Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
‘Non’-Romantic Sectarianism
By Nervana Mahmoud Beni Suef– A story of romance has turned ugly and led to eruption of another round of sectarianism in Egypt. Rana El-Shazli, a 21-year-old Egyptian Muslim woman, is believed to have converted to Christianity and fled to Turkey with a Coptic Christian man. Although interfaith relationships are common across the globe, …
Egypt and the IMF: Between rhetoric & reality
By: Mohamed A. Fouad In a recently televised interview given to Al-Jazeera Channel, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has asserted that the delay in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) negotiations is largely due to “Egypt’s refusal to succumb to the IMF’s terms”. This marks the continuation of rhetoric which attempts to politicise a simple loan. This rhetoric …
Your mission, if you choose to accept it…
The moment I heard of the closure of Egypt Independent I felt solemn and gloomy. I knew that this was always a possibility, especially with their financial troubles, but this has been the case for a while now, and the suddenness of its shutdown shocked me as well as most of its readers. Suddenly I …
Barbatoze
Sherif Adel’s weekly look at Egypt’s events.
Obsessive-compulsive morality disorder
On Friday, Islamists surrounded the St George church in Beni Suef demanding the return of a 21 year-old Muslim woman whom they alleged was kidnapped and converted last November by the church in order to allow her to marry her Christian boyfriend. Well, it turns out she did run away with her boyfriend—only he wasn’t …
OpEds find Lent in Egypt hard to swallow
Sunday 28 April is known as Palm Sunday, a feast before Easter, commemorating Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. It also marks the last week of Lent, and so it is a cause for celebration. However, columnists pondered on this year’s Palm Sunday as a bittersweet event. Morsi in the Church: Oh black day! Hamdi Rezk Al …
Bailing out
By: Philip Whitfield Robert Browning (1812 –1889) is a favourite poet among high schoolers: Judge people by what they might be – not are, nor will be. Seems their parents and teachers are taking him to heart. I’m getting more invitations these days to farewell parties. It’s not a lemming-like flight. It’s a dolorous brain drain. …
It’s the people, not the paper
In another country, at another time, writing about the Egypt Independent might be considered writing about the competition. After all, there are only a few English-language dailies in Egypt – and fewer that are not reliant on state funding. But writing about the Egypt Independent is not writing about a competitor – it’s writing about …
The minister of ‘sexual harassment’
The Egyptian Minister of Information has done it yet again. In a press conference last Thursday, Salah Metwally Abdel Maqsoud repeated the innuendo that got him in trouble only a week before. Receiving questions on the journalistic content of state TV from a female journalist, who accused him of offering the same content as the …
Op-Eds discuss the Judiciary reform project
The issue of reforming Egypt’s Judiciary is on the mind of many columnists in today’s papers. The project for reforming the Judiciary was submitted to the Shura Council on Wednesday 17 April, followed by a protest on Friday 19 April demanding the same thing, which was called for by the Muslim Brotherhood. On the Judiciary …
Copts in Egypt: roots of discrimination
A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article right here on sectarianism in Egypt. The feedback I got was a wave of phone calls and emails all acknowledging the existence of sectarianism. In fact, there are some who called me and expressed their relief that finally we are talking about our sectarian problems without …
Revolving Doors: Egypt deputy finance minister quits
By Farah Halime, Rebel Economy Egypt’s deputy finance minister, Hany Kadry Dimian, has left his post after six years in the ministry, a source at the finance ministry told Rebel Economy, delivering a blow to the country’s chances of concluding a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Mr Dimian, who has served as the deputy …
Wear your whip to work week
Adel Heine’s weekly column
In other words: Who is the alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Before answering this question, ask yourself: Has the Muslim Brotherhood succeeded in running the country? I ask this as someone who considers himself relatively involved in the country’s political circuit, who does not seek to judge the Muslim Brotherhood based on his own political convictions; however at the same time I do not pretend to …
Leader’s Death Provides New Focus on Egypt’s Jews
Funeral offers rare vision of interfaith harmony
The multi-talented Pakinam El Sharkawy
On 21 April, the internet exploded when an “untrue” (as far as we know) piece of news was revealed. It was that President Mohamed Morsi’s aide, Pakinam El Sharkawy, would be assigned to the post of vice-president of our glorious (ahem) nation. Instead of it being a joyous event over the possible rise of women …
Cabinet reshuffle: Bad News
It was quite surprising to sense optimism in some people’s voices when they received news on the cabinet reshuffle, disrespectfully announced in a tweet by Morsi. All the signs indicate an even worse government taking over. First of all the prime minister remains, which means that inadequacy will continue to be the main characteristic of the new cabinet. For …
Short takes
1 Egyptian revolutionaries suffer from the silly habit of always getting sucked into fighting in side-battles, and the latest batch of laws coming out of the Shura Council are a prime example. Whether the new NGO law, the new protest law, or the new judiciary law, the different groups are each fighting to apply …
Justice in Boston and Cairo
By Mina George Yassa Watching the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers unfold live on TV, I cannot help but feel a certain sense of awe at the precise and methodical nature of law enforcement in the United States. At times, even in between the conflicting reports and hearsay, there was certain senses of inevitability …
The Protocols of the Elders of Moqattam
The dust had barely settled in Boston last week when, like virulent microorganisms, conspiracy theories began to multiply exponentially on cyberspace in an attempt to ascertain who was responsible for the bombings—and, in keeping with the genre, some of the answers were typically atypical. The human mind is a pattern-finder par excellence, like no other …
Cherish freedom
By: Philip Whitfield How do you feed your prejudice? Choosing what bits to read? Or who to hang out with? It’s an infectious disease. One minute you’re as tolerant as can be, the next you’re ranting about someone’s views. We are all united in a crisis, says Nancy Taylor, pastor of the Old South Church …
Seif pharmacies, racism and bringing down the Ikhwan
On Wednesday, Egyptian activists were in a frenzy. One of the most well-known pharmaceutical chains in Egypt, Seif Pharmacies, was in deep water after one of their appointed pharmacists refused to take money from a Nubian Egyptian for “being black”. Unfortunately for him, it was outspoken Nubian film director, Nada Zatouna. She went online and …
The Revolutionary Connection
Unfortunately, revolutions come at a price. The whole idea of revolting is to destroy the connection with the status quo, and this connection can be broken in two main ways. You either break the connection, celebrate its destruction, propose a different status quo, implement it and build a new connection; or simply break the connection, …
The Secret to Reviving the Arab Spring’s Promise: Property Rights
By Hernando De Soto The protests that toppled governments were fueled by anger over the lack of a basic element in market economies Al Qaeda is resurgent in Mali, Algeria and beyond. Violent turmoil and anti-Western hostility are rising in the Middle East and North Africa. Two years after the Arab Spring, it would be easy …
Prosperity of the East’s nouveau riche moves toward entanglement with the West
By Rasheed Hammouda No event more perfectly captures the changing relationship between the Gulf powers and their western counterparts than the ongoing investigation into the 2008 Barclays bailout by Qatar. It was reported earlier this year that the nearly year-long investigation by the UK’s Financial Services Authority and Serious Fraud Office has turned to investigating …
Culture defies religion
Adel Heine’s weekly column
Boston and the Arab World: Where the Bombs Begin
By Jonathan Moremi When I saw the second plane fly into the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 – there was shock on my face and horror. Not, because this happened to the US, but because I knew that this happened to humans. The single mother battling hard with her two children after her …
Qatar sees soccer as tool to give foreigners an unprecedented stake in society
By James M. Dorsey Qatar, in a break with Gulf reluctance to give foreign nationals a stake in their host nations, plans to create a soccer league for low-skilled or un-skilled guest workers who account for the majority of the country’s population. The decision follows this month’s successful organisation of a soccer tournament for foreign …
The responsibility of opposition
For months, from these pages and elsewhere, I have written a rather large number of articles criticising the conduct and performance of Egypt’s post-uprising political forces. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which resumed power after Hosni Mubarak, gave a good deal of material for me to work with. I knew at the …
Is there no other alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood?
It has been repeated many times in recent months that there exists no alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood in terms of selecting a group capable and organised enough to rule Egypt. Other organisations, it has been claimed, lack unity, do not have enough popular political support, or have no clear vision for a political platform. …