Category Archives: “Arab Spring”

Playing with Fire in Egypt

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Islamic Sects


Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi (C) pose for photos between Defence Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (centre L) and General Sedky Sobhi (centre, R), chief of staff to Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and other military generals and members of SCAF (Photo: Reuters)

Playing With Fire: The Showdown in Egypt between the General and the Islamist President

by Ann M. Lesch, Foreign Policy Research Institute, March 2014

General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, May 2013: “No one should think that the solution is with the army…. This army is a fire. Do not play against it and do not play with it.”[1]

El-Sisi: “The Army’s decision to intervene [on July 3] was dictated by national interest, national security necessities, and fears of a civil war breaking out… if the situation continued… We believed that if we reached civil war, then the army would not be able to stop it.”[2]

Last July 9, I commented in an FPRI E-Note on the vast public protests that had just swept Egypt, which culminated in General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s arrest of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3.[3] A wide range of Egyptians demonstrated to restore the country to the path of political and socio-economic democratization longed for in January 2011 but delayed by seventeen months of military rule and then side-tracked by a year of the elected president’s increasingly divisive and authoritarian behavior. Even as the minister of defense seized power in July, he claimed he was acting at the request of the public and was following the road-map proposed by Tamarod (rebel!), the informal group of protest organizers who wanted the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court to be the (symbolic) interim president with a technocratic cabinet, pending elections for a new president.

In this essay, I focus on the indications before July 3 that El-Sisi was increasingly angry at Morsi’s policies. His perspective shifted from trying to manage a difficult situation, to threatening a putsch, to encouraging a popular uprising. It is possible to partly reconstruct those shifts because of the interviews and statements that El Sisi[4] and senior security officers made before and after July.

It is clear that the police never reconciled to serving under a president whose base of power lay in the Muslim Brotherhood.[5] Police never differentiated between the Brotherhood, which eschewed violence, and the jihadist groups operating in Sinai. Having been humiliated (from their perspective) during the January Revolution – and especially on January 28, when they lost control over the street, the police stations, and the prisons – they (inaccurately) blamed the revolution on the Brotherhood and vowed revenge. Indeed, a senior officer stated that lower and mid-rank officers agreed to perform routine duties only when senior officers assured them that they would find the right moment to depose the president. They refused to guard the offices of the Brotherhood’s political party or, notably, the Presidential Palace, when it was surrounded on December 5 by protesters against Morsi’s November 22 Constitutional Decree…

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Sponge Bob in Winterland

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Arabic Cartoons, Egypt, Film and Video, Humor and Satire, YouTube Watch

The future belongs to the young, no matter how much older generations try to shape that future. Educations plays a key role, as does the whole family context, but in the past century it is the expansion of media that has establishing a seemingly hegemonic control over the curiosity of the young. Disney launched the careers of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, not to mention the lily white Snow White or comfortably brown Bambi. In my day there was Woody Woodpecker, but my son’s generation was mesmerized by the Ninja Turtles. I have not kept up with cartoon evolution, but I had heard something about a cheesy character named Sponge Bob. It seems that there are many episodes of Sponge Bob available in Arabic on Youtube. The image above is from an adventure in a hibernating-bear-in-an-igloo winterland.

I have seen Arabic translations of Western and Japanese cartoon shows before, and anthropologist Mark Peterson has written a fascinating ethnography (Connected in Cairo: Growing Up Cosmopolitan in the Modern Middle East, Indiana University Press 2011) about the Pokemon phenomenon and other comic characters in Cairo. It is important to remember that the urban generation that has taken to the streets in the Arab Spring and lives and dies through the social media has also been brought up in a steady diet of cartoons, both comic books and videos. While academics have been arguing over the impact of erudite Orientalism, there is a far more potent source influencing the thought of the young: I call this “cartoonality,” the shaping of opinion through fictional non-human or ultra-human cartoon characters. Continue reading Sponge Bob in Winterland →

Anti-Muslim Sentiment Rising in the U.S: What Is Happening to Religious Tolerance?

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia

by Charles Kurzman, ISLAMiCommentary, February 13, 2014:

Islamic terrorism has proved to be a relatively small threat to public safety in America since 9/11. Isolated individuals have engaged in sporadic violence such as the Boston Marathon bombings, but radicalization has remained far more limited than security officials feared. A report issued this month by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security shows that the number of Muslim-American terrorism suspects and perpetrators remained low in 2013.

Yet American attitudes toward Muslim-Americans have grown more negative in recent years. Eight surveys since 9/11, most of them conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, have asked random samples of adult Americans whether they have a “favorable” or “unfavorable” view of Muslim-Americans. As shown in the top graph, the proportion answering “unfavorable” has increased over time: before 2006, all five surveys found “unfavorable” rates of 26 percent or lower; in the four surveys between 2006 and 2012, only one found “unfavorable” rates that low.

These numbers are still considerably less than positive responses, but they suggest that a growing segment of the American population is willing to express negative views about Muslim-Americans in recent years. Continue reading Anti-Muslim Sentiment Rising in the U.S: What Is Happening to Religious Tolerance? →

Syria’s war must end

"Arab Spring", Ethics, Syria, Terrorism Issue

By Stephen Hawking, Washington Post, February 14

Stephen Hawking is the author of “A Brief History of Time” and a former professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that the universe had existed forever. The reason humanity was not more developed, he believed, was that floods or other natural disasters repeatedly set civilization back to the beginning.

Today, humans are developing ever faster. Our knowledge is growing exponentially and with it, our technology. But humans still have the instincts, and in particular the aggressive impulses, that we had in caveman days. Aggression has had definite advantages for survival, but when modern technology meets ancient aggression the entire human race and much of the rest of life on Earth is at risk.

Today in Syria we see modern technology in the form of bombs, chemicals and other weapons being used to further so-called intelligent political ends.

But it does not feel intelligent to watch as more than 100,000 people are killed or while children are targeted. It feels downright stupid, and worse, to prevent humanitarian supplies from reaching clinics where, as Save the Children will document in a forthcoming report, children are having limbs amputated for lack of basic facilities and newborn babies are dying in incubators for lack of power. Continue reading Syria’s war must end →

Prison Break in Sanaa

"Arab Spring", Terrorism Issue, Yemen

الاقتصاد نيوز ينشر اسماء السجناء الفارين من مركزي صنعاء مع التهم الموجهة لكل واحد منهم

كشف مصدر قضائي التهم المدان فيها 29 سجينا فرو يوم امس في عملية خاطفة يعتقد بوقوف تنظيم القاعده وزرائها وقال المصدر بان من بين الفارين من السجن اسماء قيادات خطرة من تنظيم القاعده ومحكومين بالاعدام وخاطفي اجانب الاسماء مع التهم والعقوبات الصادرة :

.1 وليد محمد محمد العبشي -قاعدة محكوم بالسجن 7 سنوات في أكتوبر 2013 -متهم بأعمال إرهابية بأبين

.2. علي عبدالرحمن علي القباطي3. يحيى يوسف محمد حيدره -قاعدة محكوم بالسجن 6 سنوات بأكتوبر 2013 -متهم بأعمال إرهابية بابين

.4. عهد محمد سعيد عامر -قاعدة محكوم بالسجن 6 سنوات في أكتوبر 2013 -متهم بأعمال ارهابية في أبين

.5. سامح محمد محسن الشجري -قاعدة محكوم بالسجن 6 سنوات بأكتوبر 2013 -متهم بأعمال إرهابية بابين

.6. عمر احمد محمد فضل الألاء -قاعدة محكوم بالسجن 7 سنوات باكتوبر 2013-متهم بأعمال ارهابية في أبين

.7. جميل يسلم علي شيخ -قاعدة محكوم بالسجن 6 سنوات باكتوبر 2013 -متهم بأعمال ارهابية بأبين

8. وهيب علي عبدالله مهدي- تابع للقاعدة مسجون منذ 2008..

9 امين محمد احمد مشوص -قاعدة محكوم بالسجن 6 سنوات في اكتوبر 2013 -متهم بأعمال ارهابية في أبين
Continue reading Prison Break in Sanaa →

As Egypt bleeds

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Terrorism Issue

The euphoria of the Arab Spring has abated in Egypt. Many saw the election of Ibrahim al-Morsy as hope for a transition to a government that respected religion and still maintained secular values for diverse Muslim and non-Muslim views in Egypt. This hope was dashed by the “coup” that removed Morsy from office and has led to criminalization of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is not a case of the military regaining control as in the old days of Mubarak, since the military never lost control. Nor are there any clear cut “good guys” in the current political environment. An excellent overview of the situation is provided by H. A. Hellyer in Salon. Check it out online.