Cairo Post

I talked to Pulitzer-prize winning author Lawrence Wright (The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11) at the end of last month for a long interview in the Daily Star Egypt. Wright was in Cairo for three years in the late 60s and early 70s; he was a conscientious objector to Vietnam and came to study and teach at AUC instead. His book and now his one-man play, "My Trip to Al Qaeda," create a compelling narrative account of the lead-up to 9/11 and his own experience interviewing hundreds of subjects, from Saudi princes to FBI agents to jihadists, for his book.

Read the full interview here.  

An excerpt:

What would you say to people who describe 9/11, its precursors and the years since as part of an inherent clash of civilizations?

Well, for one thing it’s not inherent. Islam and the West have clashed in the past and have not clashed. There is nothing inevitable about it. Also, I think it’s wrong to think of it as a clash between civilizations, because Islam is not really a civilization but a religion that exists in civilizations all over the world. That is a mischaracterization. I think that, for the most part, the clashes come from a clash of identity within civilizations that feel threatened.

In Belgium, for example, the number one name for a child born today is Mohammed, which isn’t that surprising because Mohammed is the most popular name in the whole world right now. But if you were someone of Flemish ancestry, you must be saying to yourself, where is this going? What is happening to my country’s history and language, our precious place in the world? And if you’re Mohammed you’re probably thinking, they speak for someone else; I’m not one of them.

And it’s very likely that Mohammed has never been to Morocco, or may not even speak Arabic. But he’s really lost. It’s not surprising that he goes off to this mosque and associates with other angry and alienated young men and that Islam becomes more than a religion; it becomes a complete identity. That is why I call it a clash of identity within civilizations. It’s different wherever you go. It’s different in Europe than in the Middle East. It’s different in Indonesia. There are many different expressions of these feelings of alienation, rather than this clash of civilizations.

Alexandria’s hubristic tagline, ‘gem of the Hellenistic world,’ is more justified by history than by ruins, which are noticeably short in a city running off the sea breeze and an imagination of its busy, layered past. 

It is still a meeting point of religions (ancient Egypt meets ancient Greece and Rome; Coptic Christianity and Islam) whose ancient monuments are a scattered shred of a city whose history includes Alexander the Great and Cleopatra.

Most of ancient, Rome-rivaling Alexandria is under layers of sediment and building, or underwater. The Roman catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqqafa, discovered in 1900 when the ground gave through for a passing donkey, are most interesting for their Roman-Egyptian wall art – think Anubis in a tunic.

Read the rest of my bit at the Daily Star Egypt.

I don’t know how much coverage this is getting in the States — on Monday, 34 constitutional amendments will go to vote by referendum, and this being Egypt, via vote-rigging and low turnout, they will pass. Among the controversial changes to the country’s constitution:

1.) Tight "anti-terror" laws that greatly expands surveillance and arrest ability. Like the Patriot Act in the States, only more thuggish.

2.) President Mubarak can dissolve parliament unilaterally, when he wants

3.) A new government-appointed election commission to "certify" results, finally cutting out that pain of an independent judiciary

4.) Banning political organization on religious lines, theoretically outlawing the Muslim Brotherhood once and for all

Listening to the frustrated opposition, the country seems on the verge of social disaster (the economy’s already accounted for). These will pass. There is another protest scheduled for Sunday, and the secular and religious opposition have somewhat joined together, as Mubarak’s amendments target all dissidents.

The US doesn’t care at all. Condoleeza Rice will probably skirt comment more than State Dept spokesman Sean McCormack did last week. The saddest point is that amid the cynicism, doubt and anger in the region when American set out to "free Iraq and its people" in 2003 were glimmers, if only for a moment, of some believing the hype. What else could you do?

Sec. Rice told a crowd at AUC two years ago “For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.

Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people."

She will forget she said that in Aswan Sunday, when she meets with the Arab Quartet. She will say that Mubarak is a vital ally, that Israel wants peace and nothing else, and that "the arc of time" will reveal the genius of a America’s plan, planting seeds of "political reform" across the region.

Many updates in the coming days. Busy at the Daily Star, which has upped coverage in the past few days. Here’s a piece on the official American reaction here in Cairo that I did, and a piece today on the despair of two leading activists/bloggers written by a friend.

Protests in downtown Cairo orgainzed by the Kefaya reform movement and opposition political parties against proposed constitutional amendments ended in a forced sit-in of some 200 protesters outside a party headquarters, surrounded by ranks of state security. Over 30 were detained after protests began at 5pm and by 8pm activists gathered outside the Tagammu party building on a narrow side street as rows of uniformed and plainclothes security agents pushed down the one-way side street, blocking the exit, and minor clashses flared. Activists demanded the release of detainees, 12 of whom were released by Friday morning. The rest was just released early this evening.

Here are two reports of the protests that Adam Makary and I did, one for Al Jazeera and one for the Daily Star Egypt.  

A story I wrote for the Daily Star last week on a few American students who went to Palestine. Photo by friend Greg Jeske, a documentary photographer and student at AUC.

From Thursday’s story in the Daily Star Egypt, more photos of the textile factory in the mid-Delta city of Shibin Al-Kom.

The Spinning and Weaving Factory, state-owned until recently sold to an Indian company, which took over operations this past Thursday. We talked to a security guard, quoted  in the story, who eventually led us on a quick tour of a mill.

The first mill, where workers stopped and smiled at our guide, who was head of security.

Walking out of the main gate and down the main street along the factory, we saw a crowd of men walking down the street. Was there going to be a protest? Some anticipation. We walked down toward the crowd, over sticky, newly paved blacktop, and then a loud siren, prison-break-style, went off in the tower. Time for work. It was 3:00, and went off at 3:15. The evening shift, 3-11pm.

Talking to workers on the street, some reluctant, terse, others crowding around to see who we were and what others were telling us. We met one worker who, after talking to Adam for a bit, was leading us down the street, back to the factory and inside through the workers’ entrance, before the main gate.

We criss-crossed through the complex, down big factory roads and mill houses, before going inside one, maybe three or four rows from the main gate. We’d been thinking there wasn’t going to be much of a story, just one security guard and some workers on the street, reluctant. But we were led through rows of spinning machines by a 19-year-employee who only gave his first name, Ashraf, talking to worker after worker on our way to an upstairs office looking over factory floor. We sat and talked to a manager and two other men in the office, and had tea over explanations of their wages - a pound an hour, 8 hours a day, paid each month - and the sale to the Indian company. Then they showed the new working conditions under globalization — one worker to a machine that otherwise had three. Workers gathering in pockets row after row told us how it was impossible for one man to work a machine — “look at him over there, he cannot keep up with the machine.”

Full Story coming today in The Daily Star Egypt. Photos by Frederick Deknatel.

A lot in the village of Temoua, in southern Giza. The main drag of Temoua St., a few blocks away, was lined with about a dozens of state security and police trucks on Saturday afternoon. They arrived sometime in the morning after a gas truck exploded here around 1.30 am. When the government arrived exactly wasn’t clear — on Temoua St. officers said they first arrived soon after the blast, though people in village said no one was there until 11. Three officers on Temoua St. did not know when the rubble would be cleared. Crowds of children in the neighborhood were standing around and playing around the blown-up truck site, kicking gas tanks. One kid picked up the truck’s muffler when I took a photo.

The truck was loaded with hundreds of gas tanks, and Adam Makary was talking to people there who said the gas was for residents to use. First one tank ignited, then another blew — 3 blasts, accorinding to local witnesses. Firas al-Atrqchi, the DSE’s editor, had taken video footage of the blasts from his Maadi apartment window, across the Nile and miles away, having heard the blasts from there. Perhaps I’ll try and post the clip.

The ruined, charred gas truck and tanks littered one end of the muddy lot in Temoua on Saturday afternoon. Across from the rubble, on the two far ends of the lot, two other trucks, also loaded with gas tanks, were parked, apparently moved in that day, according to residents. There is a storage facility near Temoua and other sources said the exploded truck had been parked overnight on its way there. Fortunately no one was hurt, although two similar explosions occurred elsewhere very recently, as our story reports, causing two deaths. 

So when will the rubble be moved? Late last August, my first week in Egypt, I was on a train to Alexandria four days after the major train crash just north of Cairo that killed 58 people, and we passed the wreckage, lying on the side of the tracks.

Been off here for a while. Arrived back in Cairo a little over a week ago; a two week break in the States was full of family, friends, great food, and cold, cold weather. Hoping to get into more of a routine on the CP like in the balmy days of September and October.  I felt hot in a taxi for the first time in a while today — high of 73, sunny — maybe a shift to warmer weather will bring back regular posting.

I’m continuing to write for the Daily Star Egypt, with a number of stories before I left Cairo in mid-January and a few since returning back last week. Building up an archive, here’s the file so far: 

The strange case files of Egypt-Israel espionage (Feb. 5, 2007)

No easy opinions in America on Bush, future direction (Jan. 31 ,2007) 

Political activism continues to create a buzz on Egypt’s political blogs (Jan. 15, 2007) 

Egypt teen finds his game squashing the best (Jan. 14, 2007) 

Torture victim sentenced to three months in jail (Jan. 13-14, 2007) 

New web portal to improve Iraq news coverage (Jan. 5, 2007)

Saddam execution reopens Iraq discussions in Cairo (Dec. 28, 2007)

I just started interning at the Daily Star Egypt and my first story was Wednesday evening, getting reactions in Cairo to the news that Saddam Hussein is to be executed. Here it is.

SADDAM EXECUTION REOPENS IRAQ DISCUSSIONS IN CAIRO
Some call Bush a terrorist
By Frederick Deknatel
First Published: December 28, 2006

CAIRO: The decision of an Iraqi court to uphold the death sentence given to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein opened the door to many discussions about Iraq among Cairenes with many expressing concern for the deteriorating situation in the war-ravaged Arab country.

Opinions were framed around the dire situation in Iraq and the wider political climate in the region, and responses often included harsh words for US president George W. Bush and his decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.

The escalating sectarian violence in Iraq, in the minds of many in the Egyptian capital, has rendered Hussein’s fate irrelevant.

"His term is up," said Hamdi abd Al Said, a taxi cab driver. "But with all the people that have been killed, and everything that is happening in Iraq, it doesn’t matter. It’s finished."

Hussein was convicted of crimes against humanity earlier this year for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in Dujail, in northern Iraq. Earlier this week, a Baghdad appeals court upheld the decision that he should be hanged within 30 days.

Mohammed Hassan, a Khan al-Khalili storeowner who introduced himself as a Robert de Niro fan, disagreed with the execution:
“A prison sentence is better - for Bush. In prison he’s going to suffer, so Bush will feel happy.”

While admitting Hussein’s crimes, Hassan immediately wanted to shift the focus onto the violence in Iraq.

“It is Iraqis fighting Iraqis now, not Saddam or the Americans, and Bush did that, he instigated that," Hassan said.

"They knew everything that was going on. He and his father, before in Kuwait, had everything planned,” concluding that the situation now is the product of American foreign policy plans.

Hassan said Bush was a "terrorist" and asked “what about what he has done?”

But he maintained that he did not like Hussein.

Likewise, Wael Khalil, socialist activist and a member of the opposition group Kefaya, stressed that he doesn’t empathize with Hussein, but does not trust the verdict or the process.

“To put tyrants on trial is good, but it should be done by the public not by another tyrant… the occupation,” Khalil told The Daily Star Egypt when the verdict was first handed in November.

He said he doubts if the Americans are deceiving any one with their achievements in Iraq.

“No one is seeing the rule of law being applied there.” This also includes the unplanned results of the trial. “If [the Americans] are trying to rebuild [Hussein’s] image, they are doing a great job,” he added.

For cab driver Al Said, Hussein’s execution figured into a wider view. “I work from 10 to 7 every night. I sleep through daytime. I don’t have time to keep up with current events, but I still sympathize with struggles in the Arab world,” he said. “Egyptians have sympathy for everything.”

Hussein was a prominent Arab leader for decades and his deposal from power and the subsequent violence in Iraq, according to many in Cairo, reflected the ongoing impact of foreign, particularly American, influence.

Dr Mark Sedgwick, an Associate Professor of History at the American University in Cairo, told The Daily Star Egypt that while Hussein was "no longer very relevant," and that confirmation of his execution was “inevitable,” he was not “totally sure that it was a good thing because, basically, that’s the old story now. He did what he did and that era has finished."

Most of all, Sedgwick believed that Hussein’s trial "might have been an opportunity to show some mercy in a situation where mercy is in short supply."

The view of Hussein as tied to American foreign policy was continually mentioned.

"Saddam destroyed his country and his people," said a grocer downtown who asked that his name not be printed, "but he was a tool of American foreign policy – [like] Kuwait in 1991.”

Al-Said reiterated those sentiments: “It’s American foreign policy – everything he did – Iran, Kuwait – they gave him permission to do. He is not any better than the people who came before him.”

Mohammed Abdel Satar Ahmed, who has been driving a taxi for a year and a half since receiving a degree in engineering, revealed the dynamics of expressing political opinion in Egypt, saying first what he thought the government wants people to say: “I understand that the Iraqi court decided that Saddam would be executed by this date, but they won’t do it. I like Hussein and want to see him live.”

Then he demurred, saying the pressures on public speech from the government cuts off his and others opinions, that “they don’t let people think.” Instead, he said, “Saddam has to die, for all the reasons that are there.”

But he still wavered: “I’m not the one who should say he should or should not die, because he is an Arab just like me.”

The Egyptian government is cracking down on bloggers and writers who cover sectarian issues, journalist and website owner Hossam El-Hamalawy has said.

“To be frank, all the bloggers who have been arrested from their houses have been detained for [touching upon] religious matters. If other, [more politically oriented] bloggers are arrested, they are arrested at demonstrations," Hamalawy, whose blog is called 3arabawy (www.arabist.net/arabawy), told The Daily Star Egyp .

"[The government] lets people say what they want, but when they talk about sectarian issues, such as oppression of Coptic Christians or Islamic fundamentalist [rhetoric], they go nuts.”

El-Hamalawy mentioned numerous cases of bloggers who were arrested for commenting on sectarian issues, whether to highlight discrimination against Copts or, in one case, an Islamic fundamentalist who posted an anti-Coptic rant on his blog.

He added that in the case of political bloggers, they usually receive “phone threats … and intimidate you as in the case of Wael Abbas (a blogger who recently posted pictures of the alleged sexual attacks in downtown Cairo).”

On Monday, Abdel Karim Suliman Amer, also known as "Kareem Amer," a student blogger, was detained by state authorities and is being held in custody pending prosecution for his secular online writings in which he criticizes Islam, his lawyer told The Daily Star Egypt

The prosecutor’s office has remanded him for a further 15 days.

CAIRO: Over 250 people protested in front of the Press Syndicate on Thursday calling on the government to be held accountable for the allegedly widespread sexual harassment downtown during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday.

Surrounded by hundreds of soldiers and armored vehicles, the crowd was composed of women from all walks of life, including Egyptian and foreign students, veiled elderly women, bloggers and activists. Many men were also present, chanting and holding banners.

Organized by the Liberties Committee of the Press Syndicate, the Egyptian Committee for Women’s Rights, Kefaya and Nehdet El-Mahrousa, the crowd criticized Kasr El-Nil police station and also called for the resignation of both Interior Minister Habib Al-Adli and President Hosni Mubarak.

“This means we are not going to be pushed off the street,” said Aida Seif El-Dawla, a member of activist organization The Street is Ours and a professor of psychology at Ain Shams University.

“This is what we said after the harassment of May 25; it is what we are saying now and it is what we are saying tomorrow.”

“The street belongs to the citizens and we have the right to walk in it without fear. We should all live in safety and freedom.”

Banners and chants echoed this demand, with placards demanding greater legal and police protections against sexual harassment.

“The police protect Mubarak!” demonstrators chanted. “The police protect his heir! The police protect corruption! The police do not protect the people!”

The Eid incidents were first reported by bloggers who claimed that they saw hundreds of men chasing and groping women in the streets of downtown Cairo during the Eid.

According to witnesses, the mob attacked women regardless of their dress, ripping off their veils and clothes. Eyewitnesses said that even women who were accompanied by their husbands weren’t spared after their husbands were beaten and pushed aside.

During the Eid, Kasr El-Nil police station denied that any such attacks took place.

“It’s true, it happened,” said Mustafa, who works at a juice shop on Talaat Harb Street. “I hid some girls in my store myself.”

The incidents were reported in other local and international media in the weeks that followed.

Mohamed Gamal, a blogger who witnessed the incident in front of Metro Cinema argues that the Egyptian government should be held accountable for its failure to protect the people.

“It is the duty of our government to provide security to all Egyptian citizens,” he says. “The security forces are only protecting the regime instead of the Egyptian people.

“Today we are surrounded by security,” he said, gesturing toward the lines of riot police encircling the protestors. “The security forces are simply protecting the regime, and not the people.”

But Khaled Sallam, a student at AUC, said he could not hold the government directly responsible for the alleged incidents.

“I think there is a state of moral bankruptcy in Egypt, and I think it is caused by the restrictions on pre-marital sex.”

Holding a megaphone, women shared their experiences of sexual harassment with the crowd.

“At first I thought it was just us,” said Kelly Kerr, an American student studying in Cairo, “But then I realized it happens to everyone. We came here because we want to help our Egyptian friends.”

“People try to give different reasons for why this happens — delayed marriage, sexual repression. I don’t care. Whatever conditions men are under, women are under the same conditions. There is no excuse for their behavior,” said Nour El-Tahawy, a veiled middle-aged Egyptian.