Published in Ahram Online on May 9, 2013 Researchers in Egypt face suspicion and a misguided obsession with security concerns, which is both a symptom and a cause of the country’s cultural backwardness On a trip to London last week, I visited the Royal College of Surgeons, which houses an impressive museum about the history of medicine and surgery from the 18th century to the present. As I have an interest in the modern history of medicine in Egypt, I spent an entire day at the museum and the College’s archives. I was intrigued at how the museum told the…
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Published in Ahram Online on April 30, 2013 Is Egypt about to see a turn to fascism? If recent statements by self-proclaimed religious figures are an indication, the prospect isn’t entirely out of the question This is what a group of friends and I debated in a heated discussion last week. One of them was a British friend who teaches history and politics at a major US university, and who reminded us that a key feature of European fascism of the 1930s was a strong alliance between industrialists and the state, whereby the latter was willing to pass draconian anti-labour…
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Published in Ahram Online on April 21, 2013 Although the fact finding committee formed by Mohamed Morsi to investigate rights violations from January 2011 to June 2012 found horrid cases of abuse, the president and his backers appear disinterested in its findings Three weeks ago, I briefly reviewed here “Nostalgia for the Light,” Patricio Guzmán’s wonderful documentary about mass murders and forced disappearances in Chile under Pinochet. I was deeply touched by Guzmán’s sensitivity in showcasing the suffering of victims’ families and their relentless efforts to find out what had happened to their loved ones. My intention was to draw…
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Lecture delivered in Arabic (with English subtitles) on the history of modern Cairo, delivered at the “Learning from Cairo: Global Perspectives and Future Visions” conference organized by CLUSTER, and chaired by Mohamed Elshahed, American University in Cairo, Tahrir Campus, April 12, 2013
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Posted on Facebook on April 11, 2013 Yesterday’s Guardian article is big news. The first question of course is whether or not Morsy, and behind him the MB, will do anything about it and summon the courage to hold Egypt’s high brass accountable. There are those who say that time has not come yet for the revolution to take on the army. They point out that other countries, e.g. South Africa, many countries in eastern Europe and South America, took decades before they could be able to dismantle the former regime. We have to crawl before we are able to…
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Published in Ahram Online on April 10, 2013 Art and poetry, more than politics, express the true spirit of the Egyptian revolution, which cannot be concealed or silenced Scene I: Tuesday, 25 January 2011 at 7pm. Place: Tahrir Square. I had gone to Tahrir nearly two hours earlier to check on my sister. She had beaten me there and had succeeded in foiling an attempt by security forces to arrest her 15-year-old son. After I had made sure that she’d go home, and after I’d lied to her telling her that I, too, would go home, I joined a crowd…
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Posted on Facebook on April 9, 2013 This is the official comment from Essam el-Haddad, President Morsy’s Assistant on Foreign Affairs. It is a flagrant expression of how the President and his Muslim Brotherhood completely misread the dangerous situation in Egypt now, and how their discourse (and this statement is a good example of it), is biased and indeed incendiary. First, they are not even getting their facts right: al-Khosous is not in Giza, it is in Cairo next to Shubra. Second, the original incident had nothing to do with Christian symbols. Rather, it involved painting a swastika on a…
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Published in Ahram Online on March 31, 2013 A critical eye on three palaces: the Plazzo Reale in Italy, Holyroodhouse in Scotland and Abdeen Palace in Egypt In the past two months, circumstances allowed me to visit three royal palaces, two of which were abroad, and the third in Egypt. I found myself assessing comparing and lamenting the miserable condition of Egypt’s palaces and museums. Palazzo Reale The first palace was the Palazzo Reale in Milan, Italy, a grand palace which was built in the late 18th century, and is located by the famous Duomo in Milan. I had visited this…
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Published in Ahram Online on March 24, 2013 Without forcing those who committed bloody deeds against their people to recognise their guilt, countries will fail to progress to democracy or a brighter future Patricio Guzman focuses on the past, on light and on hope. Guzman is a Chilean documentary film director who over the past decade has directed many short films about astronomy, astronomers and observatories in Chile. His films are deep, intelligent, sad, and make us think not only about stars and galaxies, but also about what takes place on this earth and what lies within. The films are…
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The Muslim Brotherhood does not have the power to rule Egypt as the Nazis did Germany, but what it can do — and appears to be doing — is by failure open the way for an even graver dictatorship Last August, Wael Abbas, the writer of the well-known blog “Misr Digit@l”, wrote a perceptive article in Al-Badeel newspaper documenting the emergence of armed militias, whether Muslim Brotherhood or Ultras, or thugs or everything in between. He observed that these militias are merely the tip of the iceberg, and what is still submerged indicates a fascist hue that tinges Egyptian state and society.…
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