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Issue no.3113 December 2012

LE5

2 News Briefs

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Cover PhotoMahmoud Khaled

13 December 2012

Cold protestersSupporters of lawyer, Salafi figure and former presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, popu-larly known as Hazemoun, held a sit-in outside Media Production City for the fourth day Tuesday. Participants in the sit-in sought the “cleansing of the media of certain talk show hosts.” Security check-points guarded both sides of the road adjacent to the gathering. The facilities in 6th of October City in Giza that host media studios were also host to some 150 tents. One tent caught fire after a protester lit wood for a fire in the cold. Others covered their faces to keep warm on the mattresses they had set up in the makeshift camp, which included five brick bathrooms that hardy pro-testers had connected to the local sewage network.■

Hazemoun members stage a sit-in to “cleanse” the media.

Ref prep

Judge not

Ahead of the constitutional referendum scheduled for Sat-urday, the government has made several decisions affecting where and how citizens will vote for, or against, the draft

constitution. Chief among these was President Mohamed Morsy’s decision to amend Law 73/1956, to prohibit voting outside of voters’ electoral districts. The president’s office claimed the change was re-quested by the High Elections Com-mission and will allegedly reduce fraud. Voting was also extended to two days due to a shortage of judges to oversee the election. The Trans-portation Ministry seemed to order a complementary decision that

reduced the price of air-conditioned train tickets by 50 percent on the day of the referendum. The acting Transportation Minister also said transport services would be doubled from 6 am on 14 December to 9 am on 16 December so citizens can return to their constituencies to vote. The Finance Ministry will pay the difference in cost to the Transportation Ministry.■

Judges Club head Ahmed al-Zend said at a press conference Tuesday that 90 percent of judges and prosecutors across the country would not oversee the upcoming constitutional

referendum, based on a survey conducted by the club. Other judges’ assemblies had also voted to boycott the referendum. The Port Said and Assiut judges clubs also decided they would not over-see the poll. State-run news agency MENA quoted the chief of the club in Port Said as saying that the amendments made to the consti-tutional declaration, which pushed judges to boycott in the first place, were not enough to annul its af-

fects. In Beheira, the Damanhour First Instance Court’s general assembly recommended that judges boycott. Court President Hassan Yasyouny said the court decided to halt all activities until the general assem-bly reconvenes on 25 December. No alternative to judicial supervision has been suggested yet.■

Tareq Wafiq

Hot cargo

Border guards seized nearly 5 mil-lion narcotics pills in November, ac-cording to an Armed Forces spokes-person. On his official Facebook page, Ahmed Mohamed Ali outlined the seizures of contraband made by the border guards last month. Among the seizures were the pills and 65 kilograms of other narcotic substances. Ali said 41 vehicles and five boats were used for smuggling. Border guards also seized 2,800 weapons. Some 166 people were also arrested on suspicion of cross-ing the border illegally, either for infiltration or immigration.■

Ahmed Mohamed Ali

Securing the referendum

National dialogue

No calling names

Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for “national dialogue” Wednes-day to resolve disagreements over the new constitution. Sisi is calling on par-ties to convene at the Olympic Village, Reuters reported Tuesday. Sisi called for a number of actors to attend, includ-ing government ministers, opposition forces, representatives of revolutionary youth, Al-Azhar, the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Supreme Constitu-tional Court. State-owned news agency MENA and Al Jazeera quoted a military spokesperson denying that Sisi had called for the meeting. The Muslim

Brotherhood, of which President Mo-hamed Morsy is a former member, said it would attend the talks. Brotherhood spokesperson Mahmoud Ghozlan told Reuters that it was “clear” the invitation was given by the military with Morsy’s permission. Ghozlan said it was inap-propriate if invitees did not attend the meeting. The National Salvation Front, an umbrella group of opposition forces, said it had not received an invitation. Hamdeen Sabbahi, a leader in the front, said that if the meeting lacked a clear agenda, it would just be a “public rela-tions exercise.”■

The president’s office filed a complaint against two journalists Monday, accusing an editor and a journalist of slandering President Mohamed Morsy. The complaint against the privately owned daily Youm7’s editor-in-chief, Khaled Salah, and journalist Ola al-Shafie is based on an op-ed in the paper regarding the clashes at the presidential palace. Shafie’s article alleged that the Muslim Brother-hood was responsible for the killing of six people and the torture of political activists. Morsy’s office says the article defames him. Other journalists have been accused of defaming Morsy. Media presenter Mahmoud Saad was released on bail last week after authorities inter-rogated him. Another broadcaster, Hala Fahmy, had the broadcast of her program cut and was referred to the Public Prosecution after she criticized Morsy on air.■

Tales of two protestsSupporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsy gathered across Cairo Tuesday, continuing the political polarization ahead of Saturday’s planned constitutional referendum. As thousands of Morsy opponents marched from Heliopolis’ Hijaz Square to the presidential palace, pro-Morsy demonstrators gathered at mosques in Nasr City. Mohamed al-Beltagy, a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, said the presidential palace

should be protected by the Repub-lican Guard, army and police, but if they failed to protect it, the president’s supporters would. Thirty buses were seen close to Raba’a al-Adawya Square decorated with FJP and other Islamist party banners. Members of the Na-tional Salvation Front marched to the palace from several squares. Mohamed Awwad, a coordinator of the Youth Movement for Justice and Freedom, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that organizers had agreed to stage three marches.■

As part of the security plan for the constitutional referendum, President Mohamed Morsy on Sunday gave the military the authority to arrest civilians until election authorities announce the result of the vote. On Monday, the military began deploying in Cairo and other governorates to secure polling stations. The defense and interior ministers met to discuss the processes for securing polling stations and vital institutions. Under the decree, army officers can arrest and transfer detained civilians to prosecutors, who can then be tried by civilian courts, according to state news agency MENA. Both

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, two international rights groups, called on Morsy to amend the decree, citing the possibility of abuse. “Any deployment of the Egyptian military to help maintain security needs to be accompanied by guaran-tees to respect basic rights,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “President Morsy should be ending, not expand-ing, military trials of civilians.” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Amnesty International, said the decree “sets a dangerous precedent.”■

Morsy gives the military powers to arrest civilians ahead of the referendum.

Ahmed al-Zend

3News13 December 2012

The chilling BrothersBrotherhood officials ‘unthreatened’ by mass opposition

By Noha El-Hennawyespite massive opposition to their rule, the Muslim Brothers are still confi-dent the ballot box can re-

instate their dominance and create a stable political system.

Only two days stand between Egyptian voters and the referen-dum over the Islamist-backed con-stitution. The poll comes on the heels of political unrest that have set in question the legitimacy of President Mohamed Morsy and cast doubts over the popularity of the nation’s largest political organi-zation, less than six months after its rise to power.

Thousands had taken to the streets nationwide to protest Morsy’s “autocratic” decree passed last month. Through that move, Morsy had claimed for himself sweeping powers and brought the judiciary under his control.

Chants echoing “Down with the rule of supreme guide,” in refer-ence to the Brotherhood’s spiri-tual leader, and banners reading “No to the Muslim Brotherhood” were the catchphrases of the ral-lies. Meanwhile, violence targeting the Brothers’ headquarters rocked Cairo and several governorates.

The unrest reached its climax last week after the Brothers attacked secularists camping outside the presidential palace. For several hours, both camps were caught up in bloody clashes that left seven people dead.

The incident exposed the deep divide between the Brothers and secular groups, and warned of the perpetuation of turmoil if no mid-dle ground solution is reached. In response, Morsy rescinded his de-cree, but called for a referendum on the Islamist-drafted constitu-tion on 15 December, ignoring secularists’ demands to hold na-tional dialogue over controversial clauses before the poll.

While secularists hold that the issuing of this constitution would add more fuel to the fire, the Broth-ers still believe it is the only way out of the ongoing crisis.

Deja vu for the BrothersIslamists prefer to downplay the significance of the recent turmoil, contending it is deliberately perpe-trated by their detractors to thwart the referendum.

“We got used to facing such cri-ses ahead of each election,” says Ahmed Sobei, spokesperson for the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). “Ahead of the parliamentary elections, we had the Mohamed Mahmoud inci-dents because some parties were not ready for the poll.”

Nevertheless, he says, people took to the polling stations. He wonders why the group’s detrac-tors are “always sabotaging” elec-tions.

Days before last year’s parliamen-tary poll, clashes erupted between the police and protesters on Mo-hamed Mahmoud Street off Tah-rir Square after Central Security Forces raided a sit-in by families of the 25 January revolution martyrs.

The standoff lasted for several

days and left dozens killed, amid allegations by the Brothers that the turbulence was perpetrated by “hidden hands” that sought to put off the much-anticipated poll. They refused to join the protests that took place then, which discredited them in the eyes of revolutionary forces.

However, their credibility was not shaken for the wider electorate. They garnered nearly 42 percent of the People’s Assembly seats, earn-ing their place as the largest parlia-mentary bloc.

They believe that the current sit-uation is no different, and that they can still sweep away their contend-ers in the upcoming poll.

“We deal with people on the street every day and they are quite disenchanted with the use of arms, with the burning of the [Brother-hood’s] headquarters and with in-stability,” says Hatem Abdel Azim, former FJP parliamentarian and member of the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly.

“Thus, I believe there will be a high turnout, and big numbers will vote yes on the constitution,” adds Abdel Azim.

The National Salvation Front, an alliance of liberal and leftist groups and former presidential candidates, had voiced its vehement opposi-tion to the upcoming referendum and called for protests Tuesday to demand its postponement until the constitution is modified.

At press time, the front was still expected to advise its backers on whether to boycott the vote or cast a “no” ballot in the imminent poll.

Mokhtar Nouh, a former Broth-erhood leader who broke ranks with the group before the revolu-

tion, citing the lack of internal de-mocracy, says the referendum re-sults are a foregone conclusion. He expects the majority of voters to back the controversial text, out of their desire to end the transitional period rather than their support for Islamists.

“Even if the constitution was drafted by the opposition, people would vote ‘yes,’” Nouh says. “Peo-ple do not understand the con-stitution. For them, it is a bunch of logarithms. People are only concerned about concluding this tough period.”

Nevertheless, Nouh believes the Brothers’ “mismanagement” has already dealt a blow to the Is-lamists. This impact will not be felt until the next parliamentary elec-tions, he adds.

“The image of the Islamist project altogether has been shaken,” says Nouh, a leader of Strong Egypt, the moderate Islamist party founded by the ex-Brotherhood leader and former presidential nominee Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh.

“We are no longer the owners of a project that could bear the solu-tion. The Islamist project has be-come the problem,” adds Nouh.

A possible misreading? Islamists always spoke proudly of

their wide outreach and ability to mobilize thousands of people in support of their agenda. They had long dismissed secularists as elitist, detached from the masses and in-capable of significant mobilization.

However, recent incidents have shaken this stereotype about secu-larists as tens of thousands heeded their call to protest Morsy’s rule in different governorate.

But this development does not alarm the Brothers. They insist that secularists still have no large fol-lowing on the street.

“Two entities were behind the recent mobilization: the church and remnants of the old regime,” says Abdel Azim. “[Secular] politi-cal forces were not the main force behind this mobilization.”

Since the tension ensued, the Brothers have sought constantly to downgrade the legitimacy of pro-tests by contending that they were led by members of the now-dis-solved National Democratic Party.

“The Muslim Brotherhood mis-understands the reasons of these protests,” says Mostafa Kamel al-Sayed, a political science pro-fessor at Cairo University. “The dissatisfaction with the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime and Morsy is not confined to the constitu-tional declaration or the constitu-tion, but it also has to do with the incompetence of Morsy’s govern-ment.”

Morsy’s government has offered citizens nothing so far, Sayed says.

“Hence, we see lay citizens ex-pressing their dissatisfaction with the Brothers’ rule by attacking their headquarters in different gov-ernorates,” Sayed continues.

So far, Morsy’s government has failed to live up to the masses’ ex-pectations. On the economic front, foreign reserves have continued to dwindle, and the pound has under-gone its greatest devaluation since 2004.

Meanwhile, his short reign has been marked by several hasty de-cisions that he was later forced to suspend, such as new taxation leg-islations, which have shaken his credibility.

“The Brothers have no special program to run the country other than their desire to add an Islamic nature to the state and implement Islamic Sharia sooner or later,” Sayed adds.

He dismissed the Brothers’ argu-ment that the issuing of the consti-tution is the only gateway to stabil-ity.

“No matter what the outcome of the referendum is, the causes of turmoil remain, and a large num-ber of people are unhappy about the Muslim Brotherhood,” says Sayed.

Joining the far rightAmid this crisis, the Brothers could find no ally but hardline Islamists. Salafis and Islamist ex-insurgents had backed Morsy’s constitutional declaration and the Brotherhood-sponsored constitution, which includes several clauses widely dismissed by liberals and leftists as amenable to a religious state (see story on page four).

Last weekend, Khairat al-Shater, an influential Brotherhood figure, appeared in a press conference with several Salafi leaders to com-ment on the current situation.

After having elaborated on a “conspiracy” designed by rem-nants of the old regime to thwart Islamist rule, Shater left the floor to Saeed Abdel Azim, a leader of the Salafi Dawah who is known for his dismissal of democratic values. Abdel Azim stressed the need to implement Sharia.

The scene raised the question of why the Brotherhood, which has been selling itself to the West as a moderate force capable of achieving stability in the region and maintaining peaceful relations with Israel, would indulge in an alliance with hardliners who hold the US as the “great Satan” and re-fuse to recognize Israel.

“If Salafis support me in a certain situation, that does not mean that our methods are becoming the same or that the Brothers have re-linquished their moderate views,” says Abdel Azim.

Since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster and the emergence of the Salafis as a key player, the Brothers have often banked on them in their po-litical fights with secularists.

“The Brothers have no one to ally themselves with other than Salafis. Nobody tolerates the Brothers anymore,” says Nouh.

Yet this Salafi-Brotherhood hon-eymoon will not last forever.

“This alliance is temporary until jihadi Salafis carry up their arms and other Salafis demand the im-plementation of Sharia, something that the Brothers would not give them,” argues Nouh.■

Even if the constitution was drafted by the opposition, people would vote ‘yes’. People do not understand the constitution. For them, it is a bunch of logarithms

The dissatisfaction with the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime and Morsy is not confined to the constitutional declaration or the constitution, but also has to do with the incompetence of Morsy’s government

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Muslim Brotherhood members in front of their Moqattam office.

4 News13 December 2012

Islam vs. IslamDespite apparent support for Morsy, Salafis are divided over constitution

Any divisionswithin Salafi circles could make the Brotherhood’smission to mobilize ‘yes’ voters to the constitution more difficult

By Omar Halawaeveral Salafi movements and parties, including the Nour Party and Hazemoun, took part in protests Tuesday to

support President Mohamed Morsy amid growing polarization between Islamists and secularists.

Meanwhile, a sit-in of Salafi groups continues in front of the Egyptian Media Production City in 6th of October to pressure private satellite channels, which they say constantly criticize Morsy and slander icons of the Islamist current. Participants in the sit-in say satellite channels, which broadcast from Media Pro-duction City, are “burning the state.”

“We are now staging a sit-in in front of Gate 4, but we can escalate that peaceful protest because the private media is the chief impediment to the conclusion of the Islamist project, because it intentionally smears our image,” says Gamal Saber, coordi-nator for Hazemoun, the group of followers of former presidential can-didate and renowned Salafi preacher Hazem Salah Abu Ismail.

The Salafis’ move is not unprece-dented. Muslim Brotherhood mem-bers previously besieged Media Pro-duction City for hours in August for the same reason.

The pro-Morsy protests and sit-in reflect unity between different Salafi groups over their ambition to see a more Islamized Egypt. They also re-flect a broad alignment between the Salafi movement and the Brother-hood, from which Morsy hails — an alignment that was put to good test in previous elections.

But this broad unison does not mask political discord within the ranks of the Salafi movement on the one hand and the Brotherhood on the other.

One point of discord can be seen in the draft constitution, which is being put to a referendum this Satur-day and which is largely a source of contention, with most Islamists ap-proving it and secularists planning to either boycott it or vote “no.”

But there is no unanimity in the Salafi movement’s ranks over the “yes” vote, which may be disconcert-ing for the Brotherhood, which re-lies on Salafi votes at election times.

Ahmed Zaghloul, an expert on Salafi movements, says the Salafi-Brotherhood relationship is com-plex.

“In general, the Salafi movement is an unmistakable Muslim Broth-erhood ally when it comes to sev-eral issues that concern the Islamist project and particularly the consti-tution,” he says. “The Brotherhood regards them as an important voting bloc that has to be used, and that is why they deal with them as partners. Any divisions within Salafi circles could make the Brotherhood’s mis-sion to mobilize ‘yes’ voters to the constitution more difficult.”

Divisions Salafis are divided on the constitu-tion. The Nour Party and the Salafi Dawah — which together formed the second-biggest parliamentary bloc in the last parliamentary elec-tion, enabling both to contribute many members to the Constituent Assembly — will vote in favor of the constitution.

Other Salafi groups, such as the Salafi Front and some Salafi sheikhs

who enjoy immense popularity as a result of their appearance on reli-gious satellite channels, are opposed to the constitution.

For example, and despite their participation in pro-Morsy protests, the leaders of several Salafi groups — most importantly, the Hazemoun movement — have announced their rejection of the proposed constitu-tion.

The Nour Party says the proposed draft sets the principles of Sharia as the source of legislation and makes Al-Azhar the entity to be consulted on legislation, a power that in the past was solely in the hands of the Supreme Constitutional Court. The party also says Article 219 clearly explains what is meant by the principles of Sharia and makes all Sunni schools of Islam a frame of reference in the legislative process. Younes Makhyoun, Nour Party lead-er and Constituent Assembly mem-ber, recognizes that this draft doesn’t represent the end of their ambition for an Islamized Egypt, but says change has to be gradual.

“Everyone should be aware that we are still in a transitional period, and

so replacing the principles of Sharia with its rulings in the new constitu-tion would have been difficult from a political point of view,” he says.

The other faction believes that the proposed constitution will not be a proper base for the Islamist project.

They say the constitution should have more properly stipulated that Sharia is the main source of legis-lation, as opposed to just its prin-ciples, and that under Islamic rule, non-Muslims such as Christians and Jews should not be governed by their creeds with regards to personal affairs, which is allocated for in Ar-ticle 3.

They also say the constitution should not have stated that people are the source of powers, and ar-gue that instead it should have vested divine authority with that power. Ultimately, they argue that Article 219 is of no real value. These factions previously staged a mass protest on 9 November to call for the implementation of Sharia and voice objection to the constitution. “If we wanted an Islamist project, we should have not stated in the con-stitution that we’re going through a

transitional period, for the current president belongs to the Islamist current, and the Parliament elected after the revolution also belonged to the Islamist current,” says Saber. “This was a favorable moment to have a constitution that establishes Sharia, with all of its rulings, [as the source of legislation] because this is simply the demand of the majority.”

Effect on the BrothersPast events demonstrate that Salafi rifts do not serve the Brotherhood’s interests. Since the referendum on constitutional amendments in March 2011, observers have said the Salafi current tipped the balance in favor of the amendments, which were endorsed by a 77.5 percent ma-jority.

This enabled the then-ruling Su-preme Council of the Armed Forces to issue a constitutional declaration that led to the election of a parlia-ment that picked the Constituent Assembly that wrote the controver-sial constitution.

“No” voters wanted to see a con-stitution drafted before an Islamist-controlled Parliament convened.

Hazem Salah Abu IsmailYounes Makhyoun

Salafis protest demanding the strict implementation of Sharia.

The Salafi vote has served the Brotherhood, whose party won the most seats in Parliament, with the Nour Party coming in second. Although a court ruling later dis-solved Parliament, the Islamist ma-jority managed to elect the assem-bly that drafted the constitution. Today, the Brotherhood is trying to repeat that scenario. The Broth-erhood announced Saturday the formation of the Islamist Coalition, which brings together its traditional allies: the Salafi Dawah and Nour Party on the one hand, and the Salafi Front and Hazemoun — both of which are opposed to the constitu-tion — on the other.

The founder of the coalition says their goal is to offset the power of civil forces, which they say are seek-ing to devastate the country and challenge legitimacy through oppo-sition to Morsy.

Khairat al-Shater, prominent Brotherhood leader and deputy supreme guide, held a press confer-ence to call on people to vote in fa-vor of the new constitution so that the process of building state insti-tutions could begin and economic and security issues are addressed. Zaghloul says Shater, who is close to Salafi ranks within the Brotherhood, is trying to woo that part of the Salafi current opposed to the constitution.

Zaghloul adds that the Nour Party and Salafi Dawah are the only po-litical powers that the Brotherhood takes into account, given their large following. He says three Nour Party leaders are among the president’s aides and they were picked for their partisan affiliation.

However, a rift exists between Salafi leaders and their followers, who are increasingly estranged by what they deem as compromises by politicians.

“The problem is that Salafi sectors that supported Nour Party candi-dates in the previous parliamentary elections and consistently backed its political positions are not satisfied with the draft constitution, which is what the Brotherhood and Salafi Dawah know quite well,” Zaghhoul says.

Makhyoun says the Brotherhood is negotiating with Salafis who op-pose the constitution to dissuade them from voting against it. Project-ing the success of those negotiations, Makhyoun says members of the Islamist current think they need to have a unified position on the con-stitution for it to pass the test of the vote.

Meanwhile, Zaghloul says, even if the Brotherhood succeeds in win-ning over the opposing Salafi camp, there will still be a broad sector of non-politicized Salafis who follow the Salafi approach and are influ-enced by the positions Salafi preach-ers express on satellite channels.

For instance, Mostafa al-Adawy, a preacher and TV presenter on the Salafi satellite channel Al-Nas, says Muslims who vote in favor of the constitution will be sinners because the constitution contains several ar-ticles that clearly violate the Quran and prophetic tradition.

Zaghloul concludes that if these apolitical Salafis vote against the constitution, the Islamist current will lose a considerable voting bloc.■

This piece was translated from Arabic by Dina Zafer.

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This was a favorable moment to have a constitution that establishes Sharia, with all of its rulings, [as the source of legislation] because this is simply the demand of the majority

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5News13 December 2012

Off TV?Sawiris sells ONTV to Tunisian businessman

By Mai Shams El-DinA surprise decision by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris to sell his satellite channel ONTV to Tunisian film producer Tarak Ben Ammar has raised questions about the intentions of both.

The news sparked questions over the future of Sawiris’ pres-ence in the Egyptian business sphere and also spurred specula-tion over Ammar’s media plans for the region.

The deal was kept clandestine until 5 December, when a state-ment was released saying that Ben Ammar “acquired Naguib Sawiris’ ONTV network in a groundbreaking deal that signals a dramatic development in the Arab media landscape.”

ONTV will be run out of its head office in Cairo, according to a statement from Ben Ammar’s office, and will remain “an inde-pendent news channel with no af-filiation to any political party and with its management exercising complete editorial independence.

“ONTV will benefit from the new non-Egyptian ownership that has no connection or ties to any political group in Egypt and is committed entirely to ensuring impartiality and respecting the diversity of views in the country,” it added.

Launched in October 2008, ONTV has toed a progressive line in its presentation of programs and news shows. Its presenters are outspoken and its coverage of the 25 January revolution boosted its credibility and viewership among an expanding audience base.

Over the past two years, it has come under fire on several occa-sions for its bold take on current events, challenging the rhetoric of state-run media — widely seen as the government’s mouthpiece — and the reality of events as presented by the ruling military council, which came into power after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.

It continues to do so under the rule of President Mohamed Morsy, the candidate of the Mus-lim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). During his short time in office, both public and private outlets have complained of me-dia restrictions and intimidation, especially in the past weeks, amid rising opposition against the con-stitutional declaration and the draft constitution.

ONTV’s founder, telecom ty-coon Sawiris, had set out to wid-en the horizons of Egypt’s media landscape, and, in that context, the channel is perceived as a suc-cess story.

Selling ONTV is one in a series of recent business transactions by Sawiris which, some observers ar-gue, is an indication of a redirec-tion elsewhere of his vast invest-ments in the country.

In February, after a protracted court battle, Sawiris reached an agreement with France Tele-com to sell most of his shares in Egypt’s largest telecom provider, Mobinil, but his company re-tained a significant number of

staunchly opposes the Brother-hood, it cannot be described as particularly revolutionary.

In a televised appearance on Nesma, Ben Ammar and ONTV’s chief executive, Albert Shafiq, vowed to create a media empire that would challenge the domina-tion of Gulf money in the Arabic media landscape.

In this context, initial readings would find Nesma and ONTV fit perfectly with Ben Ammar’s plan to create a regional media empire.

“People think I must be crazy to invest in Egypt in such a tur-bulent media and business atmo-sphere, but I trust the Egyptian people,” Ben Ammar said.

ONTV’s liberal leanings un-derscored the authentic Egyptian nature, he added, and were vital to counter the influence of Gulf media’s aim to reshape North Af-rican culture.

“Our economy heavily relies on culture. I do not have the big funds that the Gulf has, but we [in North Africa] have the peo-ple. Let’s give the chance to those who do not have money, but have the culture and the people,” he added.

Ben Ammar is planning to launch a sister channel to Nesma in France to address the popula-tion of more than 7 million Arabs and Muslims there.

“With the Tunisian Nesma, which addresses over 90 million viewers in North Africa, ONTV, which addresses 90 million in Egypt, and another 10 million addressed by the new Nesma channel in France, we can create a panel of networks that can be the foundation of a North African media empire,” he said.

Shafiq said ONTV was fighting attempts to “erase” Egyptian cul-ture and was trying to defend its national identity, which was be-ing impinged on from inside and outside.

Egypt’s “soft power” lies in its cultural domination across the Arab world since the 1950s, he added, and “enough with inter-ventionist media that carries a strange culture.”

Opposing views criticize ONTV for peddling Western val-ues and being biased against the Islamist current.

Abdallah says acquiring the channel will be a “successful me-dia investment” for Ben Ammar.

“ONTV has a huge Egyptian audience that favors the revolu-tionary awakening in Egypt and I think this is what Ben Ammar is bidding on. He is promising no intervention in its editorial line, which is vital. We will see how it will be implemented in the fu-ture,” she adds.

A source close to Ben Ammar who prefers to remain anony-mous told Egypt Independent that the Tunisian businessman needed Egypt to build his North African media empire.

“The base has to be in Egypt. We understand the fears of Egypt’s troubled transition to democracy, but we know it will take time to stabilize. We trust the Egyptian people,” the source added.■

ONTV has a huge Egyptian audience that favors the revolutionary awakening in Egypt and I think this is what Ben Ammar is bidding on. He is promising no intervention in its editorial line, which is vital. We will see how it will be implemented in the future

seats on the board. He next moved in on Russia’s

Vimpelcom, becoming a share-holder in a cash and share deal worth US$6 billion, whereby he sold 51 percent of his stake in Orascom Telecom and his entire share of Italy’s Wind. The deal also included top revenue earner Djezzy, an Algerian subsidiary, after a standoff with the govern-ment over taxes.

Most recently, he has shown in-terest in Telecom Italia, which, as Reuters reported, is his way of re-building a telecom empire — but in developed markets.

“When you invest in the West, you are sure at least that law and order applies,” he told Reuters.

After the revolution, he delved into the political scene, forming the liberal Free Egyptians Party as a counter balance to the emer-gence of the FJP, as well as the Salafi Nour Party.

His main aim has openly been to ensure that Egypt remains a civil state. In contesting the 2011 parliamentary elections, the Free Egyptians Party launched an elec-toral alliance with other secular political parties, called the Egyp-tian Bloc, but only garnered about 7 percent of the vote.

Sawiris was mired in contro-versy with Islamists in June 2011 when he tweeted a cartoon de-picting Mickey Mouse with a beard alongside a veiled Minnie Mouse. Salafi lawyer Mamdouh Ismail filed a lawsuit accusing him of insulting Islam.

Though he officially apologized, Sawiris was referred to a misde-meanor court, but was later ac-quitted.

Tarak Ben Ammar Naguib Sawiris

On the receiving end of the ONTV deal is Ben Ammar, who owns Paris-based film production and distribution company Quinta Communications. He is known to have a passion for movies featur-ing North African culture.

Reports indicate that he is a personal adviser to Saudi busi-ness tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, as well as being the business partner of controversial Italian politician and media tycoon Sil-vio Berlusconi.

He and Berlusconi co-own the Tunisian television channel Nesma, after buying half of it from brothers Ghazi and Nabil al-Karawi, known for having close ties to ousted Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Ben Am-mar is also Wassila Bourguiba’s nephew, the wife of late Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba.

Nesma, like ONTV, is known for its liberal tone — so much so that it was the subject of a scandal before the October 2011 Tuni-sian elections when it broadcast a French film that depicted God, which is banned in Islamic prac-tice.

Islamists came out in full fury against the channel. One of the Karawi brothers was sentenced to prison by a court but was later released.

Tunisian journalist Wajd Ab-dallah told Egypt Independent that the incident was heavily used by Islamist political forces in Tu-nisia, helping them campaign against liberals to win almost 40 percent of the constituent assem-bly seats.

Abdallah added that while the channel’s editorial agenda

In a televised appearance on Nesma, Ben Ammar and ONTV’s chief executive, Albert Shafiq, vowed to create a media empire that would challenge the domination of Gulf money in the Arabic media landscape

Albert Shafiq

6 News13 December 2012

Some people from the former regime are trying to create chaos in the country and they use the opposition as a veneer for their sabotage. We know the revolutionary youth would never do that

We have an unofficial coalition of opposition youth and we are all university students. To mobilize protesters, we roam through the city and chant loudly for people to join us, and they come down right away

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By Mohamad AdamAGAZIG — �e sirens of the modern electronic crossing at the entrance of Za-gazig, the capital of Sharqiya Governor-ate, are drowned out by the honking as

the train approaches. �ere’s no crossing guard in sight — the process is automated, giving visitors the sense that this is indeed the city of Egypt’s �rst civilian president.

Soon a�er the crossing, however, the scene changes dramatically as you enter the area where clashes between protesters and security forces have carried on for three days, just meters from the home of President Mohamed Morsy’s family. Resi-dents of the building include his family, relatives and others who are not relations.

On 6 December, protesters marched from Za-gazig University — about 300 meters from the Morsy family residence — denouncing the consti-tutional declaration through which Morsy claimed extra powers for himself, and the contentious dra� constitution. Clashes soon broke out between pro-testers and security forces guarding the building.

While the clashes represented mounting opposi-tion to the rule of the Brothers, the la�er insisted they were a conspiracy from the old regime, echo-ing the moment when they described Morsy’s ri-val (and former Mubarak �gure) Ahmad Sha�q’s victory in the presidential run-o� in the Delta gov-ernorate as a plot against them.

It’s not safe at homeDuring the second day of clashes, violence spread to the center of the city, as the Freedom and Justice Party’s new headquarters and a tra�c authority of-�ce were torched.

Central Security Forces were deployed, lining the road from the university all the way to Morsy’s house, where security measures were tightened. Plainclothes policemen, some of them Republican Guard o�cers, sat in front of the building and no photos were allowed in the area.

Omar Ahmed Fahmy, a teaching assistant at Zag-azig University’s faculty of medicine and a resident in the same building, invited this Egypt Indepen-dent reporter into his father’s apartment Saturday. His father is Ahmed Fahmy, speaker of the Shura Council.

Upon entering the building, our bags were scanned through an X-ray machine. In the elevator, a poster of Morsy and the FJP had been defaced.

Inside Fahmy’s apartment hangs a photo of Has-san al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brother-hood, and an elegant clock with the FJP’s logo.

�e younger Fahmy says security was not as tight directly a�er Morsy’s election. Morsy himself had literally brushed o� his bodyguards when taking a symbolic oath on a stage in the middle of a packed Tahrir Square. �at situation has changed over the past weeks.

�ere was initially less security in the area and less scrutiny of people entering and exiting the building, but, as protests escalated, “demonstrators started coming into the building on an almost daily basis,” he says. Security was quickly stepped up.

Until �ursday, protests in front of the building were peaceful, he recounts. “But then protesters tried to breach the barricades and assault security forces, which sparked the clashes,” he adds, argu-ing that it is o�en young boys who provoke the se-curity forces into starting a �ght.

�e president’s family eventually evacuated the building �ursday, and security forces led clashes away from the building so the tear gas could not be smelled there, he says.

Genuine oppositionOmar Hesham, a student at Zamalek’s Faculty of Fine Arts who is originally from Zagazig, regu-larly coordinates protests in his home city. He says protesters and activists from di�erent parties and movements know each other well and can mobi-lize quickly using their mobile phones and social media.

“We have an uno�cial coalition of opposition youth and we are all university students. To mobi-lize protesters, we roam through the city and chant loudly for people to join us and they come down right away,” he explains.

In the marches, party slogans are absent despite

there being several groups in Sharqiya, including the Revolutionary Socialists, the April 6th Youth Movement and the Popular Alliance, as well as the Constitution and Democratic Front Parties, among others.

Protests in the city since the issue of the consti-tutional declaration have been peaceful, Hesham says, but a�er the bloody clashes at the presiden-tial palace in Cairo, tensions rose around the presi-dent’s house. �e use of tear gas was excessive, and many protesters felt it was less about protecting the president’s house and more about suppressing the demonstration.

�e Sharqiya clashes began �ursday, the day af-ter a sit-in by Morsy opponents at the presidential palace was a�acked by his supporters. A brief lull in the �ghting on Friday morning was interrupted that a�ernoon, peaking when demonstrators set the tra�c authority o�ce next to Mabarra Hospi-tal ablaze. Unknown assailants also burned a new and relatively unknown FJP o�ce.

A�er the clashes, Hend al-Deeb, a member of the Revolutionary Socialists in Sharqiya, said a total of 30 people were arrested. Twenty were arrested Fri-day and released Monday, while another 10 were arrested Saturday and released immediately be-cause they were minors.

A conspiracyTareq al-Gabry, a member of the FJP’s gen-

eral secretariat and its youth secretary, says a dis-tinction must be made between honest, patriotic youth and others who are paid to create chaos and sabotage buildings.

�e main Brotherhood headquarters are also lo-cated in Sharqiya. In the absence of police, a small number of Brotherhood members stood at the gates to secure it. Another 20 were inside watching Misr 25, the Brotherhood’s satellite channel, look-ing visibly worried.

Now ��ed with iron bars, stones had previously been hurled at the windows. Close by stood a trash bin �lled to the brim with stones, ready in case of a possible a�ack.

“Some people from the former regime are trying to create chaos in the country and they use the op-position as a veneer for their sabotage. We know the revolutionary youth would never do that. We will use all peaceful and legitimate venues to express our opinion and protect our headquarters,” he says.

“It is be�er for us to see a thousand of our head-quarters on �re than to see blood spilt,” adds Gabry.

He has �led reports against former ruling Na-tional Democratic Party members in Sharqiya and documented all the a�acks on their o�ce.

“�is is a transitional period and it is normal for things like this to happen. We’re �ghting with a regime that has its own men, money and satel-lite channels. We cannot accuse certain people though, we only report people who incite [vio-lent] acts and ask the police to play their role in securing our o�ces,” says Gabry.

But it seems the police are unable to cope with the violence.

A�acks on policeOne of the policemen who secured the FJP o�ce that was a�acked was himself assaulted, and his weapon was stolen.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he says, “Our leaders have sold us out. �ey order us to secure places and hand us tear gas, while the assail-ants use birdshot.

“�ey are concerned about their ranks, so they give us nothing more than tear gas. �ey are afraid people will say police �red birdshot and killed people. �ese criminals are known to security forces and can easily be arrested, but they arrest them at night and the prosecution releases them in the morning. �e security chief negotiates with the thugs and he lets them go.”

�e policeman added that several of his col-leagues were also injured.

“We do not want to secure the ruling party’s headquarters and again appear to be protecting the regime,” says the policeman. “We only want to protect people and our leaders should protect us because we, too, are human beings.”■

This piece was translatedfrom Arabic by Dina Zafer

Sharqiya protests uncomfortably close to Morsy’s family home

Thousands protest in Zagazig, just meters from President Mohamed Morsy’s family home.

Police stop clashes next to Morsy’s family house.

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Ahmed Fahmy

13 December 2012

7News

A temporary autonomous zone

By Jano Charbel

ahalla — The “Inde-pendent Republic of Greater Mahalla” was declared by thousands

of angry locals on 7 December, fol-lowing bloody clashes in the city’s center on 27 November between supporters and opponents of Presi-dent Mohamed Morsy.

This newly “independent city” does not have its own national flag and it maintains the national an-them. While it opposes the Muslim Brotherhood and its sponsored draft constitution, the “Republic of Mahalla” does not have its own constitution either — at least not yet.

The so-called republic is not a se-cessionist movement from Egypt, but rather a gesture expressing op-position to Morsy’s regime and the Brotherhood from which he hails. The declaration took place amid mounting opposition in Egypt to Morsy’s rule following a series of decisions that were perceived as an attempt by Islamists to hegemonize power in the country.

While it was born in a town where dissidence is customary, the move also further crystallized how dominant local politics has become.

Rising opposition to MorsyThe “new republic” was declared by a few thousand unionized workers, along with opposition and inde-pendent activists who unilaterally announced their independence outside the Mahalla City Council late last week.

The move was prompted fol-lowing violent clashes last week between Brotherhood supporters and their opposition.

Sayed Habib, a labor-rights activ-ist at the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services in Mahalla city, explained that “workers be-came interested in the idea of inde-pendence after Morsy granted him-self wide-reaching powers through his ‘constitutional declaration’,” which he issued on 22 November, “followed by his interventionist la-bor decree,” which was issued three days later.

The decree was criticized for pushing for Brotherhood hegemo-ny over trade unions, by removing members over the age of 60 from the Egyptian Trade Union Federa-tion and replacing them with ap-pointed members.

Habib explained that about 5,000 workers who had finished their evening shift at the massive Misr Spinning and Weaving Com-pany marched on to Shon Square, protesting at what they perceived to be Morsy’s power grab.

Habib said that when they ar-rived at the square, they found hun-dreds of Morsy supporters waiting for them — primarily Brotherhood members and their sympathizers.

“While we outnumbered them, a number of these pro-Morsy thugs were carrying shotguns and Mo-lotov [cocktails], which they used against us,” he said.

Other workers and activists who had participated in this march said birdshot, firebombs, rocks and fire-

works were used against them.Videos taken around Shon

Square appear to verify the use of these weapons. The videos also show anti-Morsy protesters fight-ing back with rocks, Molotov cock-tails and fireworks. These clashes left more than 350 injured, with some putting that number at more than 700 on 27 November.

Further polarizing the two camps was the issuing of the new draft constitution on 30 November, which opponents claim was hastily prepared and rushed through the Constituent Assembly, dominated by the Brotherhood and other Is-lamists.

The fatal clashes around the presidential palace in Cairo on 5–6 December between Brotherhood loyalists and opposition protesters also influenced Mahalla’s move to-ward independence. Those clashes left at least eight dead and more than 700 others injured.

Speaking at Shon Square in hon-or of this “newly autonomous” city on 9 December, Ahmed Hassan al-Borai, ex-minister of manpower, announced Mahallans would “not be terrorized by the Brotherhood’s militias.” Borai added that the draft constitution “deprives women of their constitutional rights. It serves to deny 50 percent of Egyptian so-ciety their basic rights.”

Alaa al-Bahlawan of the liberal opposition Constitution Party also declared Mahalla’s independence from Morsy’s “corrupt rule.”

“We support this declaration of independence and aspire to see Mahalla leading and safeguarding the 25 January revolution,” he an-nounced.

Addressing an audience of more than 1,000 city residents who had

congregated in the square, Fathy Abdel Hamid of the Independent Federation of Pensioners joined the declaration.

“We are not here to merely de-nounce the Muslim Brotherhood and their draft constitution,” he announced. “We are here to de-clare that we will not tolerate rulers who bleed us in order to remain in power.”

Angry chants shook the square, with protesters shouting slogans such as “Down with the rule of the supreme guide,” referring to the Brotherhood’s leader, and “Raise your head high, you are a Mahal-lan!”

Anti-Morsy Mahallans spray-painted graffiti on walls across the city reading “Mahalla is a Brother-hood-free zone,” while other street art and murals denounced the “Muslim Brotherhood’s draft con-stitution.”

Another guest speaker, veteran opposition organizer George Ishaq, described Mahalla as “a cita-del of freedom” and added that he would be honored to be a citizen of this independent entity.

“[The Brothers] are leading us toward a fascist state,” he said. “We cannot and will not accept fascism.”

Yet another guest speaker, Kamal Abbas, chief of the Egyptian Dem-ocratic Labor Congress, shouted, “They want us to be slaves, not

free men and women. Their draft constitution seeks to impose child labor and forced labor, and also seeks to outlaw independent trade unions.

“Mahalla is now leading the Egyptian revolution,” he conclud-ed. “Mahalla has been liberated.”

Mahalla’s nominal act of in-dependence, however, is largely symbolic, and has no real admin-istrative effect severing it from the Egyptian state. Many residents do not recognize the act, while others openly reject such calls.

Mohamed Youssef, a teacher passing by Shon Square during the rally on 9 December, commented, “I don’t support these insane calls for independence. This is merely an effort organized by a few thugs aimed at weakening Egypt’s na-tional unity.”

Following the rally, hundreds of protesters marched to the Mahalla City Council and again declared their independence. Dozens of veiled women led chants against “Morsy’s subjugation of women” and “Muslim Brotherhood rule.”

Upon arriving at Mahalla City Council, the protesters began chanting “Long live Egypt,” and then sang the national anthem.

Parking his Vespa to inspect the scene, a passer-by commented, “I thought these people had broken off from Egypt. Why are they sing-ing the national anthem?

“I assume we still don’t have our own currency and passports here?” he added.

A history of dissidenceReferred to as the “Industrial Cita-del of the Nile Delta,” Mahalla al-Kubra is located some 120 kilo-meters north of Cairo, in Gharbiya

Governorate. “The Autonomous City of Ma-

halla” or “the Republic of Mahalla” is not the first of its sort. “The Re-public of Zefta,” a town also located in Gharbiya, emerged during the 1919 Revolution against Britain’s protectorate over Egypt.

However, unlike Zefta, the “Inde-pendent Republic of Mahalla” does not have a central revolutionary council or any real administrative autonomy from the Egyptian state.

“This is not the same as the Zefta republic,” Mahalla cab driver Wael Noaman said. “We are not under occupation or colonization, like we were under the British. This is a dangerous precedent that could lead to other Egyptian peoples and cities declaring independence from Egypt.”

Noaman went on to say that as the country was under Brother-hood occupation, their occupiers would still be Egyptian.

“If Morsy or his men mess up, then we can oppose them or even overthrow them, like [former Pres-ident Hosni] Mubarak.”

In more recent history following the 25 January revolution, the vil-lage of Tahseen declared admin-istrative autonomy in September. Located in the Nile Delta gover-norate of Daqahlia, Tahseen resi-dents responded to a water utilities crisis by not paying taxes or utility bills and embarking on a localized civil disobedience campaign.

Activists in the “Independent Re-public of Mahalla” have said they will also embark on campaigns of civil disobedience, like the resi-dents of Tahseen. But other than briefly blocking the Tanta-Mahalla highway and a railroad leading to the city on 7 December, not much has been seen here in terms of civil disobedience.

Mahalla’s significance as a city of resistance predates this experimen-tal “Independent Republic.” In De-cember 2006, Mahalla’s publicly owned Misr Spinning and Weav-ing Company — Egypt’s largest, with a workforce of some 20,000 — launched an historic strike that resulted in an unprecedented wave of strikes throughout Egypt from 2007 to 2008.

Another strike at the Misr Spin-ning and Weaving Company, planned for 6 April 2008, was thwarted by state security, which arrested strike leaders and threat-ened workers back into produc-tion.

Nevertheless, a localized popular uprising erupted throughout the city on 6 and 7 April of that year. Portraits of the then-President Hosni Mubarak were smashed and the local headquarters of his National Democratic Party was at-tacked as throngs of protesters chanted anti-regime slogans.

That anti-Mubarak uprising in Mahalla is commonly seen as one of the precursors to the 25 Janu-ary revolution.

“This city resisted and confronted the previous dictatorship. It helped to bring down Mubarak,” said inde-pendent youth activist Mohamed Abdel Azim. “We are now refusing Morsy’s dictatorship, and we will topple him if necessary.”■

In symbolic gesture, Mahalla claims independence in opposition to Morsy

This is a dangerous precedent that could lead to other Egyptian peoples and cities declaring independence from Egypt

Anti-Morsy Mahallans spray-painted graffiti on walls across the city reading "Mahalla is a Brotherhood-free zone"

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The people of Mahalla declare independence in opposition to President Mohamed Morsy.

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8 News13 December 2012

Democracy in itself is prohibited because sovereignty is reserved for God, and countries that call for democracy, such as the US, England and France, are actually imperialist and implement democracy ony when it serves their interests

Thousands of non-Brotherhood/Salafi Dawah Islamists gather to protest in Alexandria.

The new Islamist groups share an aversion to both the Brotherhood and the Salafi Dawah.

By Abdelrahman YoussefLEXANDRIA — Many of the protest scenes that played out over the past weeks are emblematic of substantive changes in the landscape of Islamist

movements, particularly in Alexandria, accord-ing to observers.

After President Mohamed Morsy’s contro-versial 22 November constitutional declaration (revoked on 8 December), youth from sev-eral revolutionary movements were surprised to find non-Brotherhood, Islamist political groups gathered to support the decisions at Al-Qaed Ibrahim Mosque in Alexandria, which has been at the heart of protests since the out-break of the 2011 uprising.

The scene confounded reporters who won-dered about the demographics of those gath-ered at Al-Qaed Ibrahim, especially since both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Dawah said they had not organized protests there. The tens of thousands of apparent Islamist protest-ers amassed in the area raised the question: Which political force has the capability to mo-bilize a rally of this size?

Alexandria is known to be a Brotherhood stronghold and is also home to some of the group’s most prominent leaders, including Es-sam al-Haddad and Hussein Ibrahim. It was also in this city that the Salafi movement was established, namely the Alexandria school of the Salafi Dawah in 1979.

But after the revolution, several loosely or-ganized Islamist movements have emerged, influenced by recent developments and new ideas, including Hazemoun, the Third Islamist Current and the Salafi Front. Jama’a al-Islamiya and other jihadi movements have also made a strong comeback to the political scene.

Nageh Ibrahim, Islamist preacher and think-er and one of the founders of Jama’a Islamiya, says there are stark differences between these fledgling Islamist movements and more estab-lished ones, chief among which are their fluid-ity and lack of a strict organizational structure.

They are also characterized by diversity and intellectual variability among members, most of whom prefer to remain independent rather than pledge loyalty to a specific organization, Ibrahim says. The newer movements are not institutionalized and are at times personalized, as in the case of Hazemoun, which was formed during the presidential election in support of its namesake, former Salafi candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail.

While growing exponentially in some areas, the groups do not have an equally strong pres-ence nationwide.

Ibrahim says the Salafi Front has a significant presence in the Delta, particularly in Mansou-ra, while Hazemoun is strong in Cairo. Mean-while, Jama’a Islamiya is potent in Upper Egypt while the Third Islamist Current was born in Alexandria.

“The mass protests staged by Islamists are beyond the mobilization capacity of known Islamist groups, and a considerable number of protesters in those rallies came out in defense of the Islamic project rather than a certain Is-lamist faction,” says Ibrahim.

A reaction to existing trendsOsama al-Shafie, secretary for the Third Cur-rent Shura Council in Alexandria, says the movement was born three months after the breakout of the revolution, when a large sector of people began wanting to engage in Islamist political activity, but in a nonpartisan way. They shared an aversion to the Brotherhood’s reformist platform as well as the Salafi Dawah’s conservative nature in dealing with reality, “fo-cusing primarily on superficial changes and formalities, while rejecting the idea of revolting against the ruler.

“The current brings together people who reject both groups, as well as tyranny,” he ex-plains, adding that the current has thousands of members and 15 mosques in Alexandria, and is funded by members.

The flag used by the movement is white with

black writing that says “There is no god but Al-lah and Mohamed is his Prophet,” indicating that it does not fall under a specific organiza-tion, with the Shura Council, comprised of five sheikhs, running its affairs.

Mahmoud Hassan, a 30-year-old member, was part of the committee securing one of the recent protests. He joined the Third Current and Hazemoun after sensing that the Salafi movement was not taking a serious enough po-sition to face the social and media systems, or the smearing of their image by the regime and secularists.

He also joined the movement because it is nonpartisan in nature and does not oblige him to adopt certain opinions, unlike mainstream Salafis and the Brotherhood.

Ibrahim asserts this reasoning as the roots for many emerging Islamist movements.

He says the rise of these new powers can be attributed to the fact that the engagement of Islamist movements in politics comes at the expense of their religious credibility, due to the

political compromises they have to make. The people have yet to test the new Islamist powers, however, he adds.

A changing ideologyUnlike other Salafi groups, Third Current members refused to be part of the former re-gime, such as religious institutions, or to be al-lowed to operate in return for recognizing the legitimacy of the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak.

And while inspired by post-uprising chang-es, many of the main ideologies of these new groups have existed since the 1970s and 1980s. Still, some tendencies have changed partly due to the revolution, Shafie says, including the re-jection of partisan activity based on the belief that the ruler was a “disbeliever and participat-ing in politics was seen as implicit approval of his reign.”

Other ideas that have evolved include “armed revolt against the ruler and the view that a rul-er who is capable of implementing Sharia yet

chooses not to is a disbeliever; the immediate implementation of Sharia; and steering clear of well-known Islamist groups to evade a security crackdown,” Shafie explains.

The revolution has made Shafie believe that civil disobedience and popular mobility are generally stronger than weapons, particularly since Egyptians, by nature, reject violence. A more drastic shift is viewing political participa-tion as key to reaching power, and a belief in the mechanisms of democracy, though not in democracy itself.

If Islamists reach power, he says, non-Islamist parties should be banned and forcibly sup-pressed. If they defy Islamist rule, he adds, armed resistance may be necessary.

“If confrontations with non-Islamists are in-tellectual in nature, then they should remain so, with pluralism only granted to Islamist parties,” he adds.

He rules out democracy altogether.“Democracy in itself is prohibited because

sovereignty is reserved for God, and countries that call for democracy, such as the US, Eng-land and France, are actually imperialist and implement democracy only when it serves their interests,” he says. “Their parliaments have approved the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries.”

Sharia and democracy differ — the former wants good for all humanity and seeks to turn the poor from recipients of charity to charity givers. In turn, he says, accepting democracy is a necessary and temporary tactic.

The current’s most important frames of ref-erence are hardliners Sayed Qotb, Abul Ala al-Maudui and Abdel Maguid al-Shazly, the imam of Sunni Islam in Alexandria.

In the protests, chants of the Third Current included, “Sayed Qotb said it in the past, the constitution is the Quran,” and another chant promising to settle the differences with secular crowds with arms.

Grand ambitionsShafie says they are seeking to establish a global Islamic caliphate through the creation of a fed-eration, union or any other political form, tak-ing into consideration each country’s particular nuances in implementing Sharia. He described the Taliban as an Islamic movement plagued by ignorance.

According to the charter written by Sheikh Khamees Khairallah, the goal of the Third Cur-rent is to create an Islamist trend among Egyp-tians and other liberated nations, for all moder-ate Sunni Muslims.

The current does not believe in the legiti-macy of existing regimes and has a vision for building a civil nation that is not ruled by the military, which develops its power to the full-est, with Islam as the religion, identity and law of that state.

The goal is two-fold: “reviving Egyptians’ creed, revitalizing the system of values and Egypt’s Islamic social unity ... [and] exploiting the agricultural, economic and technological capacities in the country on a scientific basis.”

Some experts are wary that the new groups and the re-emergence of Salafi jihadis may lead to the use of violence in Alexandria, which has not experienced violence by Islamist move-ments in a long time.

Ibrahim purports that the extreme polariza-tion in society has caused takfirism, the prac-tice of labeling others as apostates, to grow, while secularists also make accusations of trea-son — all of which are signs that alienation is increasing.

For him, while the Brotherhood has more grasp on its members, as does the Salafi Dawah, more fluid movements are dangerous because younger members cannot be restrained.

Asked about the future of these movements, Ibrahim says that after five years, the political scene will be dominated by one or two of them, while smaller ones will be squeezed out of the scene. Which ones will emerge as the strongest players remains to be seen.■

This piece was translated from Arabic by Dina Zafer.

A new brand of SalafismAlexandria sees changing landscape of Islamist groups

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9World13 December 2012

No normality in wartime

Syrian winters are rainy and the roof of the schoolhouse is leaky.

Documenting the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, Syria

Wessal al-Omar, 23, has two children. Five months ago, she left the city of Karm al-Tarrab with her family when their house was destroyed by an aircraft. No one was inside at the time. They decided to live in a school with 11 other families.

The price of the most basic food has skyrocketed to 12 times its previous value. Inside a bakery, a kilogram of bread costs 25 Syrian pounds. Outside, it will cost as much as 200.

Ahmed, 25, rarely earns more than 100 Syrian pounds a day, which is stretched thin when it comes to pay for food. The latest bread shortage has lasted more than a week.

Two young children share a meal inside the Aleppo school that currently serves as their home. It has been without electricity for two weeks.

Omar's husband, Ahmed, collects plastic bottles; a kilogram of plastic can bring him 100 Syrian pounds.

Omar and 11 other families are living in a school in the north-east of the city. Most of the occupants are children. Everyday, the families must find solutions to the chronic shortages of gas, water and bread.

Ahmed burns diesel to keep the room warm. Temperatures at night routinely drop below 10ºC.

By Virginie Nguyen

10 Economy13 December 2012

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Fiscal fumblingTax law turmoil knocks economy off course

By Maggie Hyde

gyptian officials have asked to post-pone a request for a US$4.8 loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), loan officials said Tues-

day, derailing a lengthy process of negotiat-ing that began soon after the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

“In light of the unfolding developments on the ground, the Egyptian authorities have asked to postpone their request for a Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF,” spokesper-son Wafa Amr told Egypt Independent in an emailed statement.

The loan’s delay is the latest in a series of eco-nomic surprises this week, after the govern-ment took an about-turn on the implementa-tion of a wide-ranging austerity tax plan.

On Sunday, news surfaced that Morsy had signed off on a large restructuring of the country’s tax system just before the weekend, on 6 December, as part of what officials said were IMF-sanctioned economic reforms.

The extensive changes increased taxes on cigarettes, soft drinks, alcohol, cooking oil and energy. In addition, the new laws would have levied licensing and property taxes, and increased the tax rate for higher-income brackets.

Officials had said the tax plan was part of the economic program Egypt prepared for the IMF during its extended visit to Cairo in early November. The delegation left feel-ing pleased with the economic program pre-sented, announcing a staff-level agreement and setting 19 December for final approval.

In late November, Egyptian officials re-leased the economic plan, which they said had been the basis of negotiations. It includ-ed clauses on raising cigarette and mass-pro-duced beverage taxes. But the main tenets of the economic plan, of which the primary goal was decreasing the budget deficit from its current 11 percent of gross domestic product to roughly 8 percent, were the lifting of fuel subsidies and the levying of a value-added tax, which acts like a higher sales tax paid by the end consumer.

The tax laws, then — issued amid political turmoil and protests over the constitution-writing process — came at an unexpected time for even the country’s political and eco-nomic analysts.

Reaction to the new laws late Sunday was near-immediate, with some of the loudest objections surprisingly coming from within Morsy’s own party.

“Of course it was a surprise,” Mohamed Gouda, spokesperson for the Freedom and Justice Party’s economic committee, told Egypt Independent. “The Freedom and Jus-tice Party did not know about the tax laws, did not agree to the tax laws and, unfortu-nately, was not asked to consult on the for-mation of the tax laws.”

The current government, Gouda said, is technocratic by nature, and chose the easiest way to decrease the government’s balloon-ing deficit — by raising taxes on the average citizen. He added that the time of the laws’ issuance was not befitting of the country’s current circumstances.

“Now is not the right time for these laws,” he said. “The country is without a parlia-ment.”

By the early hours of Monday, the group posted a statement on its Facebook page asking Prime Minister Hesham Qandil to postpone the plan until a new parliament is formed.

And so, before most citizens even had the chance to hoard their favorite soft drink or cigarette brand, the laws were suspended — at around 2 am Monday.

In the early morning announcement on the president’s official Facebook page, Morsy said the tax plan would not be implemented

until a “societal dialogue” had taken place, and the government had consulted experts. Coming so quickly after the FJP’s statement of rejection, some sensed the president feel-ing pressure from FJP officials.

“The president of the republic feels the pulse of the Egyptian street, and he realizes how much the citizen is bearing and strug-gling from his burdens in this difficult eco-nomic period,” the statement read. “The voice of the people is always louder and al-ways has the last word.”

The series of events is befuddling at best, but Morsy’s sneaky signing of the law, ap-parently without informing his own political party and certainly before alerting the me-dia, may have been by design.

The timing of the decision means it is gov-erned by the 22 November constitutional declaration, which immunized from appeal all presidential decisions until the convening of an elected parliament, according to Heba Morayef, Human Rights Watch’s Egypt di-rector.

The article immunizing the president’s de-cisions from appeal is valid retroactively only between 21 November and 8 December, she explained, making the tax laws non-appeal-able, though the Supreme Constitutional Court may be able to overturn that.

The tax laws’ issuance and subsequent suspension, besides confusing consumers, left many experts concerned that the coun-try’s already crippled economy could end up becom-ing a casualty of poor policymaking.

Many have little hope for the societal dia-logue the president promised, and say they expect to see the same tax plan resurrected after several months, as the government has shown few creative options for tackling the deficit.

“Every time he has said he is going to en-gage in societal dialogue about something or consult experts on something, all he’s done is gone off and consulted himself,” said Ahmed

Naggar, an economist at Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies.

Naggar is particularly critical of the tax plan because he said it saddles the country’s large middle class with the greatest burden, particularly in the way it calculates property and real estate taxes.

Others say the whole scenario demon-strates the economic ineptitude that Morsy and his government have demonstrated since he took office.

“I am disappointed that there’s no econom-ic plan to boost confidence, restore growth and create jobs,” said Angus Blair, founder of the Signet Institute, a Cairo-based think tank on economies in the Middle East and North Africa.

He called Morsy’s handling of the econo-my so far “a haphazard approach,” and said the tax increases leveled largely at the con-sumer base were in fact counterproductive to achieving growth.

Blair also said he doesn’t see the IMF loan being seriously jeopardized just yet.

He said IMF officials have “an enormous amount of goodwill” when it comes to help-ing Egypt out, and believes this week’s tax plan had “little to do” with receiving the IMF loan.

But the widespread political unrest and continuing protests over a constitutional ref-erendum scheduled for 15 December could also be a cause for hesitancy at the fund, ex-perts say.

Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets

economist at Capital Economics, says ne-gotiations are likely to resume after things calm down, but it’s unlikely the IMF would want to lend to Egypt in the current circum-stances.

“With the government’s attempt to defuse the crisis over the weekend by suspending the new presidential powers apparently hav-ing failed to mollify the opposition, it was perhaps only a matter of time before discus-sions with the IMF fell by the wayside,” he said in an emailed statement to Egypt Inde-pendent.

This suggests that the fund and the Egyp-tian government’s official narrative that it was Egypt that asked for the postponement may not be completely true.

“The fund remains in close contact with the authorities, and stands ready to continue supporting Egypt during the ongoing transi-tion and to consult with the authorities on the resumption of discussions regarding the Stand-By Arrangement,” the IMF statement said.

But if the country and its leaders continue on the current path, the loan — which is badly needed to replenish dwindling for-eign reserves and greenlight other sources of funding, may be in irreparable peril.

One source, who has been close to the IMF loan negotiations with Egypt, said the tax plan had been implemented to try and shrink the country’s deficit, as per IMF or-ders. And Morsy’s failure to implement it could have consequences.

“The timing of announcing these measures could have proven very problematic given the political tension, but the cancellation announcement, coupled with the political drama, could risk the approval of the loan soon,” the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.

For local rights groups and opposition forces that have vocally come out in rejection of the loan, this may actually be good news.■

The Freedom and Justice Party did not know about the tax law, did not agree to the tax law and, unfortunately, was not asked to consult on the formation of the tax laws

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Ongoing protests against Morsy have taken place throughout the week.

Every time (Morsy) has said he is going to engage in societal dialogue about something or consult experts on something, all he’s done is gone off and consulted himself

11Economy Briefs13 December 2012

The annual inflation rate decreased in November by 4.1 percent compared to the same month last year, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics said Monday. This is the lowest rate of inflation the country has seen since March 2006. Inflation has fallen by 1.5 percent since Octo-ber. The agency’s report attributed November’s decline in part to a 2.12 percent decrease in vegetable prices. The report also pointed to natural gas prices falling by 1.14 percent due to an increase in the supply of butane cylin-ders. Egg production also increased, leading to a 2.5 percent decrease in prices, while the price of poultry fell by 5.1 percent, and fish by 2.2 percent. Many Egyptians have complained of rising prices, particularly for food, in the past two years.■

Borrowing from the neighbors

Morsy dabbles in monetary policy

President Mohamed Morsy will issue a decree within days that will give him more power over the Central Bank of Egypt, according to a Tuesday report on the website of state-owned Al-Ahram newspa-per. By amending one of the stat-utes that govern the bank and its officials, Morsy would be able to appoint more of the bank’s board members. Under current law, the governor of the Central Bank is largely responsible for appointing the governing board’s members. According to Al-Ahram, Morsy has already obtained the Cabinet’s ap-proval on the decree. The decree would cut the number of board members to nine as opposed to 15, and give the president the power to appoint at least four economic or monetary experts, in addition to ministry representatives and the governor.■

The African Development Bank has tentatively agreed to provide Egypt with US$2.5 billion over the next two years, which coincides with the duration of the country’s economic reform plan, Prime Min-ister Hesham Qandil said Wednes-day. The loan will be allocated for investment and developmental projects, such as expanding Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport, as well as other projects for renew-able energy, electricity and sani-tary drainage, Qandil said during a government forum on employ-ment. Qandil announced the government would sign a contract with the bank by year’s end to ob-tain the initial $500 million, while the remaining $2 billion would be disbursed over the next two years. The bank’s board is slated to convene on 20–21 December to discuss the loan request. The bank had previously given initial approval to the loan during Cairo’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan from that institution.■

Mohamed Morsy

Hesham Qandil

Inflation lets up?

The Planning and Interna-tional Cooperation Ministry is holding negotiations with creditor countries to delay an external debt payment of US$1 billion that was due at the end of November, an anonymous government official told Al-Masry Al-Youm last Thursday. The step aims to maintain foreign reserves so they would not be reduced to $15.5 billion before Egypt obtains an International Monetary Fund loan, which was expected to be finalized on 19 December but has now been postponed. A senior bank official denied that Egypt had failed to repay any part of its external debts over the past two years, despite its financial troubles. In a related development, the Finance Ministry continued negotiations with the Euro-pean Union and the US on a package of aid and loans, noting that these negotia-tions have not been adversely affected by the recent constitutional declaration or call for a referendum on the draft constitution. “The negotiations are ongoing regarding the aid package, which is related to a partner-ship agreement with the US and EU concluded two years ago,” a ministry official said.■

Just a little bit longer

Stocks ride political rollercoaster

The stock market has had a bumpy week, with several days of large losses and some of mar-ginal gains amid the political unrest. Stock indexes jumped collectively last Tuesday after an intense round of purchases by foreign and Arab investors, despite the “Final Warning” marches planned to the presidential palace to reject the constitutional declaration and draft constitution. The main index, the EGX 30, which tracks the performance of the top 30 companies, rose by 3.4 percent, gaining 167 points and stopping at 4,991 points, prompted by transactions valued at LE380 million. The market capitalization gained LE8 billion, making LE347.4 billion, compared with LE339.4 billion Monday. Mahmoud Abdel Rahman, Premiere Company head, attributed the stock market boost to purchases by institu-tions, especially foreign and Arab ones, that wanted to seize the opportunity of the sharp decline in stock prices and the offers made by individual investors in the market. Serious losses began after violent clashes in front of the presidential palace last Wednesday night. EGX 30, which tracks the performance of the top 30 companies, went down by 4.6 percent the follow-ing Thursday, losing 233 points to reach 4,838 points, with sales values at LE402.4 million. The stock exchange halted the trading of 61 compa-nies for half an hour after they passed the allow-able percentage decline, which is 5 percent. The trading screens were covered in red. The market

capitalization lost LE10.4 billion after the prices of 137 securities went down, while only seven securities went up. Mohsen Adel, deputy head of the Egyptian Society for the Study of Finance and Investment, said the clashes outside the presidential palace urged investors, particularly foreigners, to liquidate parts of their portfolios out of fear the situation would deteriorate. But on Sunday, stock market indices made gains following the partial replacement of Morsy’s November constitutional declaration with a new decree. EGX 30 jumped 2.15 percent to reach 4,942 points, an increase of 104 points, while market capital increased from LE341.3 billion Thursday to LE345.2 billion. Trading value reached LE7.35 million on that day. But it was down again Monday, as a main opposition coali-tion rejected President Mohamed Morsy’s plan to put the draft constitution up for a referendum Saturday. The main stock exchange index went down 1.7 percent to 4,968 points, declining for the third time within six sessions. The market oscillated between 5,100 and 4,700 points since Morsy’s constitutional declaration on 22 Novem-ber giving himself sweeping powers. All stocks on the main index except for five fell, including Palm Hills, which went down 1.5 percent, and Orascom Telecom, which declined by 0.8 per-cent. On Tuesday, the market remained relatively stable, gaining 0.81 percentage points, and EGX 30 closed at 5,016 points.■

Crude dealingsThe Egyptian General Petroleum Corpora-tion launched a tender for the purchase of 6 million barrels of oil, or 2 million barrels per month, from January to March 2013, sources said. The authority requests medium sulfur ore products, such as Omani Crude, Dubai

Crude, Basra Light Crude and the Saudi Ara-bian light and heavy crude. The tender closes on 13 December and offers remain in effect until 21 December. The last tender of 2012 was won by Shell, JP Morgan, Petraco, Basra Light and Omani Crude.■

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Bottom of the barrel

Foreign cash reserves held by the Central Bank of Egypt dropped by US$448 million in November, falling from $15.48 billion at the end of October down to $15.04 billion, state news agency MENA reported last Thursday. The 2.8 percent drop was brought on by Egypt’s efforts to repay its foreign debts, as well as government attempts to stockpile strategic goods and petroleum products, which increased state expendi-tures, economists say. A significant decline in tourism in November and difficulty attracting foreign investments also contrib-

uted to the decline, in spite of increased re-mittances from Egyptians abroad. Mohsen Adel, vice president of the Egyptian Association for Financing and Investment Studies, predicted that the reserves may rise again with support from the African Devel-opment Bank as well as anticipated deposits from Qatar and Turkey to the Central Bank. The current political situation would also likely impact foreign exchange reserves, Adel warned, which would in turn affect the rates of direct foreign investment and hit exports and tourism.■

12 Focus File13 December 2012

A minorityIn his speech, Morsy repeatedly referred to his opponents as a minority that seeming-ly could not come to terms with the will of the majority. This minority was asked to “concede to the will of the people,” who had made their choice in the elections, rather than pursue their “private inter-ests, or the will of particular parties and groups.”

Morsy thus reiterated the assumption held by many of of the Muslim Brothers that they hold the backing of a vast major-ity of the populace, despite the small mar-gin by which Morsy won the second round of the presidential election against Ahmed Shafiq (including tactical votes). He also attempted to void his opponents’ criti-cism by suggesting that his decisions as the elected president were in the ultimate interest of the nation, and any opposition to them was driven by either selfishness or mere elitism.

This is why the term “legitimacy,” refer-ring to his popular mandate, is the most re-current word in Morsy’s discourse, along with the accusation that his opponents are seeking “to overturn legitimacy.” He justi-fied the move to immunize the Constitu-ent Assembly in his decree — despite a widely criticized draft constitution — by stressing the fact that it was elected by an elected Parliament.

Likewise, he defended his decisions on the grounds of being an elected president.

“Isn’t that democracy?” he exclaimed. Since, according to Morsy, “the will of the people cannot be expressed by angry crowds,” the ballot box is posited as the epitome of democratic practice, and con-sequently, “revolutionary legitimacy is over, and now it is popular legitimacy that rules.”

The underlying premise in this discourse is that people practice democracy at the moment they choose their representa-tives, and the rest should be left to the de-cision makers elected by them. That prem-ise is seen in statements like “the people have chosen, and now there are powers in charge of the country,” and “this is de-mocracy — when one comes [to office] through elections, he becomes in charge. In the next elections, people have the chance to say whether he did good or bad.”

He deemed it sufficient to state that “the constitutional declaration achieves the de-sires [of the people] and the necessities of this [transitional] phase,” justifying such a statement with the claim that he has stud-ied the matter extensively, saying: “I lived among the people. I have good knowledge of this society. I come from it and know who was doing what.”

Another justification comes from the fact that he was elected to office: “It is im-possible for an elected president like me to use his powers to oppress.” As if a matter of skill, Morsy likened good policy to “a very precise surgery” that Egypt needs at a

critical phase, insinuating that the elected president knows what’s good for the peo-ple who elected him.

A conspiracyNot only is he entitled to make such de-cisions by virtue of having been elected and having a good understanding of the “critical situation” Egypt is going through, but also from the position of a high-rank-ing official with special knowledge of the whereabouts of corrupt individuals and conspiring agents. He thus defended se-crecy as a pillar of good politics.

“I have information,” Morsy states re-peatedly. When asked by the interviewer on state TV about the details of the con-spiracy he often speaks about, he pre-served himself the privilege to withhold them.

“It is my job to protect the homeland from any conspiracy. I have more informa-tion [than others] as the president of the republic, and it is my duty to intervene when I sense that the country is in danger,” he said. “This is the role of the leadership. If such information is disclosed, it could be harmful rather than beneficial.”

Morsy thus needed to maintain a dis-course of perpetual danger looming on the horizon. In his last speech, he states outright that he was compelled to issue his decree because of the great danger threat-ening the nation.

As he failed to mention any convincing arguments for this lurking threat, Morsy used vague phrases to insinuate that some-thing was being planned against Egypt.

“For instance — just an example — a person who was a defendant in the case of the Battle of the Camel held a meeting the other day!” and “Those who hide abroad and contact people inside ... I know what you’re up to!”

According to Morsy’s scheme, “the enemies of the people” — the feloul, or supporters of the Hosni Mubarak regime — wish to bring Egypt back to the days of the old regime: “They don’t want Egypt to stand on its feet.”

“The forces of evil” and the “conspira-tors” in Morsy’s narrative are “abusing the difference of opinion” to advance their private interests, and to slow down revo-lutionary progress. The conspirators are people who accumulated riches through corruption under Mubarak and wish to stall the building of state institutions. The stolen money — the story goes — is used to hire thugs to create chaos and overturn decisions by the president that reflect the will of the nation.

In his last speech, Morsy asserted that the armed thugs who killed the protest-ers in front of the presidential palace on 5 December were arrested, and indeed confessed to having been paid by the sus-pected feloul, which he abstained from naming. Morsy even specified that 40 out of 80 arrested armed thugs confessed that

they were paid and revealed their ties with “certain political forces.”

He implicitly declared that “the third party” has been revealed. It is the sponsors of thugs “inside and outside the country,” those who seek “to burn the country and destroy it.” These unnamed individuals have “infiltrated the ranks of the people of opinion,” according to him, and as a conse-quence have deceived the latter into taking a path of opposition that essentially over-turns legitimacy and legality and caters to the vicious plans of the feloul.

Threat to stabilityMorsy’s attempt to sound like a represen-tative of the will and good of the whole nation has also prompted words such as “stability,” “security,” “production,” “pros-perity” and “progress” in his speeches since the beginning of the crisis over the constitutional declaration. His defense of his decree is underlined by a key argu-ment: “We need to have a constitution in place as soon as possible so we may finally enjoy stability, security and begin to work and produce. Otherwise, we’ll never be done with it!”

To prove that his decree is just what Egypt currently needs — although he lat-er canceled it with another decree remov-ing some of the most contentious matters — Morsy constructed a linear progres-sion that started with his struggle for de-mocracy under toppled President Hosni Mubarak, through the revolution, and up to the series of elections held since January 2011, from the referendum on the consti-tutional amendments to the parliamentary and presidential elections.

“We are walking on a clear path and toward a great target that is a new stable Egypt,” he said, placing himself on a con-tinuum of revolutionary achievements.

He spoke on behalf of those who top-pled the old regime.

“We, the 20 million Egyptians, must work together to carry out development, just as we managed to change the regime.”

Borrowing from Mubarak’s lexicon of stability, Morsy asserted that protests were permissible, but not those that hindered production or traffic. In one of his recent speeches, instead of addressing the accu-sation to his party that they incited their supporters to attack the sit-in in front of the presidential palace on 5 December, he blamed the opponents of the decree for re-sorting to violence “deliberate killing, van-dalizing and terrorizing,” and for “halting the production process” and “tarnishing Egypt’s image.”

“I like the protesters, they are brothers and sisters, but I want them to produce, so that internal affairs may stabilize. It’s better that we go produce and protest in the eve-ning. We should not halt production in the factory. We have many youth who ought to live, marry and be stable, and Egypt must rise,” said the president. ■

The president speaksAn analysis of Morsy’s speeches reveals some recurring themes

By Rime Naguib

In a number of speeches follow-ing mass protests against a con-troversial declaration through which President Mohamed Morsy claimed sweeping powers for himself, the country’s leader dis-tinguished between “good opposi-tion” and “bad opposition.” He compared the bad opposition to termites eating through the bones of the nation, and called for the “filtering and exclusion of such termites so that the country goes on.”

The ensuing chaos and violent confrontations between his fol-lowers and opponents prompted further addresses by the presi-dent. On all occasions, these addresses crystallized key and sometimes contradictory issues.

Morsy also delegitimized his op-position by sometimes describing it as a neglectful minority and, at others, as a dangerous conspiracy and threat to stability.

On 6 December, Morsy was com-pelled to speak to the nation once again following bloody clashes that broke out the day before around the presidential palace, leaving at least seven dead and hundreds injured.

13Focus File13 December 2012

The president speaksAn analysis of Morsy’s speeches reveals some recurring themes

13Focus File13 December 2012

The president speaksAn analysis of Morsy’s speeches reveals some recurring themes

14 Opinion13 December 2012

Is it collective suicide? By Amr Adly

ost observers have been paying close a�ention to the exciting dynamics of Egypt’s ongoing political crisis, which unfolded following the president’s con-

stitutional declaration last month. �e Muslim Brotherhood seemed anxious to �n-

ish the transitional period at any cost. �e short-lived declaration pi�ed the president against the judiciary, the secular bloc and revolutionary groups, together with considerable segments of old-regime loyalists.

�e president’s choice of calling for a referendum on the �nalized dra� constitution just added to the clash with those political forces. Hence, Egypt ap-peared to be facing the severest-ever political crisis in the post-Hosni Mubarak era.

Many questions were raised about future arrange-ments with the military, the security forces and the US, and whether Mohamed Morsy — the country’s �rst freely elected president — would eventually face Mubarak’s fate.

�e crisis is still on despite the president’s second constitutional declaration and the a�rmation of the referendum date within less than a week. �e Broth-ers are likely to pass the contested dra� constitution using religious propaganda, as they hope this will bring stability to the country and thus enable them to close their grip on the state.

�e problem with all that is that it doesn’t seem to be logical enough. �e Brotherhood’s decision to �-nalize the transitional period at any cost has a lot to do with the country’s deteriorating economy and the dire need to put the country back on the path of eco-nomic recovery.

�is year has been the second year without growth in a row. Egypt’s growing balance of payments and budget de�cits and its ever dwindling foreign re-serves are all quite alarming to the new ruling alliance of the Brothers and old military and civilian bureau-cratic circles.

�ere is a conviction among these that the dra�-ing of a constitution and election of parliament are prerequisites for economic recovery via a�racting foreign investment and credit. Morsy’s economic team has stated that Egypt’s recovery depends on injecting about US$14 billion into the economy in the coming year or two. Strikes and other forms of socio-economic and political protest have to come to an end.

Egypt’s loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to be concluded by the end of De-cember. Accordingly, the treasury is to disburse the �rst tranche (about $1 billion) in January. �e gov-ernment has handed in its economic program to the IMF, which contains very clear austerity measures.

According to the program, the country’s �scal and �nancial readjustment will depend mainly on higher indirect taxes, lower subsidies and local currency de-valuation. Morsy has already issued a host of laws and decrees that raise the prices of electricity, natural gas and gasoline, in addition to a new scheme to rational-ize the distribution of butane gas canisters — though he has at least temporarily backed out of those deci-sions.

�e pound was considerably devalued before the dollar in the last three months from about LE6 to about LE6.11. �e exchange rate is likely to be 6.25 by the end of December. All measures indicate that Egypt is about to witness one of the harshest auster-ity programs in its contemporary history, which hap-pens, ironically, to coincide with one of its deepest political crises and the breakdown of its long-stand-ing police state.

Harsh austerity measures are o�en associated with military coups or dictatorships. It is unlikely that a newly elected majority with a democracy that is still in the making could politically a�ord the imposition of such measures.

�e Brothers have one of two options: Either they

opt for oppressive measures to overcome the politi-cal reaction to austerity, or form a broad conservative coalition that can lend them support.

�e problem with the �rst option is that the Broth-ers’ main asset lies in an open political system in which their electoral machine can spin. Moreover, they don’t possess enough power to repress all forms of protest, and such a role can be performed only by the military.

Hence, the only option that the Brothers had was to forge a broad, middle-class, conservative coali-tion that may adopt austerity measures and invest in making the poorer classes pay for the price of the economy’s readjustment. According to that immate-rializing scenario, the Brothers should have reached out to their liberal rivals and de�nitely to the ele-ments of law enforcement within the state, including the judiciary.

However, this did not happen. Rather, the Broth-ers are in the middle of a big �ght with these very par-ticular groups that share the same rather neo-liberal stance with them over the terms on which the transi-tional period is to end.

As Egypt’s economic and �scal crisis tightens, more austerity measures will be taken in the short term, with a high political cost for the Brothers. �e Brotherhood’s middle class and equally conservative rivals will try to make the best out of these looming crises to improve their lot in the approaching elec-tions and to bleed more popularity from the Broth-ers.

�e scene looks too messy, and it suggests that the political representatives of the upper and middle classes in Egypt have decided to commit collective suicide.■

Amr Adly is director of the Social and Economic Justice Unit at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal

Rights. He has a PhD in political economy.

All measures indicate that Egypt is about to witness one of the harshest austerity programs in its history, coinciding with one of its deepest political crises and the breakdown of its police state

US policy toward Egypt paved with good intentions By Michele Dunne gyptians have been walking the road to hell

over the past few weeks, characterized by a frightening polarization between Islamists and non-Islamists and a harsh ba�le of wills

between the president and the judiciary.President Mohamed Morsy’s desire to move the

political transition forward in order to tackle eco-nomic and other challenges is understandable, but insisting on pressing forward with a constitutional referendum in the face of such strong opposition to the dra� invites ongoing unrest and a serious politi-cal ri� that will take months, perhaps years, to heal. A�er all, this is the constitution, not a mere law or even an election.

Meanwhile, what has been the role of the US, the most important political and military ally of Egypt?

A�er initial pro forma calls for “restraint,” the US administration apparently began to realize the se-riousness of the situation as protests grew in early December. President Barack Obama telephoned Morsy on 6 December to express “deep concern” about the spiraling violence and to advocate gov-ernment-opposition dialogue about a “transition to a democracy that respects the rights of all Egyp-tians,” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on 5 December for “a constitutional process that is open, transparent and fair, and does not unduly fa-vor one group over any other.”

Several of Morsy’s advisers were in Washington at the time on a previously scheduled trip to dis-cuss a possible presidential visit — now postponed — and presumably heard a sharper version of the same message in private.

But did the words of US o�cials, however well-intentioned, have any impact in Egypt? �e US is having li�le e�ect these days for a variety of reasons, some having to do with the chaotic situ-ation in Egypt, but others with shortcomings in US policy.

To begin, however, it is important to clear up one misconception: �ere never was a US plan to put the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt or elsewhere. �e idea that the US would choose to sponsor a power grab by a movement with which Washington had virtually no relationship until a year ago, and whose ideology is at considerable odds with that of the US, is laughable.

�e other version of this conspiracy — that

the US naively pushed for democracy in Egypt, imagining that liberals would come to power — is equally false.

What observers o�en do not understand is that US foreign policy, regardless of who occupies the White House, is almost always reactive rather than proactive.

�e US rarely sets out to bring about profound change in another country (Iraq being the major exception), and certainly did not do so in Egypt. �us Washington never decided to je�ison former President Hosni Mubarak but simply assessed that there was no possibility of bu�ressing his rule in the face of a large popular uprising, coupled with military dissatisfaction with his s u c c e s s i o n plans.

So the US moved awkwardly but quickly to put itself on the side of the revolution and has since cultivated relations with those in power, �rst the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and now Morsy.

�ere are also two foreign policy problems speci�c to the Barack Obama administration that diminish foreign policy ef-fectiveness: Words o�en are not matched by deeds, and defying the US does not bring any conse-quences.

�is has been especially evi-dent with the issues of Syria and Palestine, but also with Egypt, where the US has failed to match rhetorical support for the revolution with meaningful help.

�e Obama administration could and should have galva-nized economic help and invest-ment from countries all over the world and international �nancial institutions in early 2011 to en-courage and reward a true democratic transi-tion and sound eco-nomic policies. If the

US had undertaken such a process, it would now enjoy a greater degree of in�uence and credibility in Egypt and would have created strong incentives for the sort of transition to democracy and prosper-ity that most Egyptians want.

�e failure to put much new help on the table also means the Obama administration now has li�le to take o� — thereby imposing consequences — in case the democratic transition really derails. A planned package of US$450 million in economic assistance had already been put on hold due to res-ervations in the US Congress about Morsy’s gov-ernment, and the US is unlikely to withhold the $1.3 billion in military assistance unless the mili-tary steps in and retakes political power.

President Obama announced in May 2011 that “it will be the policy of the United States to

promote reform across the region, and to sup-port transitions to democracy,” and

that this would be “a top prior-ity that must be translated into concrete actions.” He reiterated the desire for Egypt to exert “re-sponsible regional leadership,”

but accorded just as high a pri-ority to free and fair elections, a vibrant civil society, and account-able and e�ective democratic in-stitutions.

�e current political crisis in Egypt is a de�ning moment, one of perhaps many such moments on the long and rocky road to-ward an open and just political, legal and economic order. If the US wants to help Egypt eventu-ally reach that goal, it will need to develop much more robust and sustainable forms of engagement in order to see the change through. Egypt is well worth it.■

Michele Dunne is director of the Ra�k Hariri Center for the Middle

East in Washington, DC. See the center’s blog

EgyptSource at www.acus.org/egyptsource

What observersoften do not understand is that US foreign policy, regardless of who occupies the White House, is almost always reactive rather than proactive

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15Opinion13 December 2012

The country’s most pressing issues - the ones that affecteveryone and will take a collectiveeffort to address -are not considered priorities by decision makers who have little notion of what the ‘common good’ actually means

By Dina el-KhawagaAs Egypt was marking the first anniversary of the kill-ing of the revolutionaries at the hands of army forces on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the freshly po-liticized as well as the non-politicized masses have managed to reinstate popular pressure as a third ac-tor on the political scene.

Since then, this third actor has been exerting un-expectedly strong and continuous pressure on the political authority, its Islamist patron and the po-litical opposition, along with its liberal, national leftist and feloul wings.

The pressure of the masses represents an unprec-edented success, as it adds fresh momentum to the idea of change from below and its ability to con-front authoritarianism. It also illustrates the lack of capacity of any political or social faction to mo-nopolize power or determine the future of Egypt.

Is this a victory for the street or a more complex phenomenon? A closer look at the scene suggests the need for many nuances to the narrative circu-lating among pundits and mainstream media that the current conflict reflects a growing crisis be-tween political Islam and democratic powers.

Indeed, democratic demands are increasing, particularly among young and loosely politicized actors. Nevertheless, it is difficult to put the oppos-ing democratic and Islamist forces into two clearly identifiable camps.

President Mohamed Morsy’s constitutional declaration and proposed referendum on the new constitution have shown Egypt to have three iso-lated silos: the so-called Islamist camp; the liberal and leftist established opposition supported by some feloul (supporters of the old regime); and the street crowds including the urban youth.

All these various actors were unable to articulate their visions, hold a dialogue or even propose re-alistic solutions to the alarming clashes between Islamic demonstrators, the newly established na-tional front and the spontaneous street protest-ers who joined to condemn the Muslim Brother-

restructuring of security, the judiciary and the me-dia sectors; the implementation of judicial rulings regarding the minimum wage and the removal of restrictions to the right to form new independent syndicates and trade unions.

The parties to this level of conflict, state institu-tions at some points and trained Brotherhood bas-es at others, have had to face crowds of protesters, activists and recently politicized groups. Contrary to the other levels of conflict, this level has been confrontational, even armed, since a premature date was set for the referendum. This was seen as a sign of the return of the repressive and authoritar-ian policies of the former regime.

The deconstruction of the current situation into a multi-layered ongoing conflict allows us to see that portraying the crisis as a standoff between po-litical Islam and civil forces is purely reductionist.

Furthermore, it is neither a confrontation be-tween revolutionary and counter-revolutionary powers, nor a conflict between democratic and authoritarian measures — it is rather a confused mix of both. The parties to each level of conflict are trying hard to mobilize supporters at the other levels to bestow legitimacy on their own struggle and aspirations.

Despite the remobilization of all forces, the con-tinuation of these parallel conflicts won’t neces-sarily protect the revolution or keep it alive. Most probably, it will exhaust all players, pushing them to take extreme action and dispersing them further over the coming weeks and months.

With the worrying economic downturn and the alarming state of social polarization, the cur-rent crisis could eventually cause a legitimacy cri-sis — one that could take us back to square one regarding Egypt’s democratic transition.■

Dina el-Khawaga is a professor in Cairo University’s faculty of economics and political science, and programs

director at the Arab Reform Initiative in Paris.

Deconstructing the current crisis

The constitution and Islam’s green ethicshe battle for Egypt’s constitution is un-der way, with the opposition decrying the hastily composed document’s fail-ure to guarantee civil rights. However,

another compelling yet unpublicized reason for voting “no” in the upcoming referendum is that the proposed draft ignores the nation’s most valu-able and threatened resource, one that affects the quality of life of every citizen: land.

While the document refers to religious law to curtail civil freedoms, it fails to mention it when it might actually have proved useful. A desert-born religion, Islam offers sound advice on ad-ministering the environment with special atten-tion to land and water scarcity. Although these issues will certainly determine the country’s fu-ture, I doubt most pro-Sharia agitators know the first thing about them.

The most distressing aspect of Egypt’s political descent into religious cant is how it overlooks en-lightened aspects of the doctrine while dwelling on the most restrictive, for example, tawhid, the unity of being, where nature reflects God, and mizan, balance, whereby humanity is a part of, and respects, nature’s equilibrium.

The consequences are direr than anyone cares to admit. The population is growing, arable land is diminishing and disputes over water have already resulted in casualties in Egypt’s belea-guered countryside. Yet no campaign has been launched, under the banner of a “green Islam” or otherwise, to conserve precious water.

The Prophet prohibited wasting water in no uncertain terms, even during prayer ablutions and even if washing beside a running stream. His injunctions, alongside a millennial scarcity, re-sulted in extensive Sharia rulings on water man-agement that might also protect other resources.

Egypt’s imams, however, are too busy ranting and its politicians too self-satisfied to imagine they’ve missed such a crucial point.

According to Islam, humanity has been granted stewardship of the earth, and the duty to main-tain a just balance is both its privilege and its test. The fact that the country’s coastal areas — out-

By Maria Golia

It is neither aconfrontation between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary powers, nor a conflict between democratic and authoritarian measures - it is rathera confused mixof both

standing natural and economic assets — have been subjected to unbridled, bribe-driven devel-opment, severely compromising marine life, is but one proof of failure.

Mizan entails replenishment as well as judi-cious use of resources. This translates neatly as sustainability, a much bandied-about concept that has virtually no basis in legislation, law en-forcement or Egypt’s environmental reality.

“Plant trees, even on doomsday,” admonished the Prophet, as a means of reciprocating the land’s bounty. Egypt’s 19th-century ruler Mo-hamed Ali and his son Ibrahim claimed to have planted a million in the capital alone, an act of be-neficence unmatched by their varied successors.

In the last two decades, the country established a number of environmental protectorates, echo-ing an Islamic institution, hima, that calls for the social and environmentally balanced use of tracts of common land. The upkeep of protectorates relies, however, on cooperation between an in-formed public and a committed state, conditions that Egypt has never met.

There is no evidence whatsoever of practicing Islam’s green ethics. The compassionate treat-ment of animals, for instance, is a frequent, nu-anced topic in the Hadith, which is largely absent from daily life. “In the forehead of horses are tied up welfare and bliss ...” said the Prophet.

But Islam’s failure to stand at the vanguard of environmental awareness is unsurprising. It’s enough to observe Saudi Arabia’s “stewardship” of the world’s greatest oil reserve to understand the prevailing attitude in these matters.

The anxiety Egyptian communities feel regard-ing the condition of their cities, water and land is as real as the ever-present stench of burning gar-bage. Yet no one is asking how people perceive environmental degradation or explaining how it might be constructively addressed. No one is encouraging students to adopt professions that could serve their nation’s needs for environmen-tal research and expertise.

There is no national awareness program aimed at water, land and energy conservation that could also serve as a unifying action that transcends re-ligion in the name of the common good.

The greatest failing of the proposed constitu-tion will remain evident even if it is approved. Namely, that the country’s most pressing issues — the ones that affect everyone and will take a collective effort to address — are not considered priorities by decision makers who have little no-tion of what the “common good” actually means.

Egypt’s future is a rhetorical subject, never vi-sualized based on current and projected environ-mental parameters, never described or planned. “Live in this world as if you will live in it forever, and live for the next world as if you will die to-morrow,” said the Prophet. These are words to live by — indeed, to govern by. It seems Egypt’s leaders, past and present, have got that one the wrong way around.■

Maria Golia is the author of “Cairo, City of Sand” and “Photography and Egypt.” She is a cor-respondent for UK-based journal The Middle East

and a columnist for the New Internationalist.

hood’s policies, power hegemony and desire to impose a new fait accompli.

As a result, over the last two weeks, Egypt wit-nessed three levels of conflict, in which the actors have still been unable to articulate revolutionary momentum, democratic claims or the political re-distribution of tasks and roles.

The first level involves the presidency and its al-lies (the Brotherhood and the state control appara-tus, including the Interior Ministry and, to a lesser extent, the Armed Forces) on one side, and what came to be termed the putschist wing inside state institutions (the judiciary and several high-ranking officials in the bureaucracy who reject the Brother-hood) on the other.

The second level concerns the ruling elite as a political current that unites behind its several Is-lamist powers in an emerging alliance, aimed at en-dorsing a new constitution for the country that re-flects their “religious” visions against the different political powers, organized in parties that insist on both the civil nature of the state and the need for consensus in the constitution-writing process.

In fact, the different parties assembled under the umbrella of the National Salvation Front have attempted to feature their struggle as the main con-flict on the revolutionary scene, yet they have not succeeded, since all talk about the phrasing of the constitution and its content is a largely elitist con-cern that fails to evoke the interest of more than 20 percent of the electorate (50 million people).

The third level of conflict puts the informally or-ganized groups and individuals of the increasingly repressive practices of the state’s security institu-tions against protesters — particularly the poorer ones on the outskirts of the capital, the strikers and sit-in demonstrators who have mobilized against the state’s maneuvers regarding the achievement of an acceptable minimum of the revolution’s goals. These include retribution for the killing of protest-ers; compensation of the martyrs’ families; the

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16 Environment13 December 2012

In brief

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he Red Sea Governorate’s emergency operations cen-ter received a report about the reappearance of locust

swarms in scattered areas in south-ern Shalatin a few days ago. Engi-neer Mohsen Abdo, head of the Ag-riculture Ministry’s locust control department, said the ministry has started taking the necessary preven-tive measures to combat swarms and locust gatherings before they fly north toward the Delta and de-stroy crops. Unlike the African lo-

cust swarms in eastern Uweinat last month, Abdo said these swarms were desert locusts. He explained that lo-cust swarms appear annually on the Egypt-Sudan border at the end of the summer and can be easily eradicated with special pesticides. He added that about 13 bases are dedicated to monitoring the swarms of locusts in the areas around Lake Nasser, Shala-tin and the Red Sea, in cooperation with border guards, who supply the central administration with informa-tion about any locust sightings.■

Warding off locusts

By Rana Khaled

iming to inspire, educate and empower citizens to work together to develop innovative solutions ad-

dressing the Nile Basin’s environ-mental, social, cultural and eco-nomic challenges, the Nile Project is launching its first event next month — a gathering in Aswan.

The Nile Project was founded in August last year by Egyptian eth-nomusicologist Mina Girgis and Ethiopian-American singer Me-klit Hadero. They hope to create an intercultural dialogue between the peoples of Nile Basin countries using an innovative approach that combines music, education and an enterprise platform.

Girgis, the executive director, says the project is an invitation to see the river in a new light — not just as a waterway, but as a living organism that holds together a complex network of interrelated ecosystems on which tilapias, egrets, crocodiles and papyrus are as dependent as humans for their survival.

“Unfortunately, most of us who live within this system have no idea what these relationships mean. How do all these worlds affect one another? How do they come to-gether to affect the Nile? And what can we do to help restore the bal-ance of this complex system?” he asks.

It’s also an invitation to work together to understand the Nile as one system in which fishing, ir-

rigation, tourism and transport are intricately connected to climate change, floods, droughts and dams.

The Nile Project gathering will take place at Fekra Cultural Cen-ter in Aswan from 10–29 January. There will be four days of strate-gic planning workshops, followed by a two-week music residency to develop music that can generate empathy and inspire cultural and environmental curiosity.

Musicians from the 11 Nile Basin countries will collaborate to trans-late this intercultural dialogue into a new body of songs, drawn from the rich and diverse genres, tradi-

tions and instruments found in East Africa.

The project’s program includes a Nile tour on a raft made of recycled mineral-water bottles. A collective of musicians and environmental educators will sail down the river, from the Mediterranean to Aswan for 35 days, performing concerts and participatory workshops to enable local audiences to learn about the Nile’s cultural and envi-ronmental fabric.

In addition, an educational ini-tiative will be provided, offering a holistic approach to Nile river ecol-ogy and its inhabitants with a mul-

tidisciplinary curriculum explor-ing the history, geography, cultures and ecosystems of the Nile Basin.

“It’s an invitation to learn from the ways nature organizes itself around this river, and the Nile Project musicians collaborate to explore a new sound that is greater than the sum of its parts,” Girgis notes. “I really think the project will provide a good platform for cultivating the critical connections necessary to create a new reality with our environment and an op-portunity to think together and take a leap into a more sustainable Nile future.”■

River of life

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Project seeks to help people rediscover the Nile

It is an invitation to see the river in a new light - not just as a waterway, but as a living organism that holds together a complex network ofecosystems on which egrets and crocodiles are as dependent as humans

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nder the slogan “Donate your wastepaper instead of throwing it away,” Resala, one of the country’s leading environmental charities,

launched the Friends of the Environment Festival on 7 December, and all of the char-ity’s branches in Greater Cairo participated. The festival included many environmental

activities including planting 500 trees, paint-ing walls and pavements, covering 1,400 me-ters of space with grass, establishing art work-shops, hosting cheap book fairs and painting children’s faces. The charity also invited vol-unteers to participate by donating their old books and helping place trash cans in streets, schools and government hospitals.■

uring the international confer-ence on climate change and bio-diversity recently held in India’s Rohilkhand University in Uttar

Pradesh, the Indian Academy of Environ-mental Sciences honored two professors from the Egyptian National Research Center. Saeed Shalaby, head of the Na-tional Research Center’s complementary medicine department, was named by the Indian academy as a reference in the com-plementary medicine domain. Sami Ibra-him, a clinical pathology professor spe-cializing in the reproductive system and undersecretary of the National Research Center’s veterinary research department, won the academy’s gold prize for his achievements. The conference focused on environmental and climate changes and

their impact on biodiversity and ecology, fisheries and aquaculture, parasitic diseas-es and epidemiology, insect and vector bi-ology, molecular biology and immunolo-gy, and biomedicine and biotechnology.■

Friends of the Environment

Egyptian scientists winD

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The project includes a 5-week sail down the Nile.The Nile Project’s musicians hope to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding.

Two NRC scientists are honored in India.

17Environment13 December 2012

By Nicola Abe

he joint research facility Sesame, supported by Middle East coun-tries including Egypt, Jordan, Tur-key, Iran, Israel and Palestine, is al-

most ready to kick off. It is not only meant to promote scientific excellence but also peace and understanding.

When Egyptian scientist Tarek Hussein visited Jordan and entered the building that will one day host the region’s most impor-tant research facility, he felt excitement and enthusiasm.

“It was like stepping into the future — into a brighter and better future,” Hussein says.

The green-roofed building was completed, electricity and water were working and a gi-ant magnet had already been installed.

“There was more progress than I had hoped for,” says Hussein.

What delighted the nuclear physicist was the construction site for the first synchro-tron light source in the Middle East.

The facility is named Sesame, and is locat-ed near Allan village in the hills northwest of Amman.

“In 2015, we expect Sesame to become op-erational,” says Hussein, who is the current vice president. “It will be a world-class sci-ence institution.”

Synchrotron light sources allow many dif-ferent kinds of research, from investigating diseases and analyzing pollution to develop-ing disease-resistant plants and more effec-tive drugs.

At Sesame, medical scientists will collabo-rate with physicists, chemists, biologists, en-gineers and archaeologists.

“Our aim is to foster technological capaci-ties and prevent the brain drain from the re-gion,” says Chris Llewellyn Smith, a British physicist and head of the Sesame governing council.

In synchrotron light sources, bunches of electrons circulate at nearly the speed of light inside an evacuated ring-shaped tube. Mag-

nets surrounding the tube bend the elec-trons’ trajectories.

But the electromagnetic field that sur-rounds the electron is unable to respond immediately, so some of the energy in the field keeps going, sticking to the original tra-jectory and producing a tangential cone of radiation.

This radiation, or synchrotron light, has wavelengths that range from infrared to X-rays. It is collected by different optical sys-tems that focus the light onto experimental targets.

It acts like a giant microscope that can be

used to study matter on scales ranging from viruses down to atoms.

But Sesame is not only meant to produce scientific excellence. It is also meant to pro-mote peace. The acronym stands for Syn-chrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East.

It is also a reference to the infamous phrase “open sesame” — the secret command to unlock the door to treasure in the tale of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.

The list of countries involved in the Ses-ame project, which also includes Pakistan and Cyprus, looks rather surprising, pairing countries whose governments would nor-mally not be friendly to one another.

“The language of science is universal,” says Llewellyn Smith. “Scientists can build a bridge of understanding and perhaps trust for the benefit of all.”

But of course, there are strong political tensions between some of the participating countries. For example, Turkey and Cyprus do not have diplomatic relations, and Iran and Pakistan do not recognize Israel — so

Sesame is far from being an ordinary science project.

The idea to build the facility came up in 1997, after the Berlin Synchrotron in Germa-ny was decommissioned. The facility, called Bessy 1, was donated to the Middle East, and UNESCO became the umbrella organiza-tion of the project.

Sesame is modeled on CERN, the Euro-pean Organization for Nuclear Research. CERN was developed after World War II, aimed at enabling science that individual members could not afford and improving the relations of former adversaries that had been at war.

Likewise, Sesame could not be financed by only one of its members, because it by far ex-ceeds their individual science budgets.

After a competition with five other coun-tries, Jordan was selected to host the center. Following numerous conflicts in the region and years of doubts about the project’s fea-sibility, construction is now at an advanced level, and the next round of funding is se-cured.

By now, the value of investments and con-tributions to Sesame exceed US$50 million. Additional funding of at least $35 million is needed to bring it into operation.

Iran, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and the Euro-pean Union have pledged to contribute $5 million each. Egypt is also considering pro-viding $5 million.

Hussein says the sum has been approved by the Finance Ministry but not the Foreign Ministry, though he is very confident this ap-proval will come soon.

Despite all odds, Sesame is being built be-cause scientific communities of the member countries have pushed for it and put aside political barriers.

Representatives of the member states meet every few month to discuss plans, as well as the rather complicated question of funding.

“The atmosphere has always been good,” says Hussein. “We stick to the rules: We just don’t talk about politics.”■

T Our aim is to fostertechnological capacities and prevent the braindrain from the region

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Open sesameJoint regional project creates extraordinary new science research hub

Sesame is meant to promote scientific excellence, peace and understanding.

18 Culture13 December 2012

Article 17French Nationality is granted, acquired or lost according to the provisions laid down in this Title, subject to any treatise and other international commitments of France which may apply the will of each person who decides to come to France.

Article 230

Article 231

Article 228

Article 229

19Culture13 December 2012

This is an intervention created for Egypt Independent by artist Carlos Amorales (b. 1970, Mex-ico City). It is a new articulation of “Supprimer, Modifier et Pre-server,” a work the artist created in 2011 during a residency at The Musee d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne in Paris.

In 2011, Amorales printed the current version of the French Civil Code with graphite and then gave it to different lawyers to erase, modify or preserve the laws that each one considered fundamental. The French Civil Code, long known as the Napo-leonic code, was enacted in 1804 and considered a product of the French Revolution. It has been highly influential in the develop-ment of civil codes in much of Europe, South America, Africa and Asia.

This work emerges in the con-text of a collaboration between Egypt Independent and Beirut. “Supprimer, Modifier et Preserv-er,” by Amorales is part of the exhibition “What does a drawing want?” at Beirut from 12 Decem-ber 2012 to 15 January 2013. For more information, please visitwww.beirutbeirut.org. ■

Erase-Modify-Preserve

Article 1134 Law and good faith

Article 1382Every faulty act that

Article 1383Everyone is liable for the damage he causes not only by his intentional act, but also by his negligent conduct or by his imprudence. faulty

CIVIL CODEOF THE FRENCHof the Republic of France

Article 1382Any act whatever of man, which causes damage to another, obliges the one by whose fault it occured, to compensate it.

Individualism

20 Life & Society13 December 2012

Bring out the chef in you

Weekend Christmas events

Award-winning recipes to warm up your winter

Get in the holiday spirit

By Heba Helmy

he Egyptian Chefs Association recently held a series of culinary competitions where highly skilled chefs were asked

to tap into their creativity to come up with in-novative, delicious new recipes.

Under the watchful eye of a critical panel of judges, Heba al-Azab won first prize as the best female chef side for her starter (water-

cress salad with shrimps and smoked mayo) and main course (salmon with black olive salsa). Winter is said to be a good season for seafood so roll up your sleeves and get ready to cook up a storm!

TStarter: Watercress salad with shrimp and smoked mayo

Main course: Salmon withblack olive salsa

Serves 2A handful of different varieties of watercress1 ripe pomegranate, seeds removed6 large shrimp, peeled and deveined 1 garlic clove, minced30 ml olive oil for sautéing the shrimp Drizzle of honeyDrizzle of olive oilDrizzle of balsamic vinegarSalt and pepper for seasoning

For the smoked mayo:45 gm mayonnaise 2.5 gm hot smoked paprika 2.5 gm sweet smoked paprika

For the shrimp marinade:5 gm lemon juice 15 gm Worcestershire sauce 15 gm soy sauce Black pepper and chilies for seasoning 1. In a bowl, add the shrimp marinade

ingredients together and whisk well to blend. Add the shrimps, toss to coat, cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

2. Wash the watercress and dry us-ing a spinner, put in a bowl with the pomegranate seeds. Add the olive oil,

Serves 22 salmon �llets or steaks, about 180 gm

each, seasoned well

For the black olive salsa:30 ml olive oil30 gm black olives, pi�ed and chopped10 gm fresh basil, cut chi�onade1 medium tomato, diced

For the red sauce:15 ml olive oil 1 garlic clove, �nely chopped30 gm tomato paste 10 gm chopped basil

For the wilted spinach:750 gm fresh spinach, washed and dried with a spinner2 garlic cloves, mincedDash of balsamic vinegarDrizzle of olive oil 1. Preheat the oven at 160 degrees. Line a

baking tray with parchment paper; pat dry the salmon �llets using kitchen tissue. Place on tray, skin side down. Season well.

2. Bake the salmon in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes.

3. Prepare the red sauce by heating olive oil in a pan, add the garlic and sauté for one-

balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper in a small bowl and whisk to blend. Add to the watercress and pomegranate, toss-ing to coat the salad well.

3. Prepare the smoked mayo by mix-ing the mayo and smoked paprika in a bowl. Mix well and set aside.

4. Heat olive oil in heavy skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and sauté for one minute.

5. Add the shrimps and sauté for about five minutes or until cooked through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

6. To assemble the plate, add a bunch of the watercress mixture in the middle of the plate. Arrange three shrimps on top of the watercress mixture. Top with a spoon of smoked mayo, drizzle honey on top of the salad and serve.

minute. Add the tomato paste and stir.4. Add a dash of water, continuing to stir

until the sauce thickens. Add the chopped basil and season to taste.

5. For black olive salsa, heat olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat. Toss the to-matoes, olives and basil and remove from heat. Stir and season to taste.

6. In another pan, heat the olive oil, sauté garlic and gradually add spinach, adding salt to remove water and stirring until the spinach is wilted. Season to taste.

7. To assemble the plate, spoon the wilted spinach in the middle of the plate, drizzle balsamic vinegar on top. Make a curve in the middle of the spinach using a spatula and drop 15 ml of red sauce on top of it. Lay the salmon �llet on top, a�er removing the skin, adding half the salsa.

8. Serve immediately.

By Nevine El Shabrawy

ne way to �ght the cold and work through the city’s current tensions is to take time to celebrate the upcoming holidays. Coptic Christmas may fall on 7 January but caroling, dinners and tree decorating

have already begun — schools will be taking o� by the end of December and our combined e�orts to help the country could help us unite in the run-up to the new year.

Friday, 14 December Misr Language School’s Winter Carnival starts at 10 am this Friday and continues till 6 pm. For LE20 (children under

6 enter free), a�endees can enjoy a children’s area with many rides, games and activities, a bazaar equipped with a food

court and entertainment. Misr Language School is located on the Fayoum road, which begins at Remmaya Square in Haram.

Saturday, 15 DecemberFairmont Nile City is holding its annual Tree Light-ing event at 6 pm on Saturday in the Onyx Lounge. With Ahmed Harfoush singing Christmas songs and

presents for children, this is sure to be a beautiful eve-ning. For prices and reservations, call Fairmont Nile

City at 02-2461-9494.

OGet in the holiday spirit

ne way to �ght the cold and work through the city’s current tensions is to take time to celebrate the upcoming holidays. Coptic Christmas may fall on 7 January but caroling, dinners and tree decorating

have already begun — schools will be taking o� by the end of December and our combined e�orts to help the country could

Misr Language School’s Winter Carnival starts at 10 am this Friday and continues till 6 pm. For LE20 (children under Misr Language School’s Winter Carnival starts at 10 am this Friday and continues till 6 pm. For LE20 (children under Misr Language School’s Winter Carnival starts at 10 am this

6 enter free), a�endees can enjoy a children’s area with many rides, games and activities, a bazaar equipped with a food

court and entertainment. Misr Language School is located on the Fayoum road, which begins at Remmaya Square in Haram.

Saturday, 15 December

presents for children, this is sure to be a beautiful eve-ning. For prices and reservations, call Fairmont Nile

City at 02-2461-9494.

21Life & Society13 December 2012

The changing face of protestHow Heliopolis, Maadi and 6th of October are joining in the fight for Egypt

All this has changed. With the march to the presidential palace on Tuesday, a whole new community became witness to the ongoing battle for freedom

For the main course opt for the chicken with prunes. Thechicken breast is well cooked and tender, bathed in a generous amount of dark, luscious prune sauce

By Nevine El ShabrawyIn 2011, Cairo’s protests took place mainly in downtown Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Lazoghly and Mohamed Mahmoud brought battles into the streets around downtown, but upscale districts like Maadi, Heliopolis, Zamalek and Mohandiseen could often continue life unin-terrupted — despite rock-throwing, teargas and even gunfire over the last two years. That’s not to say that people from these districts were not involved in the fight — men and women would leave their homes and make the trek to Tahrir Square to make a stand, as voices at Midan Victoria in Maadi, Gameat al-Dowal in Mohandiseen and the walls of the presidential palace or in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier in Nasr City were often too quiet, with numbers only in the tens or hundreds.

All this has changed. With the march to the presidential palace on Tuesday, 4 December, a whole new community has become witness to the ongoing battle for freedom. A once silent collection of Egyptian citizens watched from balconies, walked down their stairs, marched through the blocks around their homes or hit Marghany street in Heliopolis to support their cause.

“The view was amazing,” says Azza Hussein, a Heliopolis resident. From Hussein’s balcony, one can now see scatters of rubble but, on Tuesday night, she witnessed thousands mak-ing the trek towards the palace gates. “There was a lot of noise and after they reached the palace, you could smell teargas in the air. It was my first time to smell teargas — it stings.”

Although Hussein didn’t leave her home to

Protests in Cairo’s residential areas are attrating new people.

join the masses, many others did. Mai al-Sher-if, a law student, left with a group of friends Tuesday at 6 pm to join the marches. “This is where the fight should have been all along,” says Sherif. “This is the palace and a site that has always been protected by the presiden-tial guard. In the days of Mubarak, a man was killed simply because his tire exploded near

the wall of the palace!” Some Heliopolis residents are scared about

the shift in location, especially with battles involving civilians on opposing sides. Med-hat al-Sayed, a resident of Korba, says it has turned his world upside down. “I worry about my kids walking around the neighborhood. And I worry about an escalation in the fight

— this area has always been open to all Egyp-tians from all walks of life.” Sayed feels that bringing the fight to the area has also brought the Muslim Brotherhood’s focus there. “The president may work here but this is not his home. The fight for the palace has brought violence into Heliopolis.”

Heliopolis is not the only “new” battle-ground. Maadi residents protested in front of the Muslim Brotherhood office in Zahraa, smashing windows and bringing down signs. Residents of the building and surrounding blocks managed to convince protesters not to burn down the office, however, since it is located in a residential building, albeit one oc-cupied by families who support the party.

Supporters of the Brotherhood have even reached as far as 6th of October, finding media channels broadcasting out of Media Produc-tion City more of a threat to their cause than local channels broadcasting from Maspero’s television building downtown.

“Having the Brotherhood in 6th of Octo-ber has been worrying,” says Nadia Karim, a resident of the Dream Park compound. “Their speeches were threatening, and their numbers surprising. My husband works in Media Pro-duction City and they’ve had to find creative and different ways to get into the complex to continue work.”

Since 2011, marches from Shubra and Ab-basseya have made the news, but with the addition of the Brotherhood protest at Cairo University and the residents of Zamalek marching over the Qasr al-Nil bridge, the whole city is now getting involved in the con-tinued fight against dictatorship.■

By Amany Aly Shawkylightly hidden from the hustle and bustle of the busy Cor-niche, a minute away from Maadi’s second entrance, lies

Cocoon Café and restaurant with its striking, ultra-modern entrance.

Parking can often be mission im-possible in the area, but, with the help of a valet, there’s no need to worry. The open-air area is well lit, spacious and pleasant. However, the lack of outdoor heaters does make it hard to sit outside after sun-set in the winter.

The interior design is spectacular with the dining area lit by two stun-ning chandeliers. The tables are neat and the contemporary chairs are funky, but comfortable. A few egg chairs are scattered around the spa-cious diner. Warm accessories and a smattering of indirect light create a pleasant and welcoming feel.

The menu is diverse; there are many options, which come from sev-eral cuisines around the world, with a concentration of Greek special-ties. The “Cocoonadis” was our first choice from the appetizers: a mix of artichokes, mushrooms, dried toma-toes and green peppers coated with melted Halloumi and mozzarella cheese. The baking paper-wrapped mixture is definitely interesting but perhaps a little strange for Egyptian tastes. The seasoning was also too strong, too salty and too peppery.

The onion soup was good and

the cheesy toast on top was just right with the correct thickness and amount of cheese. The soup was slightly thicker than it should be, but tasty.

For the main course, opt for the chicken with prunes. The chicken breast is well prepared and ten-der, bathed in a generous amount of dark, luscious prune sauce. The prunes create a lovely dark brown color and were cooked just right, adding a pungent bite to the sauce. This saucy fusion comes with a side of perfectly cooked white rice.

Unfortunately, the pizza was a little dull and overcooked, with the crust covered in slightly burnt cheese. The crust also felt and tast-ed odd; it was too soft and tasted a little like fino bread. Toppings were scarce and the salami promised in the menu had been replaced with luncheon meat.

Service is speedy, but the waiters were not knowledgeable about the menu. No recommendations were offered from our waiter although I asked twice. The coffee menu is or-dinary and the cappuccino was just ok — a little on the foamy side.

The prices are also a bit on the high side. The soup is between LE20-22, while the hors d’oeuvres range between LE42 and LE70. The chicken with prunes is LE65, while pizzas range between LE40 and 55.

Cocoon; Address: 41 Corniche al-Nil, Maadi; Hours: 12 am –10:30 pm daily.■

Maadi’s CocoonStriking interiors but the food is hit-and-miss

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Cocoon’s delicous onion soup will warm you up on their heater-less terrace.

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22 Travel13 December 2012

An overnight journeyThe sleeper train is a comfortable alternative for Upper Egypt travel

By Celia AlexanderIn a hurry to get to Luxor or Aswan from Cairo? Flying is the fastest option. If saving money is a priority, take the bus or the regu-lar train. But if you believe that when travel-ing, the journey is just as important as the destination itself, then you might just enjoy the sleeper train.

Without the hassle of going to and from airports, you reach your destination re-freshed and ready for a full day, as opposed to spending a sleepless night cramped on an overnight train or bus.

Riding the sleeper train feels like being transported back to a time when things were slower. How often in this day and age do we find ourselves free for hours on end to read, sleep, relax, stare out the window as the Nile Valley goes by in the dark, or con-verse with a travel companion?

The sleeper train consists of private cab-ins that sleep two — essentially small hotel rooms on a train. The two large cushioned seats fold down into one bed, and a second bed folds down from the wall above.

Attendants are on call, literally with a press of a button, to turn down the beds after dinner or whenever you are ready to sleep. Shared toilets are located at the ends of each carriage, but the room comes with a wash basin and hand towels.

There is room to hang clothes on two hangers, and a large overhead storage compartment for suitcases. Even with the beds folded down, the cabin does not feel crowded.

Shortly after boarding, dinner is served in your private cabin on tray tables. Don’t ex-pect anything gourmet — you will receive

overdone meat with rice, potatoes gratin, pasta, bread and an orange. I am not sure how a meal can include four different types

of carbs, but they manage. A one-liter bottle of water costs LE5. To-

ward the center of the train is a smoky din-ing car that serves a few refreshments and does not look like it has been renovated since the days of black-and-white movies.

The wake-up call for Luxor is at 4 am, giving you just enough time to wake up, have the beds put away and eat a breakfast consisting of a croissant, bread and pastries with jam, honey and cheese, and tea or cof-fee, before the train reaches Luxor at 5:15 am.

The tickets cost US$60 from Cairo to Luxor — more if you are leaving from Al-exandria or traveling on to Aswan — and must be paid for in cash, in dollars or the Egyptian pound equivalent. Though it may seem like a steep price to pay for a train journey in Egypt, it essentially includes transportation, one night’s accommodation and two meals, because dinner and break-fast are served.

The train departs at 8 pm from Giza Sta-tion, which is connected to the Giza Station metro stop, but tickets can also be pur-chased at Ramses Station from the ticket window clearly marked for the sleeper train, near Platform 11. The train may not leave exactly on time, but it is good to be there early anyway, as recommended by the ticket office.

The tickets are marked with the carriage and cabin number, and the attendants will make sure you are in the right place. Over-all, the sleeper train is a fun and relaxing way to travel to Upper Egypt.■

Riding the sleeper train feels like being transported back to a time when things were slower. How often do we find ourselves free for hours on end to read, sleep or relax as the Nile Valley goes by?

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Checking train times from Cairo at Ramses Station.

23Listings13 December 2012

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Special Focus on PhotoCairo 5 ‘More out of curiosity than conviction’Curated by the Contemporary Image Collective, PhotoCairo returns in its fifth edition with a large scale contemporary art project in downtown Cairo that explores the notion of paradigm shift, as well as incorporating an exciting program of events.

ExhibitionThis year’s exhibit involves international and local, emerging and established artists, who explore the ability of art to trigger affective responses within the viewer.Until 17 DecemberTownhouse GalleryHussein al-Ma’mar Pasha St., off Mahmoud Basiony St., Downtown, Cairo02-2576-8086www.thetownhousegallery.com

Contemporary Image Collective22 Abdel Khaleq Tharwat St., Downtown, Cairo010-1173-8115www.ciccairo.comMahmoud Basiony shopfrontMahmoud Basiony St., Downtown, Cairo

On ApathyIn this talk, artist Malak Helmy speculates around exhaustion, apathy, and spaces of

negative energy. How can a refusal to engage become a method of resistance or even production? Helmy takes on the question through linguistic, aesthetic and social observation.17 December, 7 pmContemporary Image Collective22 Abdel Khaleq Tharwat St., Downtown, Cairo010-1173-8115www.ciccairo.com

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‘Reciting the Shadow’

TokTok 8

Sayyed Mahmoud will be launching and discussing his sec-ond poetry collection, “Reciting the Shadow” at Diwan Book-store. The collection, published by Dar al-Ain, includes four chapters: “A Blind Man Trip-ping in the Light,” “You Are A Flower,” “In the Beginning, It Was the Sea,” and “Music of the Stone.”

16 December, 6 pmDiwan Bookstore159, 26th of July St., Zamalek, Cairo02-2736-2582www.diwanegypt.com/en

TokTok’s biggest issue so far will include stories that were made during a recent 24 Hour Comics Marathon, held at the Goethe Institute, themed around the idea of being free.

19 December, 7 pmTownhouse GalleryHussein al-Ma’mar Pasha St., Off Mahmoud Basiony St., Downtown, Cairo02-2576-8086www.thetownhousegallery.com

Book

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Meet Josef Koudelka

‘Liminal state’

Multi-award winning photogra-pher Josef Koudelka will present three of his photographic series — Invasion, Gypsies and Chaos — through a video projection this weekend, and also discuss his practice with the audience.

13 December, 7 pmFrench Cultural CenterMadrasset al-Huquq al-Ferensiya St., Mounira, Cairo02-2791-5800www.cfcc-eg.org

‘What doesa drawing want?’This exhibition of works, scripts, talks, films and a live perfor-mance, tries its hands at some aspects behind the logic of drawing, asking what it means to draw politically (not in the meaning of drawing a gun). In

Four video works by Kaya Beh-kalam, Jane Jin Kaisen and Soren Thilo Funder span the radically disorienting transitional period Egypt entered in January 2011. The artists arrived in Cairo either shortly before, during or after the 18 days, and each work was crafted out of this unstable, shifting material.

Until 17 DecemberTownhouse GalleryHussein al-Ma’mar Pasha St., Off Mahmoud Basiony St., Downtown, Cairo02-2576-8086www.thetownhousegallery.com

Guitar ensemble and jazz combo performancesThis concert will feature music for acoustic and electric guitars, classical and contemporary, and jazz standards by a new AUC student jazz combo.

13 December, 5 pmHoward TheaterThe American University in Cairo, AUC Avenue, PO Box 74, New Cairo02-2615-1281www.aucegypt.edu

Dirar Kalash

Award-winning Palestinian musician and composer Dirar Kalash, known for incorporating modified traditional instru-ments and found noise into experimental “electro-acoustic compositions,” will give a live performance using saxophone and electronics.

14 December, 8 pm100 Copies Music Space22 Talaat Harb St., Downtown, Cairo010-0059-2998/ 02-773-8760www.100copies.com

The collaboration between Swiss-Lebanese singer Dida Guigan and electronic musician Marcel Saegesser, from Switzerland, began in 2010. Guigan composed tunes and wrote lyrics in Beirut, while Saegesser programmed elec-tronic grooves in Bern, exchanging mp3 files until they met in Cairo. Beirut-based artist Tarek Kandil created video projections for this musical journey.

14 December, 9 pmDarb 1718Kasr al-Shamaa St., Al-Fakha-reen, Old Cairo, Cairo02-2361-0511www.darb1718.com

addition to the works by Carlos Amorales, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkacova and Jimmie Durham, a live performance of Gabriel Lester’s “Music for Riots and Fights” will be given on 19 December at 9pm.

Until 14 January 2012Beirut11 Road 12 / Mahmoud SedkySt., Agouza, Cairowww.beirutbeirut.org

Lel Samar project

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