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Tag: 30 June

Egypt in Crisis

I was interviewed in this PBS Frontline documentary titled “Egypt in Crisis: The inside story of a revolution gone wrong“. Here is the press release of the documentary : Less than three years after the popular uprising that led to President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, and just one year after Egypt’s first free and fair elections, the democratically elected government has been overthrown and the Egyptian military is running the state. And the Muslim Brotherhood—the secretive, long-outlawed Islamist group that came out of the shadows to win the presidency in June 2012—is once again being driven underground, its members killed and…

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How the Muslim Brotherhood fell from power

An interview with Muslim  of the PBS flagship Frontline program conducted on July 18, 2013, and published on September 17, 2013, to coincide with the broadcast of the documentary “Egypt in Crisis”. Khaled Fahmy is professor and chair of the American University in Cairo’s Department of History. A liberal supporter of the revolution, Fahmy worried about human-rights abuses under President Mohammed Morsi, and now a return to the military state under Gen. Sisi. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on July 18, 2013 in New York. Help me understand the context of the Muslim Brotherhood and how they…

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On fascism and fascists

Published in Ahram Online on July 21, 2013 In focusing on the Muslim Brotherhood’s fascist tendencies do we not risk losing sight of the largest elephant in the room — the perils of army intervention in the name of protecting liberty? In March, I wrote an article here in response to an article written by Wael Abbas, author of the blog Misr Digital, in which he had warned of the threat of a spread of armed militias belonging to different groups, from the Brotherhood to the Ultras to thugs, expressing apprehension at what he viewed was the rise of militarism…

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A Revolutionary People

Published in Ahram Online on July 15, 2013 Among the most complex lessons Egyptians have learned from the momentous events of the past two-and-a-half years is that they are a revolutionary people, writing their own destiny We were taught in schools that we were a patient and passive people, and for generations we accepted facile sayings about the genius of Egypt, its tranquil landscape, its gentle river and undemanding people. And yet here we are, proving to ourselves that we write our own history and that we can depose our rulers if they do not succumb to our will. This…

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