Originally published in Al-Ahram Weekly, December 20, 2012. In 1805 Mohamed Ali, a young upstart who hailed from Kavala in what is now Greece, who spoke no Arabic and who had no prior links with the land, ended up as governor of Egypt on behalf of the Ottoman sultan. In the few years to follow, he struggled to establish his authority and to restore the productivity of a country ravaged by years of internecine warfare, devastating plagues and foreign invasion. Most seriously, he found himself embroiled in the quagmire of complex Mamluk politics with literally hundreds of Mamluk war lords,…
Leave a CommentTag: January 25 Revolution
A radio interview with Chris Lydon of Radio Opensource on the historical meaning of the January 25, 2011 Revolution. Recorded in Cairo on November 14, 2012 CAIRO — Khaled Fahmy came home to Egypt just months before the uprising in Tahrir Square. He was leaving a big university career in Oxford and New York, drawn by intuition and maybe destiny to be the historian of a great event. In an hour’s conversation he will recharge your sense of the Arab Revolution of 2011. It was just what we half-guessed at the time: a watershed more cultural and psycho-social than it was political. It…
Leave a CommentA radio interview from Tahrir Square with Arab Voices RadioTalk Show, February 9, 2011 (at 41:18).
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A phone interview with Amy Good man of Democracy Now! (at 13:56 TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: Today marks day 12 of the uprising in Egypt. Egyptian protesters continue to hold Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the 12th day of their uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. A large crowd remains hours after hundreds of thousands turned out for what was called the Day of Departure against the Mubarak regime. Thousands also gathered for parallel rallies in the cities of Alexandria, Mahalla and Giza. The protests in Alexandria are also continuing today. The massive…
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