Originally published in al-Masry al-Youm
August 28, 2010
With the slogan “Gamal Mubarak: The Dream of the Poor”, Magdy al-Kordy and his agents are touring Egypt’s slums and low-income neighborhoods hoping to convince at least five million Egyptians to endorse Gamal Mubarak as Egypt’s next president.
“What distinguishes Gamal Mubarak is the fact that he is well-versed in Egyptian realities,” said al-Kordy. “He represents the young generation and seeks to ensure a better life for poor Egyptians.” said al-Kordy, founder of “Popular Coalition to Support Gamal Mubarak”.
Last month, the campaign kicked off in Sayyeda Zeinab, one of Cairo’s oldest neighborhoods. Gamal’s photos were posted on the doors of mechanic workshops, juice stores and façades of wonky few-story houses in tiny alleys.
“Gamal is a good man. He is not a snob. We find him in all football games among people,” said Sabah Hassan, who sells engine oil in Sayedda Zeinab few miles away from Cairo’s main slaughterhouse.
The question of hereditary succession sounds quite logical to the 54-year-old widow. “I sell oil. If anything happens to me, my son will take over because he knows the job. By the same token, Gamal should succeed his father,” added Sabah as she stood inside her modest store which hosts a poster reading "Gamal for all Egyptians".
Al-kordy, who makes a living off his coffee beans store in Mokkattam, admits his campaign was inspired by Gamal’s recent tours of poor villages--a move experts consider an attempt by the former banker to diffuse accusations that he prioritizes the interests of Egypt's elite.
However, not all the poor unconditionally swear allegiance to the president’s son. Some are too frustrated by Egypt's economic realities to buy political slogans.
“I do not think anyone is fit for the president’s position. I don’t think anyone could solve our problems.” said Ahmed Fathi.
Like thousands of his cohorts, the 28-year-old commerce school graduate has been jobless for the last five years. To make ends meet, he ended up selling juice at his father’s store in Zein al-Abedeen alley.
Surprisingly, al-Kordy does not hold a membership card of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). On the contrary, he was a member of the left-wing al-Tagammu opposition party. Upon his launch of the pro-Gamal campaign, al-Tagammu reportedly froze his membership.
Even more astonishingly, the 54-year-old former mechanic was a member of the Kefaya movement until 2009. For years, he was among the ranks of a group that spearheaded a staunch campaign against President Mubarak’s rule. Until last year, he was among those who warned against hereditary succession. Today, al-Kordy dismisses the term as a mere fabrication by an opportunistic intelligentsia.
“Hereditary succession is a lie made up by the elite,” al-Kordy told al-Masry al-Youm, “This elite is driven by personal interests and foreign agendas.”
Promoting the head of the NDP policies secretariat has recently become fashionable in slums areas. At least another two similar campaigns have been launched--one by a low-profile member of al-Wafd opposition party and another by an NDP member. Campaigners reportedly gave out T-shirts to the poor in exchange for signatures to support the 46-year-old politician.
Impoverished areas seem an easy grab to al-Kordy and his 8,000 followers. On one hand, the poor constitute the majority in a country where 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line; on the other, the poor are not concerned with bigger reform issues championed by the sophisticated opposition, according to al-Kordy.
“These people want nothing but the minimal living requirements and we should respect the opinion of the majority,” said al-Kordy.
So far his campaign has hit el-Sharabeyya, Old Cairo, Dar al-Salam, Sayyeda Zeinab and a few other provinces in the Delta garnering 85,000 signatures, al-Kordy claimed.
When asked about his finances, al-Kordy said his campaign is funded from his own pocket and from donations made by one of his followers in the Delta Province of al-Sharqeyya. So far, the campaign has cost 50,000 Egyptians pounds, claimed al-Kordy.
While the NDP denies any link with these campaigns, rumors had it that one of them was financed by Ibrahim Kamel, a prominent businessman and a member of the NDP general secretariat.
Such allegations sound valid to Diaa Rashwan, an expert with al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic studies.
“This campaign must be sponsored by NDP low-rank leaders and some businessmen,” said Rashwan.
Pro-Gamal calls emerged in response to Mohamed ElBaradei’s grass-roots campaign that kicked off in July.
Dozens of young men and women have been knocking on people’s doors nationwide urging them to sign off on a petition titled “Together for Change”. The statement sponsored by the former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, champions major reforms that the regime has been always reluctant to adopt. So far, the group has collected 800,000 signatures.
“Pro-Gamal campaigns are trying to project the false idea that people are okay with hereditary succession,” said Nasser Abdel Hamed, coordinator of ElBaradei’s campaign. “We have worked on the ground and realized that people do not approve of Gamal Mubarak or of the hereditary succession.”
For weeks, pundits were divided over whether these pro-Gamal slogans were a disguised attempt by the ruling regime to groom the NDP assistant secretary-general ahead of the presidential poll slated for fall 2011.
Last week, Safwat al-Sherif, the party’s secretary-general and a highly influential player in Mubarak’s regime, put an end to the speculation by affirming President Mubarak as the party’s candidate.
“I am saying it clearly and incontestably: President [Hosni] Mubarak is the only option and there is no one else,” al-Sherif told the independent Al-Osboa newspaper.
In the meantime, al-Sherif shrugged off the pro-Gamal campaign as “haphazard” and denied any link between the party and Gamal’s posters.
Al-Sherif’s “affirmative tone” refutes any speculation that Gamal was still an option, said Al Ahram's Rashwan. Such statements attest to a growing resistance to Gamal’s candidacy within the ruling regime, according to Rashwan.
“There is no indication that Hosni Mubarak is in favor of passing the presidency on to Gamal. He is promoting him in the public life but not as a potential president,” said Rashwan.
“Those who are around the president such as al-Sherif are very smart men and if President [Hosni] Mubarak had wanted Gamal, they would have got the message and there would not have been any resistance to Gamal inside the party,” explained Rashwan.
But Abdel Hamed, from ElBaradei’s group, cites the recent wave of pro-Gamal campaigns as evidence to suggest just the opposite.
“This is a dangerous campaign,” said Abdel Hamed. “It shows that there is a clear intention to start moving forward with the scenario of hereditary succession.”
Despite al-Sherif’s rejection, there has been no attempt by the NDP to silence pro-Gamal calls. According to Rashwan, the party is cautious not to take such measures in order to conceal NDP internal disputes. “They do not want to have an open and public fight over Gamal,” explained Rashwan.
Yet, this rift was clearly exposed last week after Ali Eddin Helal, NDP media secretary and one of Gamal’s closest advisors stated that Gamal’s candidacy remains an option.“If President Mubarak decides not to run, Gamal Mubarak is one of the people that could be considered [by the party],” Helal said.
But who to field in the 2011 presidential elections seems an irrelevant question to some including Kamal Aziz, a 62-year-old juice seller who migrated from Sohag to Cairo 40 years ago. “This is their country and they do whatever they want with it,” said Aziz in an upper Egyptian accent as he sat outside his store next to a poster reading “Join us to support Gamal”.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Dabaa nearly set to become Egypt's first nuclear site
Originally Published in al-Masry al-Youm
August 25, 2010
After a year of dispute between businessmen and scientists, the Dabaa strip, along the Mediterranean coast, stands out as the most likely location for construction of Egypt's first nuclear plants, say political experts.
“It seems that the matter will be resolved and Dabaa will be the site,” said Mohamed Abdel Salam, an expert on nuclear energy with al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “This decision will be a big achievement for Egypt because it will save time and allow construction to start right away.”
Abdel Salam’s confidence stems from President Hosni Mubarak's statements last week. “I visited France and found nuclear stations next to residential areas and this should answer skeptics who question the impact of nuclear stations on people,” Mubarak reportedly said.
Analysts considered Mubarak’s words to be a refutation of claims made by some businessman, that plant construction in Dabaa will negatively effect tourism in the area. The claims, propagated in the local media, also suggested that Egyptian beaches will be exposed to high risks.
Ibrahim Kamel, an owner of a tourist resort adjacent to Dabaa and member of the National Democratic Party (NDP) secretariat, is a staunch opponent of construction at Dabaa.
“I am not contesting the state’s decision to use nuclear power to produce electricity. I am just asking to revisit the site. We should find alternatives before rushing and erring,” Kamel told Al-Masry Al-Youm earlier this summer.
When asked this week, however, to comment on the increasing likelihood of a nuclear reactor being built at Dabaa, Kamel was tight-lipped. “I will not talk about this issue,” he said.
In 2006, Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son and head of the ruling NDP Policies Secretariat, announced the resurrection of Egypt’s nuclear program after a 20 year suspension.
In his announcement, Gamal argued the need to diversify energy sources. Natural gas mines, which generate nearly 60 percent of Egypt’s electricity, are expected to dry out in 34 years, Gamal then said.
The first attempts to possess nuclear reactors date back to President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s times. In the early 1950s, he established the nuclear technology facility, Inshas Nuclear Research Center. Nearly a decade later, Nasser threatened to use nuclear power for military purposes amid growing fears that Israel was developing a nuclear bomb.
The 1967 defeat, however, forced Nasser to abandon his nuclear plans. He then contemplated signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), hoping Israel would follow suit.
Egypt, however, did not sign the NPT until 1981. At that time, Mubarak expressed a committment to developing peaceful, electricity-producing nuclear energy. Discussion of preferable site locations ensued until Dabaa was selected in 1986. The project was suspended in the same year, however, after the Chernobyl explosion.
“Dabaa is the best site location. It has all the physical requirements necessary for a nuclear station,” said Mohamed Abdel Aziz, who was head of Egypt’s Atomic Authority from 1985 to 1988.
In the 1980s, the Egyptian government paid a French company LE500 million to determine the best site for nuclear stations, recalled Abdel Aziz. The company, according to Abdel Aziz, examined eleven areas along the Red Sea, Suez Gulf, and the North Coast. The French firm concluded that Dabaa was the most suitable.
“The nature of the soil in Dabaa is convenient for building nuclear plants. Plus, it is not threatened by earthquakes and it is close to the sea,” explained Abdel Aziz. “The nuclear plant could desalinate the Mediterranean Sea water and provide all the North Coast and Marsa Matrouh with potable water.”
The government is planning to build four nuclear plants by 2025. The first will begin operations in 2019.
“Looking for another location would mean wasting between three and five years before launching the program,” said Abdel Aziz. “We should have conquered this field long time ago.”
Opponents say that, in the case of any nuclear leakage, Egypt's regular northern wind would bring nuclear particles from Dabaa down to the Nile Delta and Cairo, putting millions of lives in jeopardy.For Abdel Aziz, these fears are ungrounded.
“The wind is irrelevant here,” he said. “The new generations of reactors are inherently safe, which means they switch off automatically in case of any accident, and no leakage can happen."
August 25, 2010
After a year of dispute between businessmen and scientists, the Dabaa strip, along the Mediterranean coast, stands out as the most likely location for construction of Egypt's first nuclear plants, say political experts.
“It seems that the matter will be resolved and Dabaa will be the site,” said Mohamed Abdel Salam, an expert on nuclear energy with al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “This decision will be a big achievement for Egypt because it will save time and allow construction to start right away.”
Abdel Salam’s confidence stems from President Hosni Mubarak's statements last week. “I visited France and found nuclear stations next to residential areas and this should answer skeptics who question the impact of nuclear stations on people,” Mubarak reportedly said.
Analysts considered Mubarak’s words to be a refutation of claims made by some businessman, that plant construction in Dabaa will negatively effect tourism in the area. The claims, propagated in the local media, also suggested that Egyptian beaches will be exposed to high risks.
Ibrahim Kamel, an owner of a tourist resort adjacent to Dabaa and member of the National Democratic Party (NDP) secretariat, is a staunch opponent of construction at Dabaa.
“I am not contesting the state’s decision to use nuclear power to produce electricity. I am just asking to revisit the site. We should find alternatives before rushing and erring,” Kamel told Al-Masry Al-Youm earlier this summer.
When asked this week, however, to comment on the increasing likelihood of a nuclear reactor being built at Dabaa, Kamel was tight-lipped. “I will not talk about this issue,” he said.
In 2006, Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son and head of the ruling NDP Policies Secretariat, announced the resurrection of Egypt’s nuclear program after a 20 year suspension.
In his announcement, Gamal argued the need to diversify energy sources. Natural gas mines, which generate nearly 60 percent of Egypt’s electricity, are expected to dry out in 34 years, Gamal then said.
The first attempts to possess nuclear reactors date back to President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s times. In the early 1950s, he established the nuclear technology facility, Inshas Nuclear Research Center. Nearly a decade later, Nasser threatened to use nuclear power for military purposes amid growing fears that Israel was developing a nuclear bomb.
The 1967 defeat, however, forced Nasser to abandon his nuclear plans. He then contemplated signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), hoping Israel would follow suit.
Egypt, however, did not sign the NPT until 1981. At that time, Mubarak expressed a committment to developing peaceful, electricity-producing nuclear energy. Discussion of preferable site locations ensued until Dabaa was selected in 1986. The project was suspended in the same year, however, after the Chernobyl explosion.
“Dabaa is the best site location. It has all the physical requirements necessary for a nuclear station,” said Mohamed Abdel Aziz, who was head of Egypt’s Atomic Authority from 1985 to 1988.
In the 1980s, the Egyptian government paid a French company LE500 million to determine the best site for nuclear stations, recalled Abdel Aziz. The company, according to Abdel Aziz, examined eleven areas along the Red Sea, Suez Gulf, and the North Coast. The French firm concluded that Dabaa was the most suitable.
“The nature of the soil in Dabaa is convenient for building nuclear plants. Plus, it is not threatened by earthquakes and it is close to the sea,” explained Abdel Aziz. “The nuclear plant could desalinate the Mediterranean Sea water and provide all the North Coast and Marsa Matrouh with potable water.”
The government is planning to build four nuclear plants by 2025. The first will begin operations in 2019.
“Looking for another location would mean wasting between three and five years before launching the program,” said Abdel Aziz. “We should have conquered this field long time ago.”
Opponents say that, in the case of any nuclear leakage, Egypt's regular northern wind would bring nuclear particles from Dabaa down to the Nile Delta and Cairo, putting millions of lives in jeopardy.For Abdel Aziz, these fears are ungrounded.
“The wind is irrelevant here,” he said. “The new generations of reactors are inherently safe, which means they switch off automatically in case of any accident, and no leakage can happen."
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Trial of police charged in Khaled Saeed case begins
Originally Published in Al-Masry Al-Youm English edition
July 27, 2010
The two secret policemen charged in the case of a 28-year-old man who eyewitnesses say was beaten to death in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria stood trial Tuesday amid local and international concern over continuing human rights abuses in Egypt.
Khaled Saeed was allegedly killed by Mahmoud Salah Mahmoud and Awad Ismail Sliman on 6 June after a confrontation in an internet cafe in Alexandria.
According to witnesses, Saeed was dragged out of the cafe before his head was banged on a solid surface. Saeed’s family say he was killed after posting a video on the internet showing the involvement of policemen in drug deals.
The charges against the two policemen include illegal arrest and use of excessive force.
While lawyers from both sides were consumed in their own legal battle inside the Alexandria criminal courtroom, another confrontation unfolded outside. Nearly a hundred of Saeed’s supporters gathered on the street waving his picture and shouting anti-police slogans.
This time, they were not only defying hundreds of riot police that encircled them: They also had to deal with a crowd of a hundred pro-police supporters who rallied on the steps outside the court house and chanted slogans in defense of the interior ministry. Supporters of Saeed say the crowd was mostly composed of plain-clothes police.
Whereas Saeed’s supporters were shouting: “Get lost Minister of Torture,” in reference to Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, their opponents raised banners reading: “Policemen are the nation’s children. The judiciary is our refuge and the police are for our security”
“The strong police presence outside the court shows how terrified the regime is,” said Ali Qassem, Saeed’s uncle.”Why all these forces? They cost Egypt a lot, financially and morally. They destroy its image.”
The court decided to adjourn the trial until 25 September for further hearings. Saeed’s defense team had asked the court to summon more witnesses from among the police department where the two defendants served and the forensic doctors that dissected the victim’s body. In the meantime, the police lawyer demanded that the charges be reclassified as a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
The defendants’ lawyer Refaat Abdel Hamid was confident that his clients will be acquitted, as they were simply enforcing an earlier verdict sentencing Saeed to one month in prison.
“The law gives the police the right to use appropriate force in such cases,” Abdel Hamid told Al-Masry Al-Youm after the hearings. “Yet they did not use any force against him.” As soon as they grabbed him, he swallowed the joint he had with him.”
The photos of Saeed’s bashed head, broken jaw and deformed face that circulated on blogs and Facebook pages drew unprecedented media attention and provoked much controversy.
Earlier, the interior ministry responded by issuing a statement claiming that Saeed was an ex-convict and died of asphyxia after swallowing a roll of drugs.
Yet, these allegations did not dissuade hundreds of demonstrators from taking to the streets on a weekly basis to call for the prosecution of the perpetrators and the lifting of the state of emergency.
“This is an extraordinary case,” 19-year-old Abdullah Farrag told Al-Masry Al-Youm on the sidelines of the protest. “This guy was tortured and killed on the street. I do not know him but I cannot shut up forever.”
According to Bahey Eddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, Saeed’s case has changed the Egyptian reaction to human rights violations.
"The Egyptian attitude toward torture has evolved for the first time from taking the form of isolated protests, to daily and consistent demonstrations on the street,” said Hassan.
“This is unprecedented in Egypt and shows how much people feel threatened by torture."
Saeed’s death also drew criticism from Egypt’s two main western allies. The European Union expressed concern over the death, criticism that was not welcomed by the Egyptian side.
The Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Abul Gheit dismissed the EU position as an "unacceptable interference" in Egypt's internal affairs. Meanwhile, a spokesman of the US State Department urged the Egyptian government to investigate the case “transparently.”
International human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Monday expressed concern that witnesses in the trial could be harassed and urged the government to ensure their safety. The London-based organization said one of Saeed's friends, Khaled Mohamed, was attacked a week ago by nine people brandishing knives.
Three years ago, a video showing a 21-year-old man being sodomized with a stick in a police station caused similar outrage. Emad El-Kabir's case became a cause celebre that forced the regime to sentence the two policemen involved to three years in prison.
This time, the verdict will be “slightly harsher” because the victim was killed but it will fall short from achieving justice, said Hassan.
"Torture is a systematic policy in Egypt,” he said. “A fair trial should include more people, namely the ones who order policemen to act this way."
On 14 July, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) reported that 12 people were tortured to death by police in 2009 alone. According to the EOHR’s annual report, 125 cases of death resulting from torture were recorded between 2000-2009.
The trial of Saeed’s alleged murderers takes place against a turbulent political background in Egypt. Reports about President Honsi Mubarak’s ill-health have raised fears at home and abroad over the future of the country.
Post-Mubarak Egypt has recently made headlines in several western newspapers and magazines. The ailing regime is facing criticism from different social and political groups over its poor economic performance and reluctance to endorse genuine political reforms that would end Egypt’s 29-year-old state of emergency and allow multiple candidates to run in next year’s presidential elections.
“I have faith that the verdict will be in our favor,” said Saeed’s uncle. “The Egyptian judiciary is fair. However, to satisfy us 100 percent, the verdict should order the execution of the murderers as well as the ending of the emergency law.”
Bookstore Boom
Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm English edition
July 12, 2010
Surrounded by piles of books shelved on wooden compartments, hardly ten people gathered in the cultural salon hosted by Alef bookstore last week. The slim crowd sat to listen to a young satirist who has just released a book mocking political and social realities in Egypt.
Alef is one of the youngest bookstore chains to open in Cairo, raising the number of American-style book outlets to nearly 30 in less than a decade. In recent years, the book market has witnessed a relative boom in bookstores that seem inspired by the "Barnes and Noble" model with their neat interior design, expensive gift and stationary shops and their up-to-speed customer services and marketing departments.
“These bookstores came to fill in a genuine vacuum and we still need more and more of them," said Emad Aladly, the media spokesperson of Alef.
Alef opened its first branch in Heliopolis last summer. Like some of its competitors, it branched out with six new stores in less than a year--an expansion that raises questions about the prospects of the book business in a country where a massive 90 percent of households do not read books, according to official statistics.
“People think bookstores have become more or less like juice shops or grocery stores,” said Karam Youssef, the owner of Kotobkhan in Maadi, with a sarcastic tone. “You find more than one bookstore in the same neighborhood and they all tend to kill each other.”
Kotobkhan had no competitor when it first opened in 2006; it was the only bookstore providing thousands of Arabic and foreign titles to the Maadi community. Besides books, the store has also hosted film screenings, book discussions and public lectures.
This year, Youssef must have felt pressure after Diwan,another popular retail chain,opened a few miles away from her outlet. To make the challenge fiercer, Alef is expected to step into Maadi in a couple of months.
“The question is can the market take this number of bookstores?” wondered Youssef.
Hind Wassef, the co-founder of Diwan bookstore seemed to have an answer.
“So far the market can take all these bookstores but I believe the market is close to getting saturated,” said Wassef.
In 2002, Wassef and her sister inaugurated the model of western-like bookstores by opening the first Diwan in Zamalek. Building on the success of their first stint, the owners established a chain with ten outlets in Cairo and Alexandria. Since then, bookstore brands have become a remarkable phenomenon.
Yet, these brands navigate a resilient market where only 1.2 million households read books, according to a study released six months ago by the Information and Decision Support Center, a state-run think tank. Most Egyptians are averse to reading and blame their attitude on time constraints and low income, added the study.
"It is true that few people read books but in the last ten years the numbers have risen,” said Aladly from Alef.
There are no statistics on changes in book readership but many bookstore owners affirm books have become popular especially among young Egyptians in recent years. Political satire has come to the fore as the most attractive genre, making up 40 percent of the sales of some bookstores.
However, contemporary fiction remains on top at some other stores.
“Most of our customers are between 16 and 30 years of age,” said Aladly adding that their interest in books is related to the emergence of many small publishing houses in the last three years. Many of these houses are run by young writers and activists, who have developed a symbiotic relationship with book outlets.
“If Diwan and Kotobokhan had not been there to advertise my books and pay me regularly, I would not have existed,” said 28-year-old Mohamed el-Sharkawy who co-founded Malameh publishing house three years ago. Malameh has issued 65 titles including last year’s controversial graphic novel Metro, which was banned for its sexual content.
Nevertheless, Alef owners offer a controversial explanation as to why books have become popular. According to Ahmed Rahmi, an Alef co-founder, buying books is becoming a “a fashionable” pastime that people brag about, rather than a genuine interest.
To prove his point, Rahmi relies on evidence gathered from a survey at various universities and companies two years ago, which he conducted with two partners as part of a feasibility study.
“It is not that more people are interested in reading. One young man told us he does not read the books he buys but he likes to say that he owns these books.”
The capital required to start up a bookstore business can range between LE750,000 and LE6 million. Patience is also a must as it takes a minimum of four years to break even. As for the margin of profit, it is somewhere between 10 and 15 percent per book.
This business is more about providing a cultural service than generating rapid and excessive profits, said Rahmi.
Despite their claims to act as centers of “enlightenment”, these bookstores remain concentrated in Cairo’s richest neighborhoods, including Zamalek, Heliopolis and Maadi as well as opulent summer resorts along Egypt’s Northwestern Mediterranean coast. They seem to target a small niche of readers who can afford to shop for expensive Arabic and foreign books while sipping a cappuccino and savoring a marble cake.
“Books are very expensive. If I open a branch in a modest neighborhood, the project will be a failure,” said Rahmi, adding that the vast majority of Egyptians, 20 percent of whom live below the poverty line, cannot afford to buy Arabic books priced between LE15 and LE50.
For Diwan's founders, the target audience was determined from the beginning. “I will not lie to you,” said Wassef .“When we opened we were targeting educated classes, people who travel abroad, with a particular income and who are following foreign releases.”
But as competition is getting harsher in Cairo, Wassef and some of her counterparts are contemplating searching for new markets outside the capital city and targeting readers with thinner wallets.
July 12, 2010
Surrounded by piles of books shelved on wooden compartments, hardly ten people gathered in the cultural salon hosted by Alef bookstore last week. The slim crowd sat to listen to a young satirist who has just released a book mocking political and social realities in Egypt.
Alef is one of the youngest bookstore chains to open in Cairo, raising the number of American-style book outlets to nearly 30 in less than a decade. In recent years, the book market has witnessed a relative boom in bookstores that seem inspired by the "Barnes and Noble" model with their neat interior design, expensive gift and stationary shops and their up-to-speed customer services and marketing departments.
“These bookstores came to fill in a genuine vacuum and we still need more and more of them," said Emad Aladly, the media spokesperson of Alef.
Alef opened its first branch in Heliopolis last summer. Like some of its competitors, it branched out with six new stores in less than a year--an expansion that raises questions about the prospects of the book business in a country where a massive 90 percent of households do not read books, according to official statistics.
“People think bookstores have become more or less like juice shops or grocery stores,” said Karam Youssef, the owner of Kotobkhan in Maadi, with a sarcastic tone. “You find more than one bookstore in the same neighborhood and they all tend to kill each other.”
Kotobkhan had no competitor when it first opened in 2006; it was the only bookstore providing thousands of Arabic and foreign titles to the Maadi community. Besides books, the store has also hosted film screenings, book discussions and public lectures.
This year, Youssef must have felt pressure after Diwan,another popular retail chain,opened a few miles away from her outlet. To make the challenge fiercer, Alef is expected to step into Maadi in a couple of months.
“The question is can the market take this number of bookstores?” wondered Youssef.
Hind Wassef, the co-founder of Diwan bookstore seemed to have an answer.
“So far the market can take all these bookstores but I believe the market is close to getting saturated,” said Wassef.
In 2002, Wassef and her sister inaugurated the model of western-like bookstores by opening the first Diwan in Zamalek. Building on the success of their first stint, the owners established a chain with ten outlets in Cairo and Alexandria. Since then, bookstore brands have become a remarkable phenomenon.
Yet, these brands navigate a resilient market where only 1.2 million households read books, according to a study released six months ago by the Information and Decision Support Center, a state-run think tank. Most Egyptians are averse to reading and blame their attitude on time constraints and low income, added the study.
"It is true that few people read books but in the last ten years the numbers have risen,” said Aladly from Alef.
There are no statistics on changes in book readership but many bookstore owners affirm books have become popular especially among young Egyptians in recent years. Political satire has come to the fore as the most attractive genre, making up 40 percent of the sales of some bookstores.
However, contemporary fiction remains on top at some other stores.
“Most of our customers are between 16 and 30 years of age,” said Aladly adding that their interest in books is related to the emergence of many small publishing houses in the last three years. Many of these houses are run by young writers and activists, who have developed a symbiotic relationship with book outlets.
“If Diwan and Kotobokhan had not been there to advertise my books and pay me regularly, I would not have existed,” said 28-year-old Mohamed el-Sharkawy who co-founded Malameh publishing house three years ago. Malameh has issued 65 titles including last year’s controversial graphic novel Metro, which was banned for its sexual content.
Nevertheless, Alef owners offer a controversial explanation as to why books have become popular. According to Ahmed Rahmi, an Alef co-founder, buying books is becoming a “a fashionable” pastime that people brag about, rather than a genuine interest.
To prove his point, Rahmi relies on evidence gathered from a survey at various universities and companies two years ago, which he conducted with two partners as part of a feasibility study.
“It is not that more people are interested in reading. One young man told us he does not read the books he buys but he likes to say that he owns these books.”
The capital required to start up a bookstore business can range between LE750,000 and LE6 million. Patience is also a must as it takes a minimum of four years to break even. As for the margin of profit, it is somewhere between 10 and 15 percent per book.
This business is more about providing a cultural service than generating rapid and excessive profits, said Rahmi.
Despite their claims to act as centers of “enlightenment”, these bookstores remain concentrated in Cairo’s richest neighborhoods, including Zamalek, Heliopolis and Maadi as well as opulent summer resorts along Egypt’s Northwestern Mediterranean coast. They seem to target a small niche of readers who can afford to shop for expensive Arabic and foreign books while sipping a cappuccino and savoring a marble cake.
“Books are very expensive. If I open a branch in a modest neighborhood, the project will be a failure,” said Rahmi, adding that the vast majority of Egyptians, 20 percent of whom live below the poverty line, cannot afford to buy Arabic books priced between LE15 and LE50.
For Diwan's founders, the target audience was determined from the beginning. “I will not lie to you,” said Wassef .“When we opened we were targeting educated classes, people who travel abroad, with a particular income and who are following foreign releases.”
But as competition is getting harsher in Cairo, Wassef and some of her counterparts are contemplating searching for new markets outside the capital city and targeting readers with thinner wallets.
School teachers form Egypt's 2nd independent union
Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm Engish edition
July 20, 2010
In 1993, Ashraf el-Hefny got his first job as a mathematics teacher at a public school in the coastal city of El-Arish earning LE150 a month. Over the course of 17 years, his pay gradually increased to a current LE1150.
But the salary increases failed to keep pace with rising inflation rates, which have hit unprecedented levels in recent years, and his current income barely suffices for the everyday needs of his family of five.
“It's not enough,” the teacher complained. “These low salaries show that the state doesn't care about education.”
For el-Hefny, finding an efficient channel through which to voice his claim to a reasonable salary represents the biggest challenge. And, like thousands of other teachers, he found little succor in the government-dominated teachers union.
Frustrated with the union's ineffectiveness, el-Hefny, along with hundreds of colleagues, last week announced the establishment of an independent teachers syndicate.
“It's very important to have this syndicate,” he said. “The existing union is pro-government, and it's crucial for any professional group to have a union that is capable of defending its rights."
The new syndicate's founders claim to have attracted 5000 of Egypt's roughly one million teachers. The by-laws of the new syndicate demand a minimum wage of LE1200, the improvement of working conditions in public schools and the amendment of Egypt's education law.
“Teachers have no offices at the schools where they teach,” said el-Hefny. “They are often forced to wait for their classes in playgrounds or in hallways.”
“Also, class conditions are very poor, with as many as 80 or 90 students in each class," he added. "This is unfair to both teachers and students."
The establishment of the new union represents the latest episode of a teachers’ protest movement that first began in 2007, triggered by the amendment of Egypt's education law. By giving the government more leeway to hire and fire newly appointed teachers, the amendment served to antagonize thousands of the nation's already frustrated teachers.
“The amendment made teachers feel they were being subject to serious humiliation,” said Kamal Mogheeth, a co-founder of the new union.
The existing teachers syndicate represents Egypt's largest professional union, comprising roughly one million members.“It is the most important of Egypt’s 24 professional unions,” said Amani Qandil, executive director of the Arab Network for NGOs and expert on Egyptian professional syndicates. “It has a huge number of members who, if they ever turned against the government, could potentially launch a revolution.”
For this reason, the government has always kept a close eye on the teachers union. Since 1956, noted Qandil, the syndicate has been headed by figures--usually associated with the Education Ministry--known for their loyalty to the ruling regime.
Founders of the new syndicate, therefore, are adamant about changing the existing power structure. They envisage a free and fair electoral system in which all members directly elect their representatives.
Mohamed Kamal Soliman, secretary-general of the official syndicate, for his part, sees no need for a new union, dismissing allegations that he merely serves government interests.
“It's not true that the syndicate is pro-government,” said Soliman, who has held the position since 2002. “The syndicate should be rational and moderate and should protect teachers' rights through legitimate channels, not through arm-twisting, protests and sit-ins.”
According to Qandil, the teachers’ attempts to redefine their relationship with the state must be examined within Egypt's current socio-political context.
“There's an ongoing process of change by which some labor and professional groups have succeeded in imposing their demands on the government," she explained. "This has encouraged teachers."
Deteriorating economic conditions, for one, have prompted numerous professional and labor protests within the last six years. Most protest groups have voiced demands for better employment conditions, along with the establishment of independent unions.
Teachers are not the first group in Egypt to claim the right to form an independent syndicate. In 2008, real estate tax collectors defied the legacy of state-controlled unions by announcing the creation of their own autonomous union. The announcement came on the heels of a series of labor strikes that forced the government to heed their demands for higher salaries.
Qandil, however, does not expect teachers to meet with the same success.
“The geographic dispersion of teachers, their divergent social backgrounds, and their complicated relationship with the government will all have a negative impact on the future of the movement,” she said, going on to explain that most members of the existing teachers union work for public schools and therefore fear dismissal if they are seen to be challenging the government.
To circumvent the legal strictures against forming professional syndicates, teachers refer to the new entity as a "labor union." According to the law, the People’s Assembly must formally recognize any new syndicate, provided that no other syndicate exists for the same professional grouping.
Although unions may be subject to less stringent restrictions, however, it remains difficult for teachers to fulfill the two legal requirements needed: that their members obtain the endorsement of the Education Ministry; and that they provide the Manpower Ministry with their founding documents.
As of press time, the Manpower Ministry declined to acknowledge the receipt of any such documents.
With a view to ensuring that labor and professional entities would never pose a threat to the regime, the state has always maintained the right to interfere in union affairs through the 53-year-old Egyptian Trade Union Federation.
“The state has an iron fist,” said Mogheeth. “But we'll keep trying until we get our free syndicate.”
July 20, 2010
In 1993, Ashraf el-Hefny got his first job as a mathematics teacher at a public school in the coastal city of El-Arish earning LE150 a month. Over the course of 17 years, his pay gradually increased to a current LE1150.
But the salary increases failed to keep pace with rising inflation rates, which have hit unprecedented levels in recent years, and his current income barely suffices for the everyday needs of his family of five.
“It's not enough,” the teacher complained. “These low salaries show that the state doesn't care about education.”
For el-Hefny, finding an efficient channel through which to voice his claim to a reasonable salary represents the biggest challenge. And, like thousands of other teachers, he found little succor in the government-dominated teachers union.
Frustrated with the union's ineffectiveness, el-Hefny, along with hundreds of colleagues, last week announced the establishment of an independent teachers syndicate.
“It's very important to have this syndicate,” he said. “The existing union is pro-government, and it's crucial for any professional group to have a union that is capable of defending its rights."
The new syndicate's founders claim to have attracted 5000 of Egypt's roughly one million teachers. The by-laws of the new syndicate demand a minimum wage of LE1200, the improvement of working conditions in public schools and the amendment of Egypt's education law.
“Teachers have no offices at the schools where they teach,” said el-Hefny. “They are often forced to wait for their classes in playgrounds or in hallways.”
“Also, class conditions are very poor, with as many as 80 or 90 students in each class," he added. "This is unfair to both teachers and students."
The establishment of the new union represents the latest episode of a teachers’ protest movement that first began in 2007, triggered by the amendment of Egypt's education law. By giving the government more leeway to hire and fire newly appointed teachers, the amendment served to antagonize thousands of the nation's already frustrated teachers.
“The amendment made teachers feel they were being subject to serious humiliation,” said Kamal Mogheeth, a co-founder of the new union.
The existing teachers syndicate represents Egypt's largest professional union, comprising roughly one million members.“It is the most important of Egypt’s 24 professional unions,” said Amani Qandil, executive director of the Arab Network for NGOs and expert on Egyptian professional syndicates. “It has a huge number of members who, if they ever turned against the government, could potentially launch a revolution.”
For this reason, the government has always kept a close eye on the teachers union. Since 1956, noted Qandil, the syndicate has been headed by figures--usually associated with the Education Ministry--known for their loyalty to the ruling regime.
Founders of the new syndicate, therefore, are adamant about changing the existing power structure. They envisage a free and fair electoral system in which all members directly elect their representatives.
Mohamed Kamal Soliman, secretary-general of the official syndicate, for his part, sees no need for a new union, dismissing allegations that he merely serves government interests.
“It's not true that the syndicate is pro-government,” said Soliman, who has held the position since 2002. “The syndicate should be rational and moderate and should protect teachers' rights through legitimate channels, not through arm-twisting, protests and sit-ins.”
According to Qandil, the teachers’ attempts to redefine their relationship with the state must be examined within Egypt's current socio-political context.
“There's an ongoing process of change by which some labor and professional groups have succeeded in imposing their demands on the government," she explained. "This has encouraged teachers."
Deteriorating economic conditions, for one, have prompted numerous professional and labor protests within the last six years. Most protest groups have voiced demands for better employment conditions, along with the establishment of independent unions.
Teachers are not the first group in Egypt to claim the right to form an independent syndicate. In 2008, real estate tax collectors defied the legacy of state-controlled unions by announcing the creation of their own autonomous union. The announcement came on the heels of a series of labor strikes that forced the government to heed their demands for higher salaries.
Qandil, however, does not expect teachers to meet with the same success.
“The geographic dispersion of teachers, their divergent social backgrounds, and their complicated relationship with the government will all have a negative impact on the future of the movement,” she said, going on to explain that most members of the existing teachers union work for public schools and therefore fear dismissal if they are seen to be challenging the government.
To circumvent the legal strictures against forming professional syndicates, teachers refer to the new entity as a "labor union." According to the law, the People’s Assembly must formally recognize any new syndicate, provided that no other syndicate exists for the same professional grouping.
Although unions may be subject to less stringent restrictions, however, it remains difficult for teachers to fulfill the two legal requirements needed: that their members obtain the endorsement of the Education Ministry; and that they provide the Manpower Ministry with their founding documents.
As of press time, the Manpower Ministry declined to acknowledge the receipt of any such documents.
With a view to ensuring that labor and professional entities would never pose a threat to the regime, the state has always maintained the right to interfere in union affairs through the 53-year-old Egyptian Trade Union Federation.
“The state has an iron fist,” said Mogheeth. “But we'll keep trying until we get our free syndicate.”
Egypt's changing middle class between Nasser and now
Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition
July 22, 2010
Last Ramadan, in defiance of all the dietary restrictions placed on an elderly diabetic, and after a heavy iftar, my father sneaked into the kitchen to get himself a piece of konafa, the popular pastry drenched in sweet dressing and stuffed with hazelnuts and almonds. He turned to me as he savored the desert and said, "You know what? Under Nasser we used to stuffkonafa with peanuts. We didn't have the variety of nuts there is to day, they were considered a luxury. But we were happy."
Happy! How could you be happy without variety? That was the first question that crossed my mind. “We had less choice and there were fewer things to buy”. Like many middle class Egyptians, my 71-year-old father started his career as a state technocrat in the early 1960s, a shining example of the Gamal Abdel Nasser era. His observation made me wonder about what remains from the lifestyle of a class that was once the backbone of Nasserist society.
The middle class: A changing meaning
On coming to power in 1954, Nasser determined to create a large middle class to serve as a social base for the new regime. This was to be achieved by increasing bureaucracy and subsidizing higher education.
At the apex of the socialist era, the university system was made accessible to students from non-elite backgrounds by the abolition of tuition fees. At the same time new state-employment policies guaranteed jobs to all graduates. The number of civil servants grew from 250,000 to 1.2 million in just twenty years.
Under the economic liberalization of President Sadat, the configuration of this particular class evolved. Some slipped down the social ladder while others went up grooming themselves as a class of professionals who were fully integrated into the new order.
And the same order has persisted since the 1970s. Their names are no longer on the state’s payroll. Private investors, foreign companies and banks are their new employers - an opportunity that has allowed these professionals to earn unprecedentedly high incomes. This, combined with the abundance of available goods has allowed them to develop a completely novel lifestyle that has little in common with that of the early post-revolution era.
Our evenings:
It is the early 1960s. The white-collar father gets home around 3:00 pm after spending six hours in a government office. The family all eat lunch which it has taken their mother all day to prepare. The parents take a nap while the children study. Later they listen to the radio. The same programs resonate through houses in cities all over Egypt. At 8:30 pm, the news comes on, peppered with Arab nationalist and socialist slogans, the bulletin offers a one-sided coverage of Nasser’s news. In 2010, the evening schedule is much busier.
It is 7:00 pm on a weekday. A couple come home after a tough day in the corporate world. It is time for the parents to set their laptops and blackberries aside and be with their families. “How was your day, sweethearts? What did you do at school?” mum asks her kids, in English. Strangely enough, conversations are usually held in English to help children acquire the language of the global job market. Meanwhile, dad orders dinner over the phone from an American fast food chain and while they eat, it's time for TV. The minute the plasma screen is turned on, hundreds of satellite channels bombard the family. They have thousands of shows to choose from: Arabic drama, music videos, English-speaking animation or religious shows. At 10.00 pm, it's hard to avoid the abundance of news talk shows. With such variety the viewer must be exposed to diverse political views, and a less ideological discourse. As soon as they start nodding off, they switch off the television and head to bed anticipating another exhausting workday tomorrow.
Where to shop?
In The Changing Consumer Cultures of Modern Egypt (Brill, 2006), sociologist Mona Abaza records the consumption habits of Egyptians in the 1960s. The typical middle class woman would ask her tailor to copy fashionable European models she had spotted in the foreign magazines she read or she could shop at the nationalized department stores. The whole family would take public transport or drive a locally assembled Fiat to Omar Effendi, Benzayoun,Sidnawi or Rivoli to do their shopping, choosing from a small variety of locally-manufactured brands.
Nowadays, the tailor is redundant. A woman does not need to copy foreign patterns anymore. Instead, she can go on a luxurious shopping trip to one of the gigantic shopping malls like City Stars and treat herself to the authentic version. All the European and American brands are on display: Mango, Zara, Esprit and Victoria’s Secret. She doesn't even need to bring cash. She can simply swipe her debit card. At the week-ends, the whole family piles into their enormous imported car and heads to a hypermarket. The baqaleenor convenience stores are irrelevant. With their shopping trolley, the family trawls the spacious isles of Carrefour or Spinneys piling up all manner of food stuffs, local and imported, on a grueling trip which takes at least a couple of hours.
Our holidays
It is June in the mid 1960s. School is over. The family packs and prepares to spend the summer holidays in a rented apartment in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria or a reed house in the Delta resort of Ras el-Bar. Once there, unpacking can be done at leisure--after all, there are at least three months before the family has to head back to Cairo.
It is June 2010. As his beeper goes off at 4:00 pm on Thursday, dad hurriedly packs up and leaves the office. Not one hour of the weekend to waste. The rest of the family is waiting anxiously on the balcony. In less than four hours, they arrive at one of the Mediterranean resorts on the north coast. The following morning is spent at the beach. The ladies are saved the embarrassment of sexual harassment by driving to some exclusive resort with private beaches for women where they can swim in bikinis, get a suntan and take part in dance contests.
Unfortunately even with all the miraculous variety available in 2010, holidays go by very fast and soon it is Saturday evening; time to pack up and go back to the daily work routine in crowded Cairo.
Gamal Mubarak: Murky path to the presidency
Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm English edition
August 09, 2010
For almost six years, fears of a possible transfer of power from President Hosni Mubarak to his son Gamal Mubarak have made headlines in local media, given birth to new opposition groups, and provoked thousands of protests in Egypt.
With the countdown for the upcoming 2011 presidential poll and mounting concerns over the president’s ill-health, fears that Gamal, head of the ruling National Democratic Party's policies secretariat, will succeed his father are exacerbated.
Gamal's detractors are wrapped up in their own campaigns to mobilize public opinion against him, whether through the media or through grass-roots efforts that seek to put pressure on the regime to initiate constitutional reform allowing independent candidates to challenge Mubarak Junior.
In the meantime, the ruling party continues to send out conflicting signals as to exactly which candidate it is fielding in the poll. Some insist that President Mubarak will run in the elections, while Gamal’s clientele is floating messages in favor of the president's son.
Between staunch opposition outside of his party and dubious support from the ruling regime, the question of how the 46-year-old former banker can find his way to the presidency remains murky.
“Gamal needs the full endorsement of the ruling regime as well as the approval of elements outside the ruling regime,” said Samer Soliman, political science professor at the American University in Cairo.
Soliman believes that Gamal can only garner such approval if Egypt faces an imminent threat creating a dire need to reproduce the existing political order to avoid any potential turmoil.
“He can get this approval under exceptional circumstances,” said Soliman. “[For example] if the Muslim Brotherhood decides to sharpen their teeth, or if the police instigates sectarian strife. He could gain support the same way his father got in. It is the idea of 'Me or chaos,' 'Me or the Muslim Brotherhood.'”
Whether the military will endorse a civilian president is another question, given the obscurity of the army’s stance on Gamal’s potential candidacy.
Pundits remain divided over the matter: Some believe the army would not let a civilian defeat Egypt's 48-year-old legacy of military rule, while others contend a compromise could be reached between civilian Gamal and the generals.
“This is the million dollar question,” said Moataz Abdel Fattah, Egyptian political science professor at Central Michigan University.
“One possibility is to have a military officer as vice president. [Gamal] will make clear promises that he will never go to war unless he consults with the top military generals. He will maintain their socio-economic privileges, and he will keep arms and training levels where they are now. Officers might accept this deal.”
Convincing the opposition of Gamal's legitimacy as president is another problematic task. In recent weeks, rumors had it that Gamal was planning to meet with leaders from opposition parties to persuade them to accept him as a presidential candidate.
Penetrating Egypt’s two main opposition parties, the Wafd Party and Tagammu Party, is a relatively easy endeavor, according to Mostafa Kamel al-Sayyed, political science professor at Cairo University.
“I don’t think Wafd and Tagammu can constitute any genuine opposition to the succession of Gamal Mubarak,” said al-Sayyed.
These parties could easily agree to a deal whereby Gamal would promise them a number of seats in the upcoming parliament. In return, they would not contest his legitimacy as presidential candidate or ally with his critics, explained el-Sayyed.
But the opposition is no longer restricted to officially recognized parties--which most commentators dismiss as embattled and disconnected from the masses.
Attempts to groom Gamal Mubarak to succeed his father have since 2004 led to the emergence of many informal opposition groups.The Kefaya movement was the first of these groups that took to the streets, raising the ceiling of political opposition with their vehement criticism of Mubarak’s regime and family.
Kefeya, an elitist group comprising intellectuals and activists with different ideological leanings, spoke overtly against any hereditary succession. The movement succeeded in grabbing local and international attention ahead of the presidential elections in 2005.
Yet, the group waned and lost momentum after the re-election of President Mubarak in the same year.
A new momentum has been evolving since the beginning of the year after former head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei announced that he would run for president if truly fair and free elections are held.
Many of the regime’s critics have rallied around the 68-year-old diplomat, forming the National Association for Change. The NAC has posed an unprecedented threat to the regime by touring the country and collecting signatures in favor of lifting the state of emergency and amending the Constitution to allow for free and fair multi-party presidential elections.
The coalition includes several intellectuals and activists who are categorically against Gamal’s ascendancy.
Thwarting such stubborn opposition could be a colossal undertaking for Gamal, yet he could still attract certain rank-and-file elements from ElBaradei’s camp, according to Soliman.
“The top leaders in the group cannot support Gamal because this would discredit them,” said Soliman. “[However] Gamal may gain the support of the second-rank activists inside ElBaradei’s coalition, but he has to promise to amend the Constitution in return and put a curb on the number of terms a president can stay in power. They may say then a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Whoever wins through, Egypt’s next president will be overburdened with an exceptionally turbulent political and social agenda.
On one hand, he will have to contain the rising social unrest engendered by skyrocketing inflation and deteriorating living conditions. With more Egyptians falling below the poverty line, the number of labor strikes and protests continues to rise.On the other hand, the new leader will be pressed to speak to the bold demands for democratic reforms that have been formulated and widely circulated via the local private media in recent years.
According to Soliman, Gamal is incapable of diffusing such stifling social and political pressures. “There is a need for a large coalition from different segments of society to solve all these problems,” he said. “Gamal cannot form this coalition because he is tainted with the flaws of his father’s regime.”
And away from his father’s legacy, Gamal is perceived as the spearhead of the neo-liberal policies that provoked the thousands of labor strikes since 2006.
Despite his emphasis on a growing GDP, the effect of economic growth has yet to trickle has down to the one fifth of the population that lives below the poverty line.
So far, Gamal's constituency is believed to be limited to business communities and the upper-middle classes that have benefited from his economic approach and who admire his modern and secular outlook.
“If Gamal Mubarak reaches power, social protests will persist,” warned al-Sayyed.
August 09, 2010
For almost six years, fears of a possible transfer of power from President Hosni Mubarak to his son Gamal Mubarak have made headlines in local media, given birth to new opposition groups, and provoked thousands of protests in Egypt.
With the countdown for the upcoming 2011 presidential poll and mounting concerns over the president’s ill-health, fears that Gamal, head of the ruling National Democratic Party's policies secretariat, will succeed his father are exacerbated.
Gamal's detractors are wrapped up in their own campaigns to mobilize public opinion against him, whether through the media or through grass-roots efforts that seek to put pressure on the regime to initiate constitutional reform allowing independent candidates to challenge Mubarak Junior.
In the meantime, the ruling party continues to send out conflicting signals as to exactly which candidate it is fielding in the poll. Some insist that President Mubarak will run in the elections, while Gamal’s clientele is floating messages in favor of the president's son.
Between staunch opposition outside of his party and dubious support from the ruling regime, the question of how the 46-year-old former banker can find his way to the presidency remains murky.
“Gamal needs the full endorsement of the ruling regime as well as the approval of elements outside the ruling regime,” said Samer Soliman, political science professor at the American University in Cairo.
Soliman believes that Gamal can only garner such approval if Egypt faces an imminent threat creating a dire need to reproduce the existing political order to avoid any potential turmoil.
“He can get this approval under exceptional circumstances,” said Soliman. “[For example] if the Muslim Brotherhood decides to sharpen their teeth, or if the police instigates sectarian strife. He could gain support the same way his father got in. It is the idea of 'Me or chaos,' 'Me or the Muslim Brotherhood.'”
Whether the military will endorse a civilian president is another question, given the obscurity of the army’s stance on Gamal’s potential candidacy.
Pundits remain divided over the matter: Some believe the army would not let a civilian defeat Egypt's 48-year-old legacy of military rule, while others contend a compromise could be reached between civilian Gamal and the generals.
“This is the million dollar question,” said Moataz Abdel Fattah, Egyptian political science professor at Central Michigan University.
“One possibility is to have a military officer as vice president. [Gamal] will make clear promises that he will never go to war unless he consults with the top military generals. He will maintain their socio-economic privileges, and he will keep arms and training levels where they are now. Officers might accept this deal.”
Convincing the opposition of Gamal's legitimacy as president is another problematic task. In recent weeks, rumors had it that Gamal was planning to meet with leaders from opposition parties to persuade them to accept him as a presidential candidate.
Penetrating Egypt’s two main opposition parties, the Wafd Party and Tagammu Party, is a relatively easy endeavor, according to Mostafa Kamel al-Sayyed, political science professor at Cairo University.
“I don’t think Wafd and Tagammu can constitute any genuine opposition to the succession of Gamal Mubarak,” said al-Sayyed.
These parties could easily agree to a deal whereby Gamal would promise them a number of seats in the upcoming parliament. In return, they would not contest his legitimacy as presidential candidate or ally with his critics, explained el-Sayyed.
But the opposition is no longer restricted to officially recognized parties--which most commentators dismiss as embattled and disconnected from the masses.
Attempts to groom Gamal Mubarak to succeed his father have since 2004 led to the emergence of many informal opposition groups.The Kefaya movement was the first of these groups that took to the streets, raising the ceiling of political opposition with their vehement criticism of Mubarak’s regime and family.
Kefeya, an elitist group comprising intellectuals and activists with different ideological leanings, spoke overtly against any hereditary succession. The movement succeeded in grabbing local and international attention ahead of the presidential elections in 2005.
Yet, the group waned and lost momentum after the re-election of President Mubarak in the same year.
A new momentum has been evolving since the beginning of the year after former head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei announced that he would run for president if truly fair and free elections are held.
Many of the regime’s critics have rallied around the 68-year-old diplomat, forming the National Association for Change. The NAC has posed an unprecedented threat to the regime by touring the country and collecting signatures in favor of lifting the state of emergency and amending the Constitution to allow for free and fair multi-party presidential elections.
The coalition includes several intellectuals and activists who are categorically against Gamal’s ascendancy.
Thwarting such stubborn opposition could be a colossal undertaking for Gamal, yet he could still attract certain rank-and-file elements from ElBaradei’s camp, according to Soliman.
“The top leaders in the group cannot support Gamal because this would discredit them,” said Soliman. “[However] Gamal may gain the support of the second-rank activists inside ElBaradei’s coalition, but he has to promise to amend the Constitution in return and put a curb on the number of terms a president can stay in power. They may say then a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Whoever wins through, Egypt’s next president will be overburdened with an exceptionally turbulent political and social agenda.
On one hand, he will have to contain the rising social unrest engendered by skyrocketing inflation and deteriorating living conditions. With more Egyptians falling below the poverty line, the number of labor strikes and protests continues to rise.On the other hand, the new leader will be pressed to speak to the bold demands for democratic reforms that have been formulated and widely circulated via the local private media in recent years.
According to Soliman, Gamal is incapable of diffusing such stifling social and political pressures. “There is a need for a large coalition from different segments of society to solve all these problems,” he said. “Gamal cannot form this coalition because he is tainted with the flaws of his father’s regime.”
And away from his father’s legacy, Gamal is perceived as the spearhead of the neo-liberal policies that provoked the thousands of labor strikes since 2006.
Despite his emphasis on a growing GDP, the effect of economic growth has yet to trickle has down to the one fifth of the population that lives below the poverty line.
So far, Gamal's constituency is believed to be limited to business communities and the upper-middle classes that have benefited from his economic approach and who admire his modern and secular outlook.
“If Gamal Mubarak reaches power, social protests will persist,” warned al-Sayyed.
TV show on Muslim Brotherhood stirs outrage
Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition
August 17, 2010
The suspect recites Quranic verses as he walks down a long corridor, held by the arms by two plainclothes police who are marching him to the state security prosecutor’s office.
“I am willing to listen to the whole Quranic chapter, especially as you have a nice voice, but we should start the interrogation,” says the softly-spoken prosecutor who is about to question the suspect, a young member of the Muslim Brotherhood accused of instigating violence on a university campus.
“And I am ready,” replies the prisoner in a friendly tone.
This cordial exchange is not real, but fictional. It is one of the most problematic scenes of Al-Gama’a, or “The Group,” a television serial that seeks to portray “the truth” about the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamist group.
As soon as the holy month of Ramadan kicked in last week, the most anticipated show started to roll on state-owned television. With his incendiary narrative, prolific screenwriter Waheed Hamed has provoked a stir among both the Muslim Brotherhood’s sympathizers and critics who contend that the author is paying lip service to Egypt’s most notorious state security apparatus.
“This show is written from the perspective of the security apparatus,” said Mohsen Radi, a Muslim Brotherhood member of the outgoing parliament. “It says that both the [ruling] National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood are wrong, but the police are angels.”
This view is not restricted to the group’s most devoted cadres but is also shared by young reform-minded Islamists who broke ranks with the Muslim Brotherhood for its conservatism and ambiguous position on democracy.
“It's a comedy,” said Abdelmonem Mahmoud, a 31-year-old blogger and former Muslim Brotherhood activist.
“The state security police are represented as if they were nurses in the best private-owned hospital. I wish I went to that place,” added Mahmoud, who has been in the shoes of the show’s suspects three times since 2003--the treatment he received was strikingly different to that portrayed on the show.
“Once I spent 13 days in the state security headquarters,” said Mahmoud.” I was blindfolded and handcuffed throughout that period and I used to be punched and beaten with sticks."
The show’s protagonist is Ashraf Helal, a young, humble and well-read state security prosecutor who gets assigned to investigate the involvement of Muslim Brotherhood students in violent acts. He interrogates his suspects with exceptional humility and respect, addressing them formally with the title "Mister"--none of which matches the reputation of the notorious agency.
After listening to their stories, Helal feels the urge to delve deeper into the history of the group to decipher the motives of the young activists. He picks up the memoirs of the group’s founder Hassan al-Banna and uses them as his gateway to understanding the group’s roots and outlook.
At this point, the show takes millions of Arab viewers on a flashback to tell the story of the region’s oldest Islamist opposition group.
So far, the Muslim Brotherhood has not issued any official statement to protest the show. However, Hamed’s account has provoked isolated reactions from many prominent members in the group.
“The show aims to serve the regime and distort the image of its main contenders ahead of the parliamentary elections,” said Saif al-Islam Hassan al-Banna, son of the group’s founder and a Muslim Brotherhood senior member.
The junior al-Banna is expected to file a suit within the next few days asking for the suspension of the show until it receives the full endorsement of the family. “This is our natural right; according to intellectual property rights law the character’s heirs should read the script before it gets approved,” said al-Banna, who is also the secretary-general of the Lawyers’ Syndicate.
In 1928, Hassan al-Banna founded “the Society of the Muslim Brothers” in Ismailia to restore the Islamic faith through guidance and preaching.By the time of the Second World War, the society had become the most important political force in the country and grouped under its umbrella different social strata.
In the 1940s, al-Jihaz al-Khas, or the "Secret Apparatus," the group’s militant wing, was held responsible for several assassinations and kidnappings, and for planting bombs in cinemas and bars. In response, al-Banna was allegedly assassinated by the government in 1949, however, the group continued to exist.
It was not until the mid-1950s when the group was at serious risk. After a failed attempt on President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s life in 1954, the group’s leaders were harassed, arrested, executed or forced out of the country.In the 1970s, this overt antagonism between the ruling regime and the Brothers was reversed. President Sadat freed their leaders and allowed them back onto the political scene in order to defeat his leftwing foes. Since then, the group has renounced violence and affirmed the full dismantling of its military wing.
“Unlike what the group is claiming, Hamed succeeded in reading the true nature of the group correctly,” said Amr al-Choubaki, an analyst with al-Ahram Center for Political and strategic studies and an expert on the Muslim Brotherhood. “It is a regressive and undemocratic group that is only preoccupied with its survival.”
“However, Hamed fell into the trap of portraying it as a violent group. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a violent group,” added al-Choubaki.
The show begins with an episode that draws on a true incident when Muslim Brotherhood students held demonstrations on al-Azhar and Cairo University campuses to protest vote rigging in the 2006 student union elections. At Al-Azhar University, demonstrators held a military-like parade that sent shock waves to many observers, who questioned the group’s claim of renouncing violence.
In Al-Gama’a, the protests culminate in violent clashes between Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated students and their government-backed adversaries. The climax comes when an Islamist activist kneels down, grabs a brick and throws it at his adversaries, signaling the inception of a bloody fight with face-masked Muslim Brothers throwing molotov cocktails at their classmates.
Upon their arrest, the Muslim Brotherhood suspects are not subjected to any human rights abuses--on the contrary they are well-treated and served coffee and tea at the state security headquarters.
Al-Choubaki shrugs off the portrayal of the police as a “flagrant hypocrisy.” “He [Hamed] was not required to talk about the violations committed by the security apparatus, but he did not have to flatter it either,” said al-Choubaki.
Hamed, one of Egypt’s leading screenwriters, has tackled Islamist groups in many of his cinematic and TV works. He usually portrays them as corrupt opportunists who exploit religion to achieve their vested interests. When asked to comment on the accusations leveled by his detractors, that Al-Gamaa serves to flatter the police, Hamed replied in a strongly-worded tone.
“Those who say such things are sons of .... I don’t need to reply to anyone.”
Under Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood has proven to be a force to be reckoned with on campuses, in syndicates, and even in parliament. In 2005, they chalked up an unprecedented victory by grabbing 88 seats and rising as the largest opposition bloc.
Officially the group remains banned and subject to regular raids and arrests. Yet, its members are allowed to participate in all levels of elections and write in the local papers. The group is expected to field 150 candidates in the parliamentary elections set for October.
Like many secular intellectuals, Hamed faces the dilemma of choosing between two evils: the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to al-Choubaki.
“Many of the political intellegentsia tend to go for the regime, which is fine, but the problem here is that Hamed chose the state security apparatus, which is the worst body in the ruling regime,” said al-Choubaki.
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