Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
The difference between Reform and reform
“To better serve farmers.” The goals are a more productive agricultural sector and improved food security for Egypt’s population. Key is improving the services of the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit (PBDAC), said Minister of Agriculture Ayman Abu Hadid, speaking on the sidelines of the 10th Ministerial Meeting of the International Centre for …
Media Culpa
By Mohamed Selim If I had my druthers, the first thing I would have done on the evening of 11 February 2011, would be to restructure and regulate Egypt’s media. Its current state of discord, lawlessness and entropy is tantamount to the country’s evolving political system: mobocracy. As Egypt’s former chief spy, the late Omar …
Why western liberals have problems understanding Egypt
By Ronald Meinardus I’ll start on a personal note. I’m writing this commentary with a sense of unease and cautiousness. I’m a foreigner living in Egypt, and intend to write about political issues related to the host country. As long as foreign journalists are in jail for doing their work, this prudence is in order. …
Letter from the wife of a detainee: A visit to prison
By Hoda Mahmoud Thursday the 6th of February 2014 was the first time I experienced a prison visit – an experience shared by thousands of Egyptian families. I used to know nothing of their suffering. Two days after Khaled, Nagi and the rest of the youth with them had been transferred, and after long attempts to find …
The Nasser restoration
Conservatives in Egypt – whether or not they admit to being so – will find themselves more content these days as matters seem to be rolling back to business as usual. As we live in a lull reminiscent of the Bourbon Restoration in France, a lot of the old is slugging it out with a …
Aleppo’s tears
By Dr Cesar Chelala “Aleppo was a large and terrifying town,” wrote the American writer Frederic Prokosch in his famed novel “The Asiatics”. This has been never truer than now, as I read about the barrel bomb attacks that have killed dozens of civilians just in a few days. I look at an October 2013 photograph of a …
Female Genital Mutilation affects 140m women
Practice still widespread in Africa, parts of Asia
Op-ed review: The deep state and Samy Anan
Has the deep state returned? Saad Eddin Ibrahim Al Masry Al Youm Newspaper Sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim begins his column by discussing the origin of the term “deep state”. He explains that the term is traced back to Turkish sociologists who realised that despite the change in Turkish authority since the 1920s, some bureaucratic practices …
Will Libya’s football victory help unite the country?
Will Libya’s stunning football triumph help reinforce national identity against profound threats of division?
Conflicts wracking Egyptian football reflect country’s political malaise
By James M. Dorsey Multiple conflicts between Egypt’s military-backed government and the country’s foremost soccer clubs that pit militant soccer fans against both Egypt’s autocratic leaders and club managers could force world soccer governing body FIFA to suspend Egypt. The disputes reflect the broader crisis that has shipwrecked Egypt’s transition from autocracy to a politically more …
What happens after the presidential elections?
This article’s title was supposed to be “What happens after electing Al-Sisi?” but I changed my mind, and hence the current title. That is because I still have hope that Al-Sisi will choose the third scenario, which includes cooperating with democratic entities to support a certain candidate for presidency. This candidate will also be accepted …
Op-ed review: Let’s listen to them this time
Alaa Al-Aswany Al Masry Al Youm Writer Alaa Al-Aswany begins his article with a story concerning the subway, also known as the metro. Al-Aswany explains that in each metro, there is a cart reserved solely for women, however, this rule is often broken. One time, a woman decided to take action against some men who …
I’m not a journalist – but the least I can do is salute them
“One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand the popular feelings and give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable elements; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects.” Mahatma Ghandi I’m not a journalist. My father was a journalist, on and off, for around two decades. …
Impunity
In the past month, as a journalist, I was involved in discussions with several organisations that defend and protect journalists on the best way to handle Egypt’s crackdown on journalists and how to protect them. My opinion was always the same: in a country that follows no law, there can be no protection. There is …
Meet Reem
Reem is a cleaning lady and a mother of four. She has been married twice though neither ex-husband supports his children financially or otherwise. Reem is on her own raising her children. Reem is among the working poor. Although she works full time, she barely meets basic needs. All four of her children show signs …
Who cares about Animal Rights?
“Animal rights are of no concern to me until human rights are abided by” is the opinion of many, if not most, Egyptians. But what if people knew that sexual harassers, serial killers and child abusers all started off as animal offenders? Animal rights are an integrated part of human rights, as violence is a …
How to defeat bullying
By Dr Cesar Chelala For Iranian eight-year-old Mahan Rahimi life had become a torment. Because he was going bald due to an unknown illness, he was the target of unceasing bullying from his companions at school. He had become one of the millions of children and adolescents who suffer the daily consequences of bullying throughout the …
When Egypt targets journalists, denial remains the name of the game
By Jonathan Moremi On 29 December, 2013, three journalists working for the Al Jazeera English TV channel in Egypt – the Cairo Bureau Chief Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian, Peter Greste, a renowned Australian journalist, and the Egyptian Producer Baher Mohamed – were arrested in their rooms of the Marriott Hotel in Cairo, their equipment was …
Op-ed review: Youths and the army
Six misguided groups and a surviving one Ezzedine Choukri Fishere Columnist Ezzedine Choukri Fishere wonders how it is possible that even though the majority of voters are made up of young people, they are not present in the political scene by running for parliament or the presidency. He writes that he found the answer to …
On being Karman and Hamzawy
We live in strange days where events change at dizzying velocity and people’s stances change even faster. Voltaire once noted; “Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.” In one of those troublesome opinions, women rights activist, self proclaimed revolutionary and Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman caused a stir recently through …
The Arab World: History of Revolts and Global Nexus
By Fadi Elhusseini In the fractious, conflict-rife Arab world, described for a long time as immune against democratic transformation, revolts have snuck in, toppling some regimes and shaking the thrones of others. Almost three years have passed since the advent of the Arab Spring and statesmen and decision-makers have been trying to analyse these historic …
A history of dispossession
By Dr Cesar Chelala Increasing acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have been repeatedly denounced. Together with the increasing number of settlements being built on Palestinian land, those acts of violence betray justice and seriously undermine the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In 2007, Israeli prosecutors established that of …
Turkish match fixing: A precursor to corruption scandal rocking the government
By James M. Dorsey When Aziz Yildirim, the head of Turkey’s foremost soccer club, Fenerbahce SK, recently denounced an appeals court decision upholding his conviction in a massive match fixing scandal, he drew a parallel with a construction-related corruption scandal that is rocking the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and pitting the country’s …
Egypt’s elections draw near amid unrest
Violence sweeps country as charismatic general waits in wings
On revolutionary depression
What an anniversary! I am not sure how many are familiar with the term “revolutionary depression”, but it’s a condition that was so common this last week in Egypt. If you did not run into one of those who were complaining about their revolutionary depression, then it is your own fault for keeping such a …
EBRD hiding head in the sand on Egypt democracy
By Kuba Gogolewski Individual rights, gender equality, freedom of religion, freedom of thought and opinion, freedom of press, the right to go on strike — all these and other rights and freedoms are enshrined in the new constitution that Egyptians voted overwhelmingly in favour of. But do these words turn Egypt overnight into a democracy? …
Op-ed review: Marrying into Al-Sisi’s family
Ezzedine Choukri Fishere Al-Masry Al-Youm Newspaper Columnist Ezzedine Choukri Fishere chose to create an analogy for the current political scene in Egypt, with each political entity becoming a family, similar to the mob families seen in action movies. In the analogy, Egypt is a small village made of farmers and peasants. “When there was a …
Is Al-Sisi’s nomination settled?
I write this on the evening of Monday, 27 January and I still believe that Al-Sisi has not made up his mind on nominating himself for presidency. I wondered if this thought was due to what I read from the current political scene or is it what I am hoping for based on an accurate …
Stuck
On 24 January Egypt was rocked by a number of explosions all over. Al-Qaeda offshoot “Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis”, claimed responsibility, and the Ministry of Interior acted accordingly went and ambushed leftist activist Nazly Hussein at the Maadi Metro station on the 25th and charged her of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Nazly, she …
Death of a nation’s conscience- A revolution isolated
By Wael Eskandar Setting aside miracles, something about the story of Jesus seemed incomprehensible to me when I was younger. I found myself wondering how people were so willing to cheer on Jesus’ crucifixion although he had done nothing but preach values of goodness. After three years of preaching, he was smeared and condemned to …