They indirectly intervened to cancel the events of Nakba week, and interestingly enough the event at Townhouse gallery (which I live very close to) was ignored by them because it doesn't have much of a popular Egyptian crowd that frequents it. This is the same Egyptian state that likes to delude itself that it achieved a glorious victory over Israel in 1973 (and then went promptly and made "peace" in 1978). AUC professor Jalal Amin the other day said that in his daughter's junior high school exam around that time, all the questions in the Arabic comprehension section had sentences about the gloriousness of peace in it.
...the London Bookfair just passed last month and a number of interesting comments were made by attending Arab writers on what's up with Arabic literature these days. Although I don't fully appreciate the prominence given to Alaa al-Aswany, especially amongst the few translated into English and other European languages, just because he is suave, well-dressed and speaks English, French and Spanish. While I do agree with his point that a lot of modern Arabic literature has to be written in a way that is more accessible to the wider public (read "the masses") in the Arab world, which is not reading literature much in the past few years - I liked the quote of his where he said "Too many [Arabic] novels that start with lines like ‘I came home to find my wife having sex with a cockroach" - I think there are other examples of litterateurs who have done it better than him. Nizar Qabbani comes across as a prime example, as are Najuib Mahfouz's novels from his realist/bildungsroman phase (Cairo Trilogy, etc.). Umm Kalthoum is a great example of a cultural icon that is claimed as both "high" and "popular" culture at the same time. It's just annoying that the West has obsessed with "Muslims" and "Arabs" for so long now without ever appreciating the depth and variety of literary production in the modern period alone.
From Mahalla, April 9. interesting to note the title of the video says "the fall of mubarak's idol" (they used the word sanam - idol - not soora - picture).
Journalist Amina abd el-Rahman, married with a two year old son, was arrested in front of Mahalla el-Kubra's police station yesterday night while interviewing family of the detainees for el-Tariq newspaper. She was supposed to be arraigned today by the prosecution of Tanta on charges of hindering the authorities from their work and inciting riots.
In other news, an American photographer called James Beck and his interpreter Mohammad Saleh Ahmad Mar`i have remained under police custody in Mahalla as well after interviewing the families of the detainees and the authorities are trying to pressure James to hand over his camera and tapes by threatening his interpreter. Can you imagine how scary it would be to be manhandled by those goons and not understand a word of what they're saying? (Tarboush tip: KABOBfriend Sarah)
...my two friends have walked out of Qasr El-Nil police station. One of them said that she and all the other women were treated well and not harmed physically and that her father was allowed to bring her food. But all the men arrested were beaten up badly.
In other news, both of them really need to take a bath.
This is NOT the end of the story for us. There are still many more people in jail for definite and indefinite periods until their "interrogation" is completed. Please, everyone who is reading, inform your friends in the states, tell them about all the USAID money that goes into the pockets of the Egyptian rulers instead of the Egyptian people, and that is used to buy arms for and fund this brutal repression. This is the best thing that we as Americans can do to try and bring more justice in the Middle East. The corrupt regimes of countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al, would be on much shakier ground were it not for our government's material (and moral) support.
A Cairo scholar (yes, the same source as the April Fools camel joke of last week) named Ian had a very cogent and concise point to make, for which I thank him:
"The true nature of the system we call the "capitalist state" -- or otherwise the universal productionist order -- is revealed in moments like this. Such things used to happen in the West, until states there embedded discipline, individualism and consumption more deeply into the social body, at the same time upgrading the police and distancing the population from power by a complex institutional labyrinth that leaders there call democracy. We must remember that the killing of workers, like torture, is a sign of state weakness, and that Egypt's economic position is a function of corrupted elites backed by martial law and an international division of labour established by Western imperialism. It is our moral duty to be in support of the people in their struggle for justice and the means of life."
Confrontation between student and security officer at Helwan University (Photo by Mohamed Hossam Eddin, Al-Masry Al-Youm)
According to another strike blog, at about 10pm, state security forces shot 15 year-old Mohammad Ahmad al-Sayyed in the head as he was watching clashes between them and brick throwing youth. He was martyred instantly. The police are also firing tear gas into homes and apartment buildings. More than one person is saying than scenes in Mahalla eerily resemble pictures from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Did anyone say occupation?
In other words, the chief kooks of Egypt disagree about the haram-ness or halal-ness of the strike (English translation).
10:30 PM, Apr 8: My friends still haven't been released. The Egyptian bureaucracy rules state that the order for release must be "executed" within 24 hours of its issuing, and it has been over 33 hours now. However, one of the fathers and a cousin and a lawyer is inside the police station and with them and they are doing OK. They are afraid they will go out and start demonstrating immediately, especially given that there are local elections going on which the Muslim Brotherhood has called people to boycott.
The anonymous blog for the strike says there is a spontaneous demonstration going on in front of `Abideen courthouse downtown. Also, the electricity in the Delta town of al-Mahalla has been cut. Al-Mahalla has been the scene of intense worker organizing in textile mills in recent months, and where 2 people, plus a small child were killed yesterday.
so the bastards havent released them yet. the order to release them was "issued" last night but it hasn't been "carried out" yet! ha!
the state is obviously making everyone wait so to as to teach whoever was arrested a lesson and scare them. both my friends are from well to do families and its not likely that they have been treated very poorly but i will not be sure until i see them. the apathetic and downright pathetic political atmosphere at AUC makes me respect even more what they did, because the situation has a minimal affect on their social class. more than anything i feel terrible for leaving them, although i do not fancy being put in an egyptian male holding cell with a nose ring.
family, friends and lawyers are still at Qasr el-Nil police station in downtown trying to secure their release. i heard from one of them that one of the girl's fathers was allowed to see them and that they are OK, and that there are no signs of any kind of physical harm. remember, these are only 2 of the few hundred rounded up in cairo yesterday.
in other news, my camera and kuffiyeh continue to be missing. you can call it irony, or a sick joke, that AUC campus security is headed by generals in State Security, one of whom i went to see today to try and get my stuff back! this nice, gentle smiling old man is part of the same apparatus as the animals who dragged us away yesterday. He also claimed he would try to "do what he could" regarding my two colleagues. I don't know whether to snicker or to scream.
There was a general strike called today all across Egypt to protest the inflation, corruption and general messedupedness in the country and the government's lack of concern - an Egyptian minister stated the other week that Egyptians can live on one pound and a half (less than 20 cents).
The leftist independent newspaper al-badeel claimed that this was the most widespread demonstration in egypt since the 1919 revolution (the 1952 revolution, whether one supports nasser or not, was executed as a coup). for those who can read Arabic, this blog gives blow by blow updates about the events of today.
As for me, I happened to have the honor of tasting the (desperate and pathetic) gangsterism of the regime today. I was walking past Tahrir Square on my way to AUC to meet up with friends and watch the events unfold, when I saw two other colleagues from AUC - Egyptian girls, standing in the middle of the square, chewing up pieces of `aish (egyptian wheat bread) and spitting the pieces out onto passing cars so as to demonstrate the pathetic nature of the situation with bread (see my previous post on bread in Egypt).
I call them the two Sara's and salute them for their courage in doing what they did. The general level of political awareness amongst spoiled AUC brats is pathetic, which makes the two all the more admirable. I came close to them so as to photograph and before I knew it, a bunch of plainclothes goons had grabbed us and dragged us all the way along the street, against our will into a waiting van (unmarked), while someone snatched my camera and the kuffiyeh I was wearing.
We were forced into a van that already had other people in it (all girls) and as soon as we filled it, they drove off to the outskirts of Cairo, yelling at us and threatening us along the way. I tried to use the American citizen card and one of the state security men told me he would throw me off a bridge. We arrived to Medinat al-Bu`uth in the outskirts of Cairo where there were other state security agents waiting for us and they started taking the information of everyone down.
One of the Egyptian women with us was crying hysterically - most of the people arrested had been onlookers or passers-by, news reports say that a lot of random arrests took place, not including the arrests of activists or demonstrators.
Some of the state security guys standing outside the van tried to provoke us by engaging in political discussion, chiding us for disrupting public order etc etc.
There was another guy playing the good cop who said ma`laysh this is our job, to which I responded being thugs is your job? They then made 4 of the women get down claiming they would drop them off somewhere else and drove back with me, Sara & Sara and 2 other women downtown.
We reached Maidan Abideen when they told me to get off. I had managed, from text messaging, to get the US embassy on the phone and it possibly made them want to get rid of me. The fact that they did not take us straight to a station or confiscate anything from us after loading us into the van seems to suggest that their orders were to drive us around for a while and drop each person off in a separate place. I did not want to leave with my friends at least, but they both told me to get off.
After some hesitation I decided to get off, but not before taking down the number of the van, which drove the ass-wipes wild ("you want to start again?"). I still am not sure whether my friends have been released - their mobile phones are off - which means they could have been released without the phones or be still held. If anyone knows anything about the two Sara's whereabouts, please let me know.
Journalists and activists I spoke to are telling me that they should most likely be released tonight or tomorrow morning early. And please, spread the news that Egypt is boiling under the lid of a pathetic, desperate, molding regime that will do anything, shamelessly, to stay in power. A regime that is scared of two people throwing breadcrumbs truly deserves to be called pathetic, especially given that it gets its breadcrumbs from the scraps of US aid.
Update: I just received word that my two friends are still being held, but doing OK.
Update at 2:39 AM: According to above-mentioned blog, both Sara's have been released. If anyone has any other information about other detainees please call the hotline of the blog: +20-118361000 or email 6april08@gmail.com.
I am on a listserv called Cairo Scholars that foreigners use in Cairo generally to exchange information with each other on how to get such and such done and where to find the best prices for something, etc. Someone just played the funniest April fool's joke on us. The email is as follows:
dear cairoscholars, i found a baby camel outside my building in february. it looked malnourished so i took it in and have been caring for it for the last month. it's exceptionally cute and has been dubbed baby joe by my gregarious bowab. the problem is that i have to go back to the united states and i am wondering if anyone has any advice for what i should do about shipping baby joe. does anyone know if fedex or ups ships live animals, and about how much would it cost? we both thank you. - chris
The idiot that I am, I take this guy for serious. So he tells me:
dear suneela, that's not rude at all. baby joe and i can use all the help we can get! let me know if they have any advice. - chris
As does someone else:
If u r serious, then u cant send baby Joe by Fedex or UPS. They won't carry live animals. Your only options are: to get the airline taking you back to accept that he is a domesticated pet and if he is not too large, he can travel as cargo afer they figure out what shots and paperwork he needs. The other option is to find a ship sailing out of Alexandria, Port Said or Port Suez which carries livestock and fix a deal to have Baby Joe shipped to the US. This may be more easily done by finding a ship agent in one of these cities who handles ships that carry livestock rather than polling the ships that pass through. - Kim
There were a series of hilarious responses that I felt compelled to share, though:
Of course you could just buy him a seat in the economy section. At check-in you'll be able to get two seats together. Call in advance for his special meal. He'll need a visa for the United States I would think, which seems difficult these days, but the people at the embassy might oblige. They'd have to interview him, and for this you'll need an interpreter. There might also be background checks. Good luck, - Ian
if he is as small as a foal, then perhaps you can also check into how horses are shipped - amy
Dress him up in an outfit, claim hes your aunt "Joe"sephine and suffers from various ailments, for instance, she is a hunchback.
This is actually a fairly common ploy, as you can see in these picture I took last year. It's unlikely you'll be able to fool airport security, and I don't think it's worth the risk of getting him caught in drag, which could lead to all sorts of complications. - Cassie
If you fly home during Halloween, you can also dress as a camel and claim that he’s your mute brother. Tell the stewardess that you are “getting into the spirit of things.
I think you will need 2 pictures of your friend (Joe the Camel, lol) for his passport if he wants to apply for a visa to the States. If you have them, please let us know, we would love to see his cute face.
Don't forget the hoof printing. They have to check it out to make sure he is not on the terrorist list.
Actually, as long as you register Baby Joe as a "therapeutic companion pet," you should have no problem with him boarding the plan along with you, and you'll be able to sidestep the hoof-printing as well.
This has worked for a therapeutic pig flying within the United States though flying a pig to Egypt may not have worked out so well.
And finally:
That is so crazy. Contact Spare. I hope they take the animal.
Anyone else have any suggestions on what we can do to save Baby Joe?
Tarboush tip: All the wonderful cairo scholars and their senses of humor
I have to thank Angry Arab for bringing me to light about this fatwa originally, but i couldn't help re-posting it. Since it is in Arabic, I will summarize: a website that specializes in fatwas on "women's issues" called Eve's World posts the following (Arabic only): if a man has anal sex with his wife without realizing it, he is forgiven as long as he ceases as soon as his wife informs him. There is a long-winded explanation given for this using chain of narratives which ends up saying that God "told the Jews" that having anal sex or sex with your wife while "she is laid on her face" will produce a cross-eyed child. However, fear not, for God did not reveal the full truth to the Jews, as anal sex does not (gasp!) result in pregnancy! This stellar sex education tip is accompanied by the ruling that a husband may "take his wife however he pleases, laying on her back or on her face, so long as his entry is in 'the front' and not 'the rear'". I find this disturbing enough to share not just because of the insertion (no pun intended) of Jews into this whole tale so as to try and somehow link them to sexual deviance - taking advantage of their being mentioned a whole lot in Surat al-Baqarah (the Cow Chapter of the Qur'an) - but also because implicitly the fatwa seems to say that (heterosexual) butt sex is ok if the husband "doesn't know" and the wife doesn't inform him! Can this also mean that a man can have sex with another (male-bodied) man as long as he thinks the latter is female and is not informed to the contrary? In addition to this, the fatwa is inadvertently reassuring curious young people who may lack safer sex knowledge that anal sex will not get you pregnant. Oh, if only they had found a Hadith that supported using condoms.
PS: In addition, I would like to thank his Beneficience the Sheikh who issued this fatwa for teaching me the term for anal sex in good fussha (classical Arabic). This will definitely be worked into my next homework composition.
More than 100 Egyptian parliamentarians spent the night day before yesterday in the Parliament in protest of Israel's (latest) assault on Gaza. Yesterday morning, they tried to deliver a petition to the Presidential Palace in Abdeen (to which the President never goes) demanding that Egypt aid the Palestinians in any way possible. But State Security prevented them from leaving the Parliament. They're too afraid of damage to Mubarak's face, still too wet with Condi's kisses.
There were also large protests in all the major universities of Cairo, and some of the provinces. The report made two good points: Egypt continues to sell gas to Israel, and the silence and inaction of the Arab governments is indirectly participating in killing Palestinians. Also, the point was made that even if Egypt can't fight Israel right now, at least it can try to stop doing business with it and freeze its relations. I am told apparently these are standard demands and are met with yawns, but do they stop being reasonable? What is the only Egyptian official response other than some blathering? To cancel the visit of their chief of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, to Tel Aviv. Oh, thank you!
Post-script: To the people burning Israeli flags in the demonstrations - you guys are so yesterday. You just look silly, make people cough and give Fox News an excuse to take your picture and draw all sorts of false conclusions. Can you find something more original and effective to do?
Post-post-script: I live in downtown Cairo, not too far from the demonstrations, but they never got big enough so as to spread beyond their immediate vicinity. Life went on as normal - it shows that the current appeal of the Palestinian cause here is rather weak and confined.
"I promise I will be a good boy and break the legs of any peace-hating (read: anti-Zionist) Palestinian that tries to leave Gaza....now please give me more money for my retirement fund - oh whoops, I forgot that I will never retire."
While Gaza gets more messed up than mulukhiyya, these two are going to shake hands and lick each other, while toasting to the Israelis finishing off the resistance as soon as possible.
People are going to gather on Tuesday at noon in front of the Lawyers' Syndicate in Downtown Cairo to express their varied and multifaceted emotions around this.
So far, 3 of us KABOBers (Will, Mohammad and myself) took this quiz and none of us passed. Our madrassaaaaaah education has failed us, that's why they kicked us out into the infidel world of secular education.
If you take it report your scores in the comments section. And do not Google any of the questions during the quiz or you will rot in hell for eternity!
(right to left anticlockwise) - "I'm not going to give you any guarantees, other than that the police doesn't have time for us. Everyone is tied up with the safety and security of one person only, and any surprise will run right by them"
"But Shihab Basha, this time we could go to jail..."
"Mustafa, prison in this country is for the poor, and you are going to get rich...Yalla?"
"Mustafa, do you remember the trap we have got all these people into...the trap is open. We are the ones just sitting inside it because no one has ever tried to get out of it..."
After two weeks, in Mohammed Naguib Metro Station...
No guarantees...No difficulties either...
Metro by Magdy al-Shafi'i the First Graphic Novel in Arabic Published by Dar Malameh (Features)
I am really excited about this. Many will say that this is yet another step towards the "Westernization" of Arabic literature, but I seriously think that popular literature in Arabic, especially in Egypt, where due to the poor education system, relatively few people are reading seriously, needs to be given a fillip. I will try to find a copy of this when I am not reading Abbasid poetry about liquor and and wine-bearing girls dressed like smooth beautiful boys.
(tarboush tip: Taken from the blog of contemporary Egyptian novelist Mohammad `Alaa el-Din.)
The Egyptian (relatively) independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm (The Egyptian Today) has a variety piece on an Alexandrian by the name of Mohammed Bashar, 58 who happens to be a "screaming lookalike" (shabah saarikh) of Saddam Husain. Many a time has he walked down the street and people stare at him, then ask God to have mercy on his soul. In addition people have started to call him Abu Oday and Qusay (Saddam's two sons).
This fame, however, has resulted to him being chased by the "mafia of Saddam autobiographies and its brokers" who will just not leave him alone. A director had offered him the sum of money of his choice to act in a film about his lookalike, however after his initial acceptance he pulled out when he found that the film wanted to distort the sex life of the dear departed president.
Apparently this screaming resemblance did not kick in until he hit his fifties (and the American occupation of Iraq) and resulted in him being chased by Gulfies to be photographed together with Saddam.
And his wife's response to all of his: "Better that he resembles Saddam and not Bush, or he would be beaten up in the street!"
Speaking of which, does anyone have a link to the story of the Iraqi who resembled Bush? He seemed to be having an OK time of it.
