” he wanted to ask Mubarak, “when you see people so inspired and optimistic about their future, waving Egyptian flags, chanting inspiring slogans and writing about and drawing their hopes and dreams for a better Egypt in all of these public spaces? Does that not make you feel that your 30 years in power did more harm than good?”

2) On the country’s future – “When I look at Egypt right now, I a country that is poor but that has hope. People wanted instantaneous change after the revolution, but we have to realize that we are looking at a country that needs 15, 20, 25 years to get where we want it to be. The most important effect of this revolution is that we have finally have a chance to put ourselves on the right course. All the focus on the upcoming elections is well-warranted, but people should not think of them as a make-or-break. The Egyptian people have said with certainty that they no longer want a strong man like Mubarak to stay in power for 30 years, and I am sure that peaceful turnover of power from party-to-party or president-to-president will occur no matter who wins the first round of elections. This country is too diverse for a single party to rule for a long time (assuming that that party plays by the rules, instead of changing them or applying them selectively).

3) On what the revolution meant to him – I have never been more proud than I was during the 18 days of protests that brought down Mubarak. I don’t think that this revolution will have much of an effect on my career – I was already in good position to earn my medical degree before it happened, and I would have been able to live a perfectly comfortable life despite Mubarak or his son being in power. Still, I was constantly frustrated during the Mubarak era by the idea that I, a medical student on the verge of becoming a full-fledged doctor, would walk down the street and be afraid that I might fall victim to a policeman exercising his authority arbitrarily. Why was my country like this? We have such a wealth of resources here – both human and natural – and yet we had a government that was so visibly wasting them. The most important thing to me in the new Egypt is that each person receives his just rewards. If you work hard, you deserve to succeed. It shouldn’t be like the past, when personal connections and a few well-placed payments were the key to getting a job. This revolution was about Egyptians standing up and saying “enough!” to that old system. Judge me on the basis of my talents, as opposed to who I know or how much money my family has.



I think Omar’s observations are spot on. It is easy to get caught up in the electoral politics right now in the country. All sides seem to be accusing their opponents of having anti-democratic intentions, and there is a fear-mongering all around. Nevertheless, I agree with Omar that Egypt is generally headed in the right direction and that we should make sure to maintain a long-term view even when engaging in these short-term debates. Much as I think that this year is one of the most exciting times ever to be in Egypt, we won’t know the real impact of Mubarak’s overthrow until 15 or 20 years down the road.

A Rooftop Oasis

It’s Friday, which means that I have just finished up the second week of summer classes. It’s also 1:00 PM here, which means that I am currently writing this post in the midst of the single calmest hour of the week. Friday prayers usually start around noon and run for one or two hours, and during that time everything else in the city comes to a halt. Cairo’s streets, which are normally home to all sorts of dowsha (an Egyptian Arabic word that can be loosely translated as “an inordinately large amount of general noise”) and zahma (another Egyptian Arabic word, which means “congestion”), are nearly empty and devoid of sound.

For the rest of the week, the dowsha and zahma continue unceasingly. Whether riding in a car or walking on the side of the road, car horns, vendors hawking their wares, the chatter of the street, and more car horns are simply a fact of daily life. Sidewalks, which should ideally provide at least some shelter from various noise and congestion on the street, are effectively impassable because of various obstacles and the pervasive risk of falling victim to an “Egyptian shower” (as a result of water dripping from a leaky air conditioner or someone dumping water out of their window). This daily dose of dowsha and zahma used to irk me, especially if I was in a bad mood or in a hurry to get somewhere. At this point, however, I don’t think about it too much on a daily basis.

That being said, maintaining my personal sanity for the year hinges upon finding places that are removed from the constant clatter of daily life. Luckily, our new apartment is on the top floor of our building, which means that the dowsha that floats up to my window from the street is quite muted. The best part about having the top floor apartment, however, is that we have access to the roof. The roof of our building at 40 Mesaha Street in Doqqi, Cairo, is a true urban oasis. As the pictures shows, we have a view of the Nile and downtown Cairo. While it’s hard to spend time on the roof during the day because of the lack of shade, it is perfect for dusk and nighttime relaxation.

I was exhausted last night from a long week of class, and so my roommates and I decided to stay in and take the night off. I dusted off an old chair that was up on the roof and spent a few hours reading up there, surrounded by a beautiful, panoramic view of Cairo at night. The dowsha and zahma on Cairo’s streets remain just as bad at night, but the roof is completely insulated from all of it. As a matter of fact, the muffled sounds of car horns and other aspects of city life at night were almost mildly pleasing.