#as in 2011??? as in the Arab Spring and the 2011 Egyptian Revolution???

[age-of-moonknight]

“Danse Macabre,” Moon Knight (Vol. 9/2021), #25.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Pencilers and Inkers: Alessandro Cappuccio, Alessandro Vitti, and Partha Pratim; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[irhabiya]

hey could I ask where I could learn more about the arab spring? I can’t find many resources and most of them are very American. I’m asking partially because my parents mentioned a massacre that happened at a mosque around that time, but I can’t find much of that? They used to study in Egypt which is why they were horrified to hear about the brutality those years ago. Sorry if this sounds disrespectful you can ignore it if so. I just want to better understand the unrest in Egypt that I assume is still ongoing today with Sisi

hi sweetheart <3 this isn't disrespectful at all don't worry

unfortunately i don't really have any specific resources i can point you towards that aren't riddled with usamerican propaganda or leave out key details but i remember reading this article from a while back and it was pretty succinct. read it with a discerning eye and lmk if you have any further questions about the points they raised

the massacre your parents are referencing is probably the Rabaa massacre which happened in august of 2013, the biggest massacre in modern egyptian history. military and police forces killed an estimated 1000 protestors, most of whom were supporters of the muslim brotherhood, some others were simply opposed to the military regaining power.

the main key points you need to understand about egypt's modern history, contemporary history, and the arab spring as a whole, are the following:

egypt had been effectively ruled by a military ruling class since the 50's. nasser's presidency oversaw anti-imperialist policies and policies favoring the working class, but he basically laid out groundwork for 70+ years of military dictatorship

anwar al saddat's presidency involved lots of dramatic changes to our domestic and foreign policies, namely privatization of many sectors, introducing neoliberalism to the country, signing the camp david agreements with israel

mubarak's presidency was essentially a 30 years long continuation of sadat's neoliberalism and corruption, things got worse by the day for your average working class egyptian

the 2011 25th of january revolution in egypt was sparked due to worsening living conditions, and protests igniting many of the neighboring countries. namely tunisia, where street vendor mohammed bouazizi self immolated in protest of harassment he had been receiving from government officials.

it's important to note here that even before the protests in tunisia, there had been dissent from the egyptian working class, many factory workers went on strikes in protest such as in mahalla

the 2011 revolution was not ideologically coherent, in the sense that everyone, from all different political ideologies joined in, from the Muslim brotherhood to leftist coalitions. this will be important for understanding why it fell short of achieving long term goals. it managed to force hosni mubarak to step down

the MB's candidate, mohammed morsi won the 2012 elections, which sparked a lot of upheaval from leftists, liberals and religious minorities such as copts.

in june of 2013, mass protests broke out against his regime demanding that he step down from power, the us-backed military hijacked the protests and enacted a coup which reinstalled the military regime with sisi as president. protestors of the new regime, whether in support of morsi or not, were massacred in Rabaa and other locations leaving an estimated 1000 protestors dead

it's important to note here that it was later revealed that certain groups which were involved in the 2013 counter-revolution were funded and backed by gulf states (mainly the UAE iirc, i need to fact check that though). there was a marked increase in organized violence from these groups (tamarod was one of them) out of nowhere and it all played out in the military's favor in the end, which isn't a coincidence considering who are their biggest allies in the region. i don't think this was covered in the article above

there has been unprecedented efforts of censorship in the country since then, a complete crackdown on dissent. journalists get jailed for tweeting things opposed to the regime all the time. egyptian prisons (which aren't exactly known to be the most humane) are filled with political prisoners. this current regime is the one the US and their gulf allies backed and endorsed, we get billions of dollars in military aid from the US in exchange for carrying out their imperialist interests in the middle east. as for living conditions, it only gets worse by the day for your average egyptian. most major cities are riddled with slums, inflation is through the roof, unemployment is high, most people can barely afford basic necessities, our infrastructure is in desperate need of maintenance and renovations, our economy is almost entirely financed by the US (even putting military aid aside), the UAE, and saudi arabia. and we're drowning in debt. we take imf loans like, every other month lmfao it's bad

a lot happened within the span of 3 years, this is all not to say that the MB were good, not in the slightest. but the US once again interfering with a foreign country's domestic affairs to secure their interests has resulted in nothing but devastation for the overwhelming majority of the people living here.

as for the arab spring as a whole, i think it's disingenuous when people dismiss its entirety as western backed conflict. even though a lot of it is exactly that (see: libya), especially in countries where the revolutions kind of bled into them rather than already having brewing tensions from working class people suffering worsening conditions. in tunisia and egypt, there was already a lot unrest within their populations over material conditions, which is why i mentioned the mahalla strikes. it's a shame our revolution didn't have more coherent, stronger socialist organizers, it's a shame it was killed and hijacked before we ever got to reap its benefits

[mariacallous]

U.S. President Joe Biden talked about democracy vs. autocracy a lot in his early days in office. This was an attempt to reinvigorate democracy as a source of American soft power. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was an opportunity to drive home the message of this new geopolitical challenge to surmount. The democracy summits were an attempt to build on Biden’s vision, even though they were flawed in their criteria of which countries to include. Nevertheless, the third democracy summit in Seoul has drowned in the fog of the Israel-Hamas war. The administration’s management of the crisis has acted as a wrecking ball on the framework it was trying to build. While the United States has repeatedly blocked attempts at a permanent cease-fire, China is appealing to the global south by acknowledging the Palestinian right to armed resistance at the International Court of Justice. Allowing the conflict to drag on will keep discrediting the United States, elevate the standing of China and Russia, and undermine the prospects of democracy globally. And current events in Egypt, a historic strategic partner to the United States, showcase the consequences of this inertia.

An initial commitment to democracy in the Middle East came from then-President George W. Bush. In 2005, pressure from Bush’s administration resulted in Egypt’s first competitive presidential election, marking a significant shift in its political landscape. (Before that date, presidents renewed their mandate through referenda.) This first election gave a new life to the first movement that defied then-President Hosni Mubarak’s grip over power, Kifaya (Arabic for “enough”). A new generation became politically engaged, and, according to V-Dem datasets, there was a rise in participation in independent political associations. This new generation led Egypt’s revolution in 2011.

Barack Obama’s speech at Cairo University in 2009 was a rare moment when an American president visiting an Arab country was warmly welcomed. He promised a “new beginning” with the Muslim world after the shocking invasion of Iraq by Bush’s administration. The peak alignment with America’s calls for democracy happened during the Arab Spring of 2011, when the youth in Tahrir Square agitated to overthrow Mubarak with Obama’s support.

When Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took power in 2014, he identified Egypt’s evolving civil society, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, as threats he needed to take down in order to avoid a fate like Mubarak’s. Sisi’s regime has been characterized by a crackdown on dissent, with civil society actors who align with Western values of human rights and democracy labeled as traitors. The United States has come under continuous attack by state-sponsored media as a sponsor of chaos in the region; this propaganda in turn has worked to discredit the Western model of democracy. Meanwhile, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s favorite dictator received little pushback from an administration that did not have democracy on its agenda.

Over the same period, relations with Russia and China have grown stronger. While Mubarak maintained a good relationship with Moscow, Russia’s presence in Egypt mainly came through grain exports and tourism. Since Sisi took power in 2014, Cairo’s pivot toward Moscow was highlighted by the agreement in 2015 for Rosatom to build the first nuclear power plant on Egyptian soil—one of Russia’s most critical strategic wins in the region. Egypt’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine involved a provisional agreement to supply rockets to Russia and refusing to block its airspace to Russian fighter jets. Sisi justified this stance when he met American House Intelligence Committee leaders in Cairo: “When the U.S. conditions some of its arms sales and shipments to Egypt, what do you really want me to do?”  (Jim Himes, the committee’s ranking member, recounted this interaction with Sisi in an interview with CNN.) The U.S. has, since Obama, been putting conditions to uphold human rights on its aid to Egypt, which is the second-largest recipient of U.S. military assistance after Israel. Although blocks on aid usually involve a small proportion of the $1.3 billion sent annually, China and Russia offer arms deals with no such strings attached.

Cairo, too, has been moving closer to Beijing over the past decade, with Chinese investments increasing by more than 317 percent from 2017 to 2022. Because of the growing Chinese maritime presence in Egyptian ports, Egypt anticipates substantial Chinese investments in the Suez Canal region. Besides rapidly growing trade with China, Egypt’s government has had its state media adopt a Chinese propaganda narrative, organized bilateral leadership programs with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and allowed for Chinese expansion in the telecommunications sector and cyberspace. Only faint liberal voices within the minimal independent media space challenged the Egyptian official narrative that has championed China as a model of autocratic economic development.

Enclaves of activists and civil society leaders in Egypt and abroad have continued to challenge the Sisi regime, primarily through social media, and to support all those oppressed and imprisoned by him. Their pressures began to yield some results after Biden took office. His administration extended a show of support by highlighting human rights abuses in Department of State reports and withholding a small portion of military aid. Although the United States refused to increase the amount of withheld aid as called for by international human rights organizations, this helped ease some pressure on Egyptian activists. In 2022, and ahead of COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, and in an attempt to improve its image in response to the mounting U.S. pressure, Egypt  released a considerable number of political prisoners, the issued a national human rights strategy, and  establishmed a national dialogue between the regime and the opposition figures who remained inside Egypt. The results of these concessions were minimal, and some, like the human rights strategy and the dialogue, were merely cosmetic maneuvers. Nevertheless, they all happened after incoming U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken openly criticized the arrest of staffers from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) and Biden excluded Egypt from the democracy summits. Egyptian activists understood that any wins, however limited, could be achieved through U.S. support. This was particularly evident in campaigns to release high-profile prisoners like Alaa Abdel Fattah. The war in Gaza has severely compromised this premise.

The Biden administration’s backing of Israel and the repeated American vetoes used in the U.N. Security Council to prevent a permanent cease-fire have slashed the United States’ popularity in Egypt to 9 percent, compared with 46 percent for China, as shown in a survey by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The acute rise in anti-American sentiment is not the only result of what the public perceives as hypocrisy and double standards in America’s approach to the conflict. As shown by the survey, a more alarming consequence is the prevalence of distrust in the Western model of democracy and human rights, increasingly perceived as mere rhetorical tools deployed by the United States when human rights align with U.S. interest. Revealing the extent to which this view has been adopted by the public, in its latest release the most famous Egyptian rock band, Cairokee, sang about a double-faced America that doesn’t value Palestinian lives as opposed to those of “white angels.”

What about Europe? Can it pick up America’s slack? Europe once supported democracy and human rights in Egypt, as evidenced by the resolution issued by the European Parliament in 2022 urging EU member states to support a monitoring and reporting mechanism on grave human rights violations in Egypt. But once the war in Gaza began, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged to support Sisi through financial aid packages to mitigate the refugee influx expected from Gaza—and to prevent new waves of migration to Europe.

Arab democracy and human rights advocates made it clear that they parted ways with the Western stance of support for Israel and stood firmly in solidarity with the Palestinians. As a result, human rights organizations have risked support from their partners in the West, and many have become even more isolated in their struggle under repressive regimes. For instance, Germany recently withheld funding for the anti-trafficking program of the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA) as a punishment to its head of the board of trustees, the award-winning human rights defender Azza Soliman, for signing a statement calling for the end of the war in Gaza and supporting the boycotting of the occupation. In solidarity, EIPR stopped all cooperation with the German government. The only winners from the weakening of civil rights organizations in Egypt are the authoritarians.

China and Russia have positioned themselves very well to capitalize on these developments. They did not rely solely on their official statements and positions in support of the ceasefire  in the U.N. Security Council, which has already enhanced their image considerably with the Arab public, as detected by the Washington Institute survey. The China in Arabic account on the X platform exemplifies how China is seizing the opportunity to spread anti-American rhetoric. The account spreads pro-Chinese and anti-Western propaganda in Arabic to more than 580,000 followers.

Moscow is already cashing in on these gains by hosting Palestinian factions, including Hamas, for reconciliation talks. China sees in the conflict an opportunity to expand its geopolitical role in the region while the United States is bogged down with Iranian proxies in Syria, Iraq, and the Red Sea, and it reaps political wins from the Houthi Red Sea attacks, which spare Chinese vessels and crew members. But those who have gained the most from the anti-American sentiment are the autocratic regimes of the region.

Sisi is relieved to have secured his third presidential term through a sham election. He blocked his main rival, Ahmed Tantawi, from running, and sentenced him after the election to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a ban from running in parliamentary elections for five years. Instead of calling out such violations, Western pressures were focused on mitigating the effects of the war and having an active Egyptian role in the day-after scenario despite its internal vulnerabilities. Nationalist and religious rhetoric has prevailed, even among activists on social media.

The United States needs to move fast to restore its image globally. This requires promptly ending the devastating war in Gaza and adopting a fair and balanced approach to the Middle East conflict. Promoting democracy should be repositioned at the center of American foreign policy to counter the global rise in authoritarianism championed by China and Russia. In parallel, measures should be taken to nudge autocratic allies in the region toward political reform. Economic and trade incentives should be linked to structural economic and political reforms. Judicial reform and unequivocal implementation of the rule of law should be mandated to guarantee the long-term efficacy of economic aid packages, as well as to extend solid support to freedom fighters unwilling to relinquish their struggles for democracy.

Pundits have criticized the Biden administration’s autocracy-vs.-democracy framework as an impractical approach to the geopolitical contest with China. Yet democratization and upholding human rights remain essential soft powers. Autocrats like Sisi already prefer aligning with China, who absolve them from any commitment to human rights. With support for China growing, displays of hard power such as military showdowns and trade wars will become the main arenas for competition.

[eccedeus]

There a lot of fantastic sources out there, many (many!) of them recommended by Palestinian and other MENA and/or Arab and/or Muslims users on here, but I wanted to share a list of what I have been taught/have read myself on contemporary MENA politics and history as a Westerner, and in the spirit of freedom of information and education for all, please DM if you cannot find any of the following:

The Square (2013), a documentary about the 2011 Egyptian revolution

-And as a follow-up, this article (Walter Armbrust, 2011, Al-Jazeera) about neoliberalism in Egypt and parallels to USAmerican neoliberal corruption

A History of the Modern Middle East, by William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton. It is not perfect, as no history book will ever be, but it does give a very comprehensive overview of central Middle Eastern history in the modern period, from the Ottoman Empire to Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and American (+Western) interventions leading up to and after 9/11. Chapter 17 in particular gives a solid overview of Israeli colonisation of Palestinian after the Nakba, but again it is definitely flawed in its own ways so keep that in mind

Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and nation: gender and the making of modern Egypt (1995)

Joseph A. Massad, Desiring Arabs (2007)

Lindsey Moore, Arab, Muslim, Woman: Voice and vision in postcolonial literature and film (2008)

Lisa Pollard and Mona L. Russell, History, Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East : From Orientalism to the Arab Spring (2018)

Mona Mikhail,  Images of Arab Women: Fact and Fiction, Essays (1979)

And if anyone has any sources to add on, please do so! I love finding more to read

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.11 (after 1950)

1953 – Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower denies all appeals for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. 1953 – Israeli-Soviet relations are severed. 1959 – The Federation of Arab Emirates of the South is created as a protectorate of the United Kingdom. 1963 — The Beatles recorded their first album Please Please Me. 1970 – Japan launches Ohsumi, becoming the fourth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster. 1971 – Cold War: the Seabed Arms Control Treaty opened for signature outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters. 1978 – Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314 crashes at the Cranbrook/Canadian Rockies International Airport in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada with 42 deaths and seven survivors. 1979 – The Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa after 27 years as a political prisoner. 1990 – Buster Douglas, a 42:1 underdog, knocks out Mike Tyson in ten rounds at Tokyo to win boxing's world Heavyweight title. 1997 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. 1999 – Pluto crosses Neptune's orbit, ending a nearly 20-year period when it was closer to the Sun than the gas giant; Pluto is not expected to interact with Neptune's orbit again until 2231. 2001 – A Dutch programmer launched the Anna Kournikova virus infecting millions of emails via a trick photo of the tennis star. 2008 – Rebel East Timorese soldiers seriously wound President José Ramos-Horta. Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado is killed in the attack. 2011 – Arab Spring: The first wave of the Egyptian revolution culminates in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and the transfer of power to the Supreme Military Council after 17 days of protests. 2013 – The Vatican confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI would resign the papacy as a result of his advanced age. 2013 – Militants claiming to be from the Sultanate of Sulu invade Lahad Datu District, Sabah, Malaysia, beginning the Lahad Datu standoff. 2014 – A military transport plane crashes in a mountainous area of Oum El Bouaghi Province in eastern Algeria, killing 77 people. 2015 – A university student was murdered as she resisted an attempted rape in Turkey, sparking nationwide protests and public outcry against harassment and violence against women. 2016 – A man shoots seven people dead at an education center in Jizan Province, Saudi Arabia. 2017 – North Korea test fires a ballistic missile across the Sea of Japan. 2018 – Saratov Airlines Flight 703 crashes near Moscow, Russia with 71 deaths and no survivors. 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization officially names the coronavirus outbreak as COVID-19, with the virus being designated SARS-CoV-2.

[summarychannel]

The Israeli army’s plan to displace the people of Gaza to Sinai, and the Zionist Defense Minister reveals the new reality of Gaza

Updates on the Al-Aqsa Flood operation presented in this episode of Samri Channel. Starting in Egypt, where tens of thousands of Egyptians demonstrated on Friday in Tahrir Square and various parts of Egypt in support of Gaza on the fourteenth day of the war between Israel and Hamas, according to journalists from Agence France-Presse and Egyptian media. Although demonstrations have been banned in Egypt since 2013, a large demonstration of thousands took place after Friday prayers from Al-Azhar Mosque, and a large number of its participants were able to reach Tahrir Square in the heart of Cairo, the epicenter of the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

The demonstrators chanted slogans in support of the Palestinians, inspired by the slogans of the Arab Spring, including: “Live, freedom is an Arab Palestine.” They chanted, “With our soul and blood, we will redeem you, O Al-Aqsa,” “Israel is terrorism,” and “One and two, where is the Arab army?” In Alexandria, the second largest Egyptian city (on the Mediterranean), large demonstrations took place as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians. Several governorates in the Egyptian Delta in the north and in Upper Egypt in the south also witnessed similar demonstrations, according to Egyptian media. Small demonstrations took place during the last forty-eight hours in Egypt to protest the bombing of the National Arab Hospital in Gaza, which sparked widespread anger in Egypt. On Tuesday evening, 471 people were killed in the bombing of the hospital known as the Baptist Hospital in central Gaza City, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, which confirmed that the bombing was Israeli. However, Israel said that the bombing was caused by a missile launched by the Islamic Jihad movement that went off course, and Washington adopted this story. European and American intelligence sources have questioned the death toll announced by Hamas, indicating that it is less than that.

In a parallel context, the Times of Israel newspaper (Friday) quoted Defense Minister Yoav Galant as saying that the war in the Gaza Strip consists of three stages that begin with the destruction of Hamas, and end with the establishment of a new security system, and Israel ridding itself of its responsibility for daily life in the Strip. .

Gallant said that Israel seeks to completely eliminate the Hamas movement through a military campaign aimed at destroying the movement and its infrastructure, according to what was reported by the Arab World News Agency. The Israeli minister added that the second phase would be to continue fighting, but with a lower intensity, “to eliminate any pockets of resistance.” He continued: “The third step will be the establishment of a new security system in Gaza, ridding Israel of its responsibility for daily life in the Gaza Strip, and creating a new security reality for the citizens of Israel and the residents of (the areas adjacent to Gaza).”

 The Israeli army also said that "the majority of the hostages" captured by Hamas during the attack on October 7 are "alive." A military spokesman added in a statement that “the majority of the hostages are alive.” There are also bodies taken to the Gaza Strip.”

#Egypt #Palestine #latest news

[egypt-today]

The Power of Street Art

As elaborated upon in the previous post, when one thinks of Egypt the symbolic characteristics of its ancient history, such as the pyramids, often first come to mind. However, another intriguing facet of the city that speaks to its modern history is its street art– or more particularly, the Mohamed Mahmud Street murals created in 2012 by the well-renowned Egyptian street artist, Ammar Abo Bakr. Situated on Mohamed Mahmud Street itself in the heart of Cairo, the murals were a tribute to some of the 75 young football fans who were stabbed to death in a political riot demanding democracy. This mural was then reimagined by Abo Bkar with a layering of saddening images of the victim’s mothers as well as the phrase, “forget what has passed and stick to the election instead”.

This street art is a clear testament to the political activism during the Arab Spring protests in Egypt, displaying the stories of a struggling community in the face of a military government in a direct and outward way. Not only did it depict the horrendous event, it also delivered powerful social and political messages that drove potential for change. Its central location further solicited a widespread audience, encouraging collective action.

Visitors flocked to the mural from around Cairo to both commemorate the lost lives, as well as to try and grasp the reality of the political climate of Egypt in the heart of a revolution. Whilst the shrine artwork does not paint the iconic street today, other murals that reflect the nation’s struggle for change are remanent, offering a chance for tourists to engage with Egypt’s modern history.

 

REFERENCES:

[onlinemovements]

The Arab Spring - The 'Facebook Revolution'

The Arab Spring was a collection of protests, rebellions and uprisings against Middle-Eastern governments beginning in the early 2010s. The initial rebellions began in Tunisia following the self-immolation of local market seller Mohamed Bouazizi which sparked protests against autocratic regimes in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and more.

Digital media was arguably crucial to the movement. 9/10 Tunisians and Egyptians claimed to have used Facebook to organise meetings and protests, and social media was vital to the dissemination of the image of Bouazizi. Through the combination of new and traditional media, the image became national and ultimately international news, increasing the reach of the event that sparked the movement. From this, the Arab Spring became known as one of the first modern social movements to make use of digital media to politically mobilise communities and incite protests, with some activists labelling the movement a “Facebook revolution” highlighting the “intrinsic power” of social media.

"We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world" - Egyptian Protestor.

As suggested above, the movement made use of new media in many aspects of its organisation such as coordination, interaction and dissemination of knowledge and images. But did the use of digital media help the movement overcome any of the fundamental issues of collective action?

As addressed in the introduction blog, coordination can be a major hindrance to a social movement, however in the case of the Arab Spring protests, social media supported the movement by increasing the speed, size and reach of its activism, making the Middle-Eastern based protests a global event. Thanks to social media, activists were able to engage in political debates and coordinate their actions in a safe space which ultimately facilitated their participation in protests.

Image Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/15/arab-spring-rescue-renewed-protesters

In addition to this, the incentive of the Arab Spring movement was immediately apparent thanks to the dissemination of the images of Mohammed Bouazizi. The media coverage of the sacrifice sparked the movement into protest and displayed immediate proof to members that some form of personal sacrifice was necessary for the movement to make an impact. It also provoked psychological incentives which are key to successful collective action. The shocking image evoked emotions such as anger and grief which in turn inspired protest participation, which is conventional seeing that psychological incentives are predictors of movement participation. Social media is effective in producing psychological incentives such as anger due to the ease of transmission of personal images and stories. The platforms allows activists to bypass mainstream media/governmental and represent their grievances online.

In general, the use of online digital media was a success for the Arab Spring, and helped the movement overcome some of the fundamental issues of collective action. Without the speed at which social media can spread a message or image, the sacrifices of local activists may not have reached an international audience, and therefore its impact may have been much smaller.  

However, this movement took place in many countries that had censored national media, so in this case, perhaps the impact of social media may have been amplified. Let’s take a look at a more Western movement to see if social media was as effective with the next blog focusing on Black Lives Matter.

References:

Hsiao, Y. (2018). Understanding digital natives in contentious politics: Explaining the effect of social media on protest participation through psychological incentives. New Media & Society, 20(9), 3457-3478

Khondker, H. H. (2011). Role of the new media in the Arab Spring. Globalizations, 8(5), 675-679.

Mourtada, R., & Salem, F. (2011). Civil movements: The impact of Facebook and Twitter. Arab social media report, 1(2), 1-30.

Tudoroiu, T. (2014). Social media and revolutionary waves: The case of the Arab spring. New Political Science, 36(3), 346-365.

[creepingsharia]

Emails: Hillary Clinton plotted with Qatar to establish $100M ‘Voice of America’-like media channel for the Muslim Brotherhood

Hillary Clinton and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi in 2012

The recent exposure of Hillary Clinton’s emails is arousing resentment in the Arab media in moderate countries as they demonstrate her apparent support for extreme Muslim elements in the Middle East and the chaos caused by the so-called Arab Spring.

Some of the emails from former US Secretary of State Clinton that were recently released as part of President Donald Trump’s election campaign apparently reveal direct American involvement in the Arab Spring events and a deep connection between the Obama administration and Qatar that included a joint effort to establish a media channel and an economic fund to be used by the Muslim Brotherhood as a means of intervention in Arab countries in the region.

One of the emails reveals a plan between Clinton and the Qatari government to establish a media channel with initial funding of $100 million. This plan followed complaints from the Muslim Brotherhood about the weakness of their media system compared to other media outlets.

The idea was to establish a communication channel run by the Muslim Brotherhood and similar to the Voice of America.

The emails revealed that the intention was to place Khairat el-Shater, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an Islamist activist who ran for president in Egypt, at the head of the media channel and entrust him with the $100 million.

The emails also reveal the depth of the connection between Clinton and the Obama administration and the Qatari Al Jazeera channel as a propaganda mouthpiece that supports political Islam organizations and encourages chaos in Arab countries.

Among other things, it appears that Clinton acted to market a positive image of President Barak Obama through Al Jazeera and portray him as a supporter of Muslim communities.

The emails indicate that Clinton met with the heads of Al Jazeera at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha, Qatar, during a quick visit that left her no time to visit an American base there. Clinton met the American officers for a brief meeting, after a meeting between her and the directors of Al Jazeera.

The meeting was also attended by senior Qatari government officials and also included the possibility of a reciprocal Qatari visit to the United States.

The exchange of messages shows that Clinton sought to take advantage of the channel and broadcast a 15-minute program in Arabic that would emphasize the Obama administration’s commitment to Muslim communities around the world.

Clinton also asked to meet with Qatari journalists for a discussion on the relationship between the Obama administration and Qatar.

Another issue that emerges from the emails is the launch of an Egyptian-American investment fund, which was also intended to operate in Tunisia, for economic and welfare purposes. Jim Harmon, an American banker close to Obama, was elected to head the fund, but alongside the first $60 million from Egypt, Qatar had pledged a $2 billion aid package to Egypt.

The emails indicate that the Qataris had sought to use the fund to intervene in the affairs of Egypt and Tunisia with money derived from the Muslim Brotherhood’s patronage. One of the emails reveals that Harmon urged Qataris to join the American effort in this matter.

The emails also reveal that in July 2009, one of the US State Department officials met with senior Hamas figures Mahmoud Al-Zahar and Bassem Naim for a meeting in Switzerland, which was also attended by the US Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering. At the end of the meeting, Naim expressed hopes that it was the beginning of the correction of the injustice that lasted in the three years prior to the meeting.

Another email reveals that Saud bin Faisal, the former Saudi foreign minister, hung up the phone on Clinton when she demanded he not send troops to Bahrain in 2011. It should be noted that the Saudis then acted to save the Bahraini regime from a so-called popular uprising inspired by Shiite organizations affiliated with the Iranian regime.

There are articles in the Arab media stating that the emails are further evidence of the Obama administration’s volatility and lack of support for the Arab regimes alongside incomprehensible support for extremist movements and political Islam.

Articles in the Arab media attack US presidential candidate Joe Biden, stating that he “belongs to the same rotten tree” and that if he wins the world will witness far more serious events than the events of 2011 and the Arab Spring, which the Obama administration promoted as if they were spontaneous popular uprisings.

Articles claim that the email affair exposes Obama’s destructive role and the depth of his ties to Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Al Jazeera’s assistance in these efforts.

The various testimonies indicate that Clinton pulled the strings of the so-called Arab Spring though she knew it was not a spontaneous event and helped promote them through the investment fund as well.

“This is a testament to Obama’s dark chapter,” read one of the Arab articles, “a testimony to American support for political Islam and chaos.”

An article also notes that Biden at the time opposed bin Laden’s assassination.

The Clinton email affair was at the center of the 2016 election in the US, helping Donald Trump to portray his rival as corrupt and unfit for office.

Since then, Trump has been raising the issue and demanding the emails be exposed. Trump expressed frustration that current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has so far failed to release some of the classified emails and expressed dissatisfaction with him, prompting Pompeo to promise to disclose the emails.

--------------------------------

More via:

Leaked emails: Obama administration’s support to Muslim Brotherhood to dominate media                         

CAIRO – 12 October 2020: On Thursday, US President Donald Trump expressed displeasure that his Secretary of State had not yet released some emails related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A day later, Pompeo vowed to release them.

Arab and Gulf media have later focused on these emails, which are not new, revealing a relation between the US, during the term of former President Barack Obama, and Qatari Al Jazeera as well as the Muslim Brotherhood group.

The emails bring back to mind the role Clinton played in supporting the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group to reach power and the exposure of the group’s plan at that time to control the media platforms to broadcast its intellectual project.

One of the leaked mails

The outlawed group targeted all high-level state positions, including ministries, and attempted to fully control the Egyptian media, so it launched pro-Muslim Brotherhood channels, broadcast from inside and outside the country.

The group knew that controlling media cannot be achieved except by controlling the building of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, aka Maspero, the official broadcast building of the Egyptian state.

As a result, the group appointed notorious Salah Abdel-Maqsoud as the information minister.

Abdel Maqsoud was accused of committing three incidents of verbal sexual harassment of female journalists and media figures, during his term.

This prompted female journalists to launch a campaign to remove him from his post, and they submitted a petition to Mohamed Morsi, at the time, to pressure him to dismiss Abdel Maqsoud, but he did not care until the revolution broke out in 2013.

The group also tried to dominate a number of national press institutions by pushing a number of their affiliates to head these institutions.

This caused a number of major writers in independent newspapers to abstain from writing articles, in protest at what they saw as an attempt by the group to control the national media.

This situation continued until the June 30 Revolution in 2013 ousted the president and caused the group to be designated as terrorist.

Al Jazeera

Wadah Khanfar, former director of the Al Jazeera network, appeared in emails with Clinton notifying her with all details taking place regarding the network known for its support to terrorist and extremist groups. The full and direct supervise of Clinton’s staff to Al Jazeera network and its skeptical coverage to the political events, raises a lot of question regarding the whole administration intentions towards the MENA region.

In one of the emails sent by Khanfar, he explains his own opinion of the escalating political events in number of Arab countries, urging the U.S. government to interfere to protect freedoms. These emails were just between the Former Secretary of State and Khanfar as no officials or government members were included in these emails.

One of the leaked mails

[yuliiaantonova]

Twitter and Democracy: A New Public Sphere?

Twitter and Democracy: A New Public Sphere? by Christian Fuchs explores the notion of Twitter as a public sphere and fundamentally concludes that Twitter is not a public sphere.

The concept of the public sphere itself was coined by German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas. According to Habermas, the public sphere consists of political communication and political economy. Political communication essentially refers to critical public debates whereas political economy is a study of power relations regarding the production and trade of resources. However, Habermas was not applying his public sphere theory to the Internet that practically did not exist for the majority of the civilian population back when the theory was published.

One of the key characteristics of the public sphere is that all citizens have access to it. Whereas it is fairly easy to access the Internet nowadays, Twitter requires certain knowledge and skills to use the technologies and the social network itself. The statistics show that the average Twitter user is an urban middle-class person aged from 18 and 34. Therefore, Twitter rather excludes workers, farmers, and elderly people creating a social stratification.

Another factor that proves that Twitter is not a public sphere is that politics constitute only the minority topic on the network whereas the predominant and most popular subject is entertainment. This, in turn, results in celebrities, especially from the entertainment industry, being the most followed and retweeted profiles on Twitter making it hard for ordinary people to be heard. Another aspect of Twitter's inequality is inherent to its business model which is based on targeted advertising. This means that Twitter promotes tweets, trends, and accounts of its advertising clients which once again contributes to social stratification by favoring “economically powerful actors over everyday users”. Furthermore, the very notion of critical debate, essentially a two-way mode of communication, is almost absent on Twitter which is instead used as a tool of information, rather than communication. Therefore, Twitter users simply retweet information engaging in one-way interaction only. In sum, even though Twitter is a participatory network, it is, first and foremost, an information tool where the mouthpiece is given to the privileged class.

Another aspect of Twitter that was highly criticized by Fuchs in this chapter is the techno-deterministic quality (meaning that technology unconditionally shapes society) attributed to Twitter in such events as the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and the Arab Spring in general. Fuchs states that calling the Arab Spring a Twitter/Facebook/social media/Web 2.0. revolution diminishes the social, economic, and historic contexts that have shaped the Arab societies for decades and, most importantly, neglects people’s will. Moreover, as the statistics have shown, the social media were far less important for the revolution than face-to-face interaction, phones, TV and other traditional media. One more fact that was omitted when heralding the Egyptian revolution a Facebook revolution once again concerns the statistics: in 2011 only 26% of the population had access to the Internet and only 13% used Facebook. This made me think of the Rohingya genocide mentioned in the documentary The Cleaners (2018) where a major role in the genocide was given to Facebook and other social media. However, despite the nationwide character of the genocide, in 2016, the year when the crisis started, only 25% of the Myanma had access to the Internet and only 20% were Facebook users.

[whilereadingandwalking]

The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler is a book with a tremendous span. Hessler, a writer for the New Yorker, moved with his family to Cairo in 2011. He was there to report on the Arab Spring; he mixes his up-close and personal account of the subsequent events in the city with visits to archaeological sites, flashbacks into the history of the ancient civilization, and stories of the people he befriended, from Sayyid, the man who collects the trash in the neighborhood, and his wife and family; to Manu, a translator who shared his experience as a gay man in a homophobic society; to the local who teaches Hessler and his wife Egyptian Arabic.

It’s a really incredible book. It’s impressive and indicative of Hessler’s skill that he can so artfully blend all these pieces of the story to create one coherent portrait of Egypt, its people, and the ways its history and its present blend and mirror each other. I have learned a tremendous amount about Egypt in these 480 pages, all through an intimate lens that introduces the reader to dozens of characters without allowing them to get muddled. I’m happy that I began my nonfiction marathon with this superb work.

[dahabiyacruise]

I Will Proably Get Heck From Lu-Anne😊

Decided to escape my bubble of privilege today and took a couple of walks. While I am still just a foreigner in the tourist district, it is my most local experience so far and actually saw very few tourists until I stopped to eat.

Among other places, I walked to Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the epicentre of the 2011 Arab Spring revolution and the site of small protests the last two Fridays (banned since Gen Abdel al-Sidi took over in 2013). While Muslims are expected to pray 5 times a day Friday is Al Judah or “the day of congregation” in the Qur’an, so Friday afternoon is when almost everyone goes to their Mosque to pray. Putting everyone in a single protected place at one time can lead to discussion, dissent and, in this case, protests.

As I proceeded toward the square, the police and military presence grew. Near my hotel there was an outpost of 3-4 soldiers with assault rifles (looking all of 12 years old and very nervous) crouching behind 6’x3’ personal bullet shields, each with a small window and gun port. I was not frightened they would shoot my on purpose, only that they might do so by accident if I sneezed.

As I got closer to the square I passed the American Embassy and noticed dozens of police backed by 12 foot high walls of huge concrete blocks that shut off every road into the compound. At the square itself at least a half dozen vehicles and perhaps 40-50 soldiers/police were stationed at each of about 10 entrances to the square. I suspect that there were many more nearby that I could not see. Most were lounging around chatting, eating or smoking, but a few were keeping watch wearing balaclavas (yes, in 30c+ heat) and carrying either assault rifles, shotguns, machine pistols or multi barrel grenade launchers (I assume for tear gas). As well, plain clothes police were randomly stopping individuals and demanding their cell phones. As Taha explained earlier, this was to check for subversive email and Facebook messages. He was very certain that there would be no protest this Friday. I took no pictures for this part of the post as it just seemed ill advised.

For dinner on my second walk, Taha recommended Felfela as a great place for “authentic” Egyptian food in a very clean restaurant a few blocks off the square. As Lu-Anne always recommends, I probably should have asked him where he eats out. My first hint at the level of authenticity was the English menu I was handed on arrival (which included 4 kinds of Italian linguine dishes), the next was the cheesy hanging plastic vine decor and the final was that foreign tourists were about 2/3 of the clientele.

All that being said my tomato soup was very tasty, as was the mystery meat spiced meatballs on rice from the “Egyptian Kitchen” section of the menu. I discovered when I left that I probably should have gone into the other entrance around the corner, which was Felfela Express. It was filled with locals eating very tasty looking, local fast food like falafel, shewarma and foul (fava bean stew) for ridiculously low prices. Oh well, apologies to Taha, I will have to try it again when I return at the end of the cruise.

Back to the hotel after dinner dodging cars in traffic that was worse than most European cities (yes, even Italy) but better than Vietnam or India (no wandering cows or elephants). I have a 03:15 wake up call and a 04:00 pickup to catch a 06:00 flight to Luxor (AKA Thebes the capital during the Middle and New Kingdoms) and visit Karnak Temple complex beforejoinging my Dahabiya Cruise

[guerrillamamamedicine]

order a copy of the book here: https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=970

and get 50 percent off with the code: GIFT

In This Is How We Survive: Revolutionary Mothering, War, and Exile in the 21st Century, Mai’a Williams shares her experiences working in conflict zones and with liberatory resistance communities as a journalist, human rights worker, and midwife in Palestine, Egypt, Chiapas, Berlin, and the U.S., while mothering her young daughter Aza.

She first went to Palestine in 2003 during the Second Intifada to support Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation. In 2006, she became pregnant in Bethlehem, West Bank. By the time her daughter was three years old, they had already celebrated with Zapatista women in southern Mexico and survived Israeli detention, and during the 2011 Arab Spring they were in the streets of Cairo protesting the Mubarak dictatorship. She watched the Egyptian revolution fall apart and escaped the violence, like many of her Arab comrades, by moving to Europe. Three years later, she and Aza were camping at Standing Rock in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline and co-creating revolutionary mothering communities once again.

This is a story about mothers who are doing the work of deep social transformation by creating the networks of care that sustain movements and revolutions. By centering mothers in our organizing work, we center those who have the skills and the experience of creating and sustaining life on this planet. This Is How We Survive illuminates how mothering is a practice essential to the work of revolution. It explores the heartbreak of revolutionary movements falling apart and revolutionaries scattering across the globe into exile. And most importantly, how mamas create, no matter the conditions, the resilience to continue doing revolutionary work.

Praise: “Mai’a’s ongoing journey is about mothering as a daily revolution, brought into focus by living and loving at major revolutionary sites of our contemporary world. From Palestine to Egypt, Chiapas, Berlin, and especially the U.S. Midwest, Mai’a shares her experiences of navigating the intimate intergenerational impact of a constant state of political and personal war with detail and a crucial side-eye. This book is an opportunity to see the life you are living, and lives you would never see otherwise, in new and interconnected ways.” —Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of M Archive: After the End of the World

"This is How We Survive redefines revolution beyond the headline grabbing events to the everyday resilience of families living under ever-present threats of bombings, assaults, arrests and disappearances. This book will push you to expand and reimagine your definitions and ideas of revolution." —Victoria Law, author of Resistance Behind Bars  

“Magical, poetic, adventurous, eye-opening tales of global community organizing and resistance. Mai’a breaks the hold of American mind control, despair, and isolation with tales of gatherings around the world of everyday revolutionaries who do not have the privilege to decide whether or not to engage or fight for their lives.” —China Martens, author of The Future Generation: The Zine-Book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others

“I drank down Mai’a Williams’ This Is How We Survive like a glass of delicious water hitting me where I was the most thirsty. Williams gives us the story we’ve been waiting for and deeply needing, about the ways Black, Indigenous, and Brown women and mothers across the globe birth freedom struggle as they open their homes, hold late-night cigarette conversations, and insist that everyone be present to the work of liberation. Her work, and her life’s story, is crucial to what will bring us home.” —Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, writer and organizer, author of Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home

“In reading the work of Mai’a Williams, it’s hard not to be excited by the sense of possibility.” —Hip Mama

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 11.22 (after 1960)

1963 – The BBC broadcasts An Unearthly Child (starring William Hartnell), the first episode of the first story from the first series of Doctor Who, which is now the world's longest running science fiction drama. 1971 – Representatives of the People's Republic of China attend the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, for the first time. 1972 – The Soviet Union makes its final attempt at launching the N1 rocket. 1974 – Sixty Ethiopian politicians, aristocrats, military officers, and other persons are executed by the provisional military government. 1976 – Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m undersea without breathing equipment. 1978 – Cyclone kills about 1,000 people in eastern Sri Lanka. 1978 – The Geneva Frequency Plan of 1975 goes into effect, realigning many of Europe's longwave and mediumwave broadcasting frequencies. 1980 – The 6.9 Mw  Irpinia earthquake shakes southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 2,483–4,900, and injuring 7,700–8,934. 1981 – Iran–Contra affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua. 1985 – Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the aircraft, but 60 people die in the raid. 1991 – Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury announces in a statement that he is HIV-positive. He dies the following day. 1992 – The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada. 1996 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel, killing 125. 2001 – The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary. 2003 – Rose Revolution: Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections. 2004 – The Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, the largest religious building in Georgia, is consecrated. 2005 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country. 2006 – A series of bombings kills at least 215 people and injures 257 others in Sadr City, making it the second deadliest sectarian attack since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. 2007 – MS Explorer, a cruise liner carrying 154 people, sinks in the Antarctic Ocean south of Argentina after hitting an iceberg near the South Shetland Islands. There are no fatalities. 2009 – The Maguindanao massacre occurs in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, Philippines; 58 opponents of Andal Ampatuan Jr. are kidnapped and killed. 2010 – Bombardment of Yeonpyeong: North Korean artillery attack kills two civilians and two marines on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea. 2011 – Arab Spring: After 11 months of protests in Yemen, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity. 2015 – Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle became the first rocket to successfully fly to space and then return to Earth for a controlled, vertical landing. 2018 – Founders of Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana issue an apology following a series of offensive advertisements on social media promoting a fashion show in Shanghai, China, which was canceled. 2019 – The last Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia, Imam, dies, making the species officially extinct in the country.

[ganzeer]

This triptych marks my first foray into paintings that are a little more autobiographical in nature. Although deeply personal, the series still touches upon themes likely relatable to folks who feel homesick, especially immigrants, and most especially those who have been forcibly put in that position, hence the series title: IMMIGRANT BLUES.

The first in the series, IMMIGRANT BLUES #1: KOSHARI, deals with the realization that although there are more pressing things to be concerned about in the world, one cannot help be be selfish sometimes and obsess about the obscenely trivial, in this case “Abu Tarek”, a popular eatery in downtown Cairo that serves one dish and one dish only: Koshari - a popular Egyptian working class dish that noone regardless of class can resist because it is... slammin' (and contains enough carbs to fuel you for a good week). The backdrop, comprised of an abstracted typeface, reads: "When injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty" (a quote by Thomas Jefferson), referencing all that is wrong with the world and the things that should instead be on everyone's mind.

Number two in the triptych, IMMIGRANT BLUES #2: THAWRA, features the character (me, Ganzeer) remembering when "thawra" was fun. Thawra being the Arabic word for revolution. Clearly reminiscing on 2011, when not just the Arab Spring was an optimistic notion, but the upheavals and public square takeovers happening across the world were as well.The backdrop features graffiti-style writing that reads "me me me me..." as well as an abstraction of some of the things spoken during the Tahrir square uprising of 2011.

Number three in the triptych, IMMIGRANT BLUES #3: MOLOKHEYA,  features a thought balloon that reads: "Oh God, I miss 'molokheya'", molokheya being a popular Egyptian dish that isn't particularly easy to come by outside of Egypt. A stew made of a leafy green known as "Jew's Mallow" (at least as far as Wikipedia claims), molokheya's texture is what one might call "slimy". Don't let the color or texture freak you out though, because it is scrumptious, especially when garnished with minced garlic fried to a crisp and served on a bed of white rice (short and plump) with a side of roast rabbit (or chicken) and traditional Egyptian salad (salata baladi). The backdrop features a phrase commonly announced on NY subway loudspeakers, further drawing home the point of the character's (my own) homesick status.

The original impetus for the series was an interrogation of Roy Lichtenstein’s famous CRYING WOMAN painting and the artworks it has hence inspired: weeping women illustrated in a comic-booky pop-art style. I couldn’y help but wonder why is always the women who’re crying? It’s high time for a series of weeping men. But then painting any random weeping male didn’t really feel like enough for me. I landed upon myself as the most obvious subject for this series which lead me to explore the things that make me sad.

All three pieces are mixed media on paper, roughly 56x76 cm (22x30 inches) in size.

This series debuted at Moniker Art Fair in NYC (May 1-5, 2019).

Now available for purchase from Garage.Ganzeer

[lightinalexandria]

Life in Alexandria

Price: Living in China was inexpensive. Dollars went far. Living in Egypt is another level of inexpensive. After the 2011 Arab Spring revolution the Egyptian Pound was “unpegged” to float on the market exchange, and went from about 7 EGP to the dollar to now 17 EGP to the dollar. A breakfast sandwich is about 3 EGP. That’s about 18 cents. I ate a full Bedouin feast -15 dishes, meats and rice and soups with leftovers for 2 days- for about $15. My monthly housing budget –about $350- has my new Egyptian friends giving the equivalent of “well La-Dee-Da!”, the noise I make when my high flying friends talk about their housing in San Fran. It’s strange, really strange. I don’t think I’ll ever be wealthy in the States, but here I can go to a breakfast buffet at the nicest hotel in the city overlooking the bay, and then go work out at the pool in the most exclusive sports club and I’m out $15. It feels like too much, like I’m embarrassed it doesn’t cost more and these services are being provided to me for this price.

Traffic: People in Egypt say inshAllah (“if God wills it”) a lot for many things. I have said it to myself with conviction crossing the street. What if you were in a real life game of Frogger forever, on max difficulty? My second day I saw a woman get plowed crossing to the beach –all the things in her hands flew up in a huge cloud, although it turned it she was just most glancing of blows. And she looked Egyptian! I usually try to put an older person between myself and traffic, figuring they lived that long by knowing how to cross. I live one block from the shore, but there is a six lane road across the street and no bridge or stop sign for a mile in each direction. Last night an Egyptian friend joked the only possible way for me to cross safely would be to wave an American passport in front of me as I walked. Before I left the States I was reading a book called The Rock Warriors way to help me deal with the fear of taking big falls when rock climbing, and strengthening my mental climbing technique. No joke, I use the seven step method almost daily for particularly busy streets. Accept all the consequences and possible outcomes, look into the void, make your decision to commit, and go.

Life and Routines: It’s been about a week and a half now, and the bones of a routine are showing already. I have class 5 days a week from 10 AM-5 PM, so everything else fits in around the edges. Every day at lunch I can practice ordering something new. Soon I’ll move out of the lovely multinational student hotel and find a nearby place. I have a gym membership at the closest gym, which happened to be the local bodybuilding spot. Seeing these giant muscle men fold up their exercise mat and unfold the prayer mats in the ab corner mid-workout when the loudspeakers come on for prayer is a sight. After a multiday Odyssey that took me all across the city, many confusing interactions, one crusty sergeant, one Qatari businessman and much gesturing, I found a beautiful outdoor pool a tram ride away. One of my Egyptian friends thinks my first time was a lucky mistake and you have to come in with a member. We’ll see.

Anyway, in these summer months the boardwalk is packed. My Alexandrian friends tell me few self respecting Alexandrians would be out in the peak hours and it’s all Cairenes and other cities visiting and throwing trash. I’m pretty sure it’s a global tradition to hate on tourists, both foreign and domestic. The working day seems to run about 2 PM-11 PM. That’s when all the shops are open and packed. It makes an early wake-up difficult. Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself after yet another round of stories and juice at the tea shop later than I said I’d stay out. If it weren’t for all the secondhand shisha smoke and cigarettes, I’d be feeling in the peak of health.

Gender Relations: I’m missing so much context still, I want to walk really softly on this one at the beginning. No denying a couple things though. One, especially at night, aside from the boardwalk the streets are mostly men. Strange to me, vs the Denver downtown. Different energy, and I have to say not one I have historically loved. An alien would be forgiven for thinking this was a gay promised land from the hand/arm holding and physical affection men show each other. Not so.

Second, my language learning style and ease of movement in general is a bajillion times easier as a man. Wandering the city alone, striking up conversations, stripping down and jumping in the ocean when I feel like it, staying out late and wandering back. It’s not because I’m more adventurous, it’s because I’m a man and the experience is pleasant for me, I can mostly disappear in the street. Nothing to do but own that and appreciate all the more how amazing and dedicated my female student colleagues are.