Egypt

Alleged eye sniper's detention extended for sixth time

Via Egypt Independent

Photographed by Rana khazbak

Judge Ahmed Abdel Aziz decided on Saturday to keep First Lieutenant Mahmoud Sobhy al-Shennawy in detention over charges of intentionally targeting protesters’ eyes during clashes between demonstrators and riot police in November.

The clashes saw police fight protesters who were demanding an end to army rule in the worst violence since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. Four days of clashes left 33 killed and over 1,500 wounded.

A local rights watchdog had said in November that "security forces deliberately fired birdshot pellets and rubber bullets in the direction of demonstrators' bodies. This use of force was intended to injure demonstrators rather than disperse them, which led to several of them losing the use of their eyes.”

More than 60 cases of eye injuries between 19 November and the morning of 27 November were reported.

During the first investigation session, Shennawy denied all charges against him, according the news website Youm7.

Shennawy's lawyer, Tarek Gameel Saeed, told the court on Saturday that the defendant should be released immediately because he had not committed any crime.

The lawyer also said that Shennawy was not carrying a pellet gun during the clashes and that there is no evidence he was targeting protesters’ eyes.

via www.egyptindependent.com

'The Well,' caught between tradition and progress

Via Egypt Independent

Ask about ideas of progress in Egypt and you’ll commonly hear: malls and villas away from downtown Cairo, American coffee at some neighborhood Cilantro or, for those living in Upper Egypt or the Delta, a better life in Cairo.

On the other hand, the sight of donkeys on the streets, men dressed in galabeyas, or even the ancient, wrecked black taxis give shivers to many at worse, or elicit nostalgic feelings of the good ol’ days long gone at best.

Transpose this tradition versus the progress dilemma in rural southern Ethiopia, and you get “The Well,” a documentary on the hardships of the Borana people to access water, written by Mario Michelini, and directed by Ricardo Russo and Paolo Barberi. 

“[Russo and I] always wanted to make movies. We wanted to be activist journalists,” said Michelini at the movie screening Sunday at the Italian Cultural Institute in Zamalek.

But life had other plans that led him to the humanitarian world. During a two-year posting in Ethiopia working with a non-governmental organization on sustaining communities through access to water, he became interested in the Borana people and their wells.

“I wanted to know about the people and how they manage water in a region where water is scarce,” he said.  He developed the script during his stay and sent it to Russo, a childhood friend who had already directed a few short films.

The result of their effort is a languishing account of duress and Sisyphean struggle that combines dramatic photography of the Ethiopian savanna with detailed narration of the Borana’s predicaments.

The Borana are semi-nomadic shepherds and herdsmen who live in southern Ethiopia, on the border of Kenya. Their livestock is far from being a source of food (they mostly eat seeds and rice); it is a hedge to limit damages in difficult times. They can raise thousands of horses, cows, camels, goats, and sheep.

Unfortunately, their land was not graced with wild rivers, and droughts that used to occur on a seven-year cycle, now come back every two or three years.

“If there’s no rain, our life is in danger,” says one elder, summarizing the situation early on in the movie.

Their only source of water during the dry season is vertiginous deep open-pit wells. To bring the water to the surface and allow the livestock to drink, a human chain of men must carry the water, passing buckets up and down to one another.

Who can drink at the well, and when, is regulated by many ancestral rules, since water is not sufficient for everyone.

But one thing is for sure: when it’s time to bring water to the troughs, everyone must participate, whether your herd is drinking that day or not. This is a community effort, and this is what drives the Borana people.

So when foreign aid was sent to the Ethiopian government and non-governmental organizations arrived to install a motorized pump in one of the towns, traditions were eluded and the Borana elders slowly saw their inherited way of life disappearing.

Michelini’s script is careful at balancing the pros and cons of the traditional wells. His objectivity is stellar: all the facts necessary to form one’s opinion are at hand, yet one is left pondering the dilemma long after the ending credits have rolled.

Or maybe it is less objective and more about his inner conflict, considering his work in the humanitarian field. Well-intentioned people strive at improving people’s lives, but sometimes, their ideas are at odds with centuries-old traditions, and may leave communities confused once change has come.

This is a story with which some Egyptians are familiar. To name but one example, Amr El Leithy, host of a new TV talk show, launched Hamlet Al-Milliar Lel Nohood Bi Al-Ashywayat (The Billion Pound Campaign to Develop Slums) early in 2011, to build new homes for slum residents, without their prior consultation.

Such efforts bring questions like, is that really what the supposed beneficiaries want, when they don’t even have access to medical clinics or schools? And who decides what comes first — the residents, or the people with the money?

Back in Ethiopia, a Borana elder is reticent as to how business runs at the modern pump. To activate it, one has to buy fuel, meaning that the richest have access to more water, bringing capitalism to water management. This spoils everything for which the Borana have stood when it comes to managing their water; the sense of community that surrounded the resource has been lost, and it is also a breach of the sacrosanct tradition of not exchanging anything at the pump.

At the traditional wells, water was always limited, but everybody had equal access to it, and it was forbidden to buy more of it through any trade or gift.

Other improvements have been more welcomed by the community, and they are the ones that integrate their wishes, such as the reconfiguration of some wells to increase efficiency.

As one waterman puts it, the Borana need “educated people” to help them improve their lifestyle, but changes have to be done slowly. “We never expect our tradition to die,” he says.

via www.egyptindependent.com

Is this true piety? By Alaa El Aswany (translated to english)

 As it appeared in Almasry Alyoum on February 20, 2012

Last summer, a friend of mine, accompanied by his aging mother, was travelling from the Sahel, an area north of Egypt along the Mediterranean, to Cairo. Along the route, his diabetic mother suddenly fell ill. He roamed the remote area until he found a pharmacy. He asked the bearded pharmacist to give his mother an insulin injection. The response of the pharmacist was, “I’m sorry, I don’t give women injections. Find yourself a female pharmacist or doctor.”

My friend tried hard to persuade the pharmacist that finding a female doctor in such an inaccessible area is almost impossible, and that his mother was seventy years old meaning that she will not seduce him or be seduced by him—all this to no avail.  

Almasry Alyoum published a similar episode, where an investigation of hospitals during the month of Ramadan exposed how workers in intensive care and emergency units left their posts after breaking their fast to pray the taraweeh and didn’t return for a couple of hours. The taraweeh is an extensive form of prayer that lasts quite a bit and is a ritual during the holy month of Ramadan. Since these doctors and nurses believed that praying is by far more important than anything else in the world, more so than saving lives, patients were left to suffer or die.

The same weird approach manifested itself at the Ministry of Interior this week. For thirty years, Hosny Mubarak used the police force to suppress Egyptians, slash at their dignity and pride, and brutalize them. These police officers were also instrumental in forging elections, fabricating cases, and utilizing fake witnesses to support of Mubarak. And during the revolution and afterwards, many officers committed atrocious crimes--blinding, killing, and indecently assaulting protestors.

The revolution should have cleaned the police force of its evil limbs and got it to function transparently and with the sole aim of protecting citizens and safeguarding their rights, but SCAF insisted on keeping the police force as is with the same original heads inherited from Mubarak’s reign. And amidst this dubious atmosphere, out come tens of police officers announcing their intention to grow their beards in emulation of the ways of the Prophet. And when the Ministry of Interior advised them that the norm in the police force is to be beardless, they protested vehemently and insisted on their right to become bearded officers.

The issue isn’t to grow a beard or shave it off, the issue is that these officers had witnessed and maybe even were accomplices to the crimes committed against Egyptian civilians. But these pious officers did not question the devious acts. The only exception they had against the system was in its prohibiting them to grow beards. This is a sign that religion has become stagnant at the superficial level and has ignored the essence. 

This zealous determination to maintain superficial rituals does not reflect the Egyptian culture. Often those who adhere to the superficial don’t take the essence of religion to heart, and this is not the Egyptian way.

Separating conduct from faith at the individual level is hypocritical, but if this attitude encompasses huge sections of the community, then it becomes a dangerous social trend that needs careful scrutiny.

Still, these “religious” folks who are so concerned with the superficial and ignoring the essence are not necessarily hypocrites or evil doers, for this is what they were taught, and they have simplistically accepted it as the norm.  

Indeed, Islam in Egypt has always been moderate, but the Islam invading Egypt from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, exemplified in the Wahabi ideology, is totally different. For thirty years oil money has intentionally flooded Egypt with the Wahabi ideology. Needless to say, the Wahabi ideology is political, pure and simple, since the Saudi rule depends on the cooperation of the royal family and the Wahabi sheikhs.

In addition, millions of Egyptians had gone to the Gulf to work and, upon their return to Egypt, were shocked by the discrepancies to what they had become accustomed to.  But what they are used to has two faces. In Saudi, mingling between genders is prohibited, but the rates of sexual harassment and rape are amongst the highest in the world. Drinking alcohol is forbidden too, and yet Saudis drink lavishly.

Furthermore, the judicial system in Saudi has double standards, since the law is never implemented on royal princes, who do what they wish or please. And yet in spite of extremely superficial and drastic measures feigning piety, often Egyptians are vandalized and robbed of their rights by the persons who support their residency in Saudi Arabia. More often if an Egyptian complains, he rarely gets his rights because the courts would always support the Saudi over the Egyptian.

And Egyptians who studied in Saudi were taught to think in the same superficial manner, that it is compulsory to pray at the exact time or you may be held accountable even if it entails leaving your duties or patients to die, and that if your wife’s hair is unintentionally exposed, then she may be admonished and hit to act quickly and cover her hair.

The bottom line is that Egypt is suffering a social epidemic distinguishing between faith and conduct exported to us from the rich oil countries.   

Unfortunately this disease has infiltrated the Islamic parties, too. When the Egyptian revolution took place, Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members did not participate in the protests until the police force retreated—to be fair though in the camel incident, the youth of the MB played a great role in defending the protestors.

As for the Salafis (and they are more in number than the MB members), they were clearly against the revolution. Their sheikhs denounced protesting and promoted obedience towards leaders, tyrannical or otherwise. Weirdly enough, they also insisted that democracy is unacceptable because it calls for people’s sovereignty while Salafis believe that supremacy is for God only.

Then when the revolution succeeded in ousting Mubarak, the Salafis suddenly changed their beliefs, and they formed parties and joined the democratic process, which they had considered evil only a few days earlier. Indeed, the MB and the Salafis joined hands with SCAF to control the parliament in return for allowing SCAF to be discretely in control. SCAF set the election guidelines with the MB and the Salafis in mind, and the elections committee overlooked all their misdeeds.

The pious Salafis who must pray on time and show discontent if they meet an unveiled woman are the same ones who purchased the votes of the poor and bought their will by giving them oil, sugar, and meat. In the end the MB and the Salafis gained the majority of the seats in parliament. True the elections were not forged, but they weren’t fair either.

And in spite of our reservations of the election proceedings, Egyptians have supported the parliament since it is the only elected institution in Egypt, and the only one which we hope would protect the revolution. However, Egyptians have also discovered that there are borders that cannot be approached.  The parliament has overlooked SCAF’s responsibility in the many massacres that have taken place, and it has yet to hold those responsible accountable.

Disappointingly, the parliament has turned into a public speaking forum rather than a place to make critical and vital decisions. We have seen how the members ganged up on the minister of provisions; attacking him would not harm them, but we have also seen them quite subdued  when the speaker is a SCAF member, refusing to say one bad word against the council.

The distinct difference between the superficial and the core in religion has reached the parliament. Religious members have come up with some weird notions. First, they refused to read the parliament oath as is but added “according to God’s Sharia.” Then, and as though the constitution is being written by Koresh atheists, one member of the esteemed parliament decided to call for prayers amidst session. Finally, when a member used the phrase, “this is not a government of angels,” Salafi members became furious since the word “angel” should never be used in any human-related metaphor.

To top all this off, SCAF, after succeeding in establishing an obedient and accepting parliament, is on its way to produce a puppet president void of will and power.

Religion encourages us to defend human values: truth, justice, and freedom. This beats growing bears and calling for prayer in parliament.

Democracy is the solution.

 

                     

 

When an 'NGO' is not an NGO: Twists and turns under Egyptian skies

An excerpt from an excellent read. One can learn quite a bit from it. It is not all black and white as media and the US would like to prove.

Via Al Jazeera English, by Richard Falk

Ideological and governmental character

From the moment of their founding IRI and DNI were abundantly funded by annual multi-million grants from Congress, either directly or by way of such governmental entities as the US Assistance for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy. IRI and DNI claim to be non-partisan, yet both are explicitly affiliated with each of the two political parties dominant in the United States, with boards, staff and consultants drawn overwhelmingly from former government workers and officials who are associated with these two parties.

"The ideological and governmental character of the two organisations is epitomised by the nature of their leadership."

The ideological and governmental character of the two organisations is epitomised by the nature of their leadership. Madeleine Albright, secretary of state during the Clinton presidency, is chair of the DNI board, while former Republican presidential candidate and prominent current senator, John McCain, holds the same position at the IRI. Freedom House, the third main organisation that is the target of the Egyptian crackdown also depends for more than 80 per cent of its funding from the National Endowment for Democracy and is similarly rooted in US party politics. It was founded in 1941 as a bipartisan initiative during the Cold War by two stalwarts of their respective political parties, Wendell Wilkie and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Against this background, the protests from Washington and the media assessments of the controversy seem willfully misleading. Since when does Washington become so agitated on behalf of NGOs under attack in a foreign country? Even mainstream eyebrows should have been raised sky high when General Martin Dempsey, currently the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was reported to have interceded with his military counterparts while visiting Cairo on behalf of these Americans - who have been subjected to a travel ban and faced with the threat of prosecution. When was the last time you can recall a US military commander interceding on behalf of a genuine NGO? To paraphrase Bob Dylan, the answer my friends, is never. So even the most na�ve among us should be asking: "What is really going on here?"

The spokespersons for the organisations treat the allegations as a simple case of interference with the activities of apolitical and benevolent NGOs innocently engaged in helping Egyptians receive needed training and guidance with respect to democratic practices, especially those relating to elections and the rule of law. Substantively such claims seem more or less true at present, at least in Egypt. Sometimes these entities are even referred to by the media as "civil society institutions", which reflects, at best, a woeful state of unknowing, or worse, deliberate deception. Whatever one thinks of the activities of these actors, it is simply false to conceive of them as "nongovernmental", or as emanations of civil society. It would be more responsive to their nature if such entities were described as "informal governmental organisations". (IGOs)

It is hardly surprising that a more honest label is avoided, as its use would call attention to the problematic character of the undertakings: namely, disguised intrusions by a foreign government in the internal politics of a foreign country with fragile domestic institutions of government, by way of behaviour that poses at the very least a potential threat to its political independence. With such an altered interpretation, the controversy assumes a different character. It becomes quite understandable for the Egyptian government seeking to move beyond its authoritarian past to feel the need to tame these Trojan horses outfitted by Washington.

'Memory lapses of a senile bureaucracy'

It would seem sensible and prudent for Egypt to insist that such organisations, and especially those associated with the US government, be registered and properly licensed in Egypt as a minimum precondition for receiving permission to carry on their activities in the country, especially in matters as sensitive as elections, political parties and the shaping of the legal system. Surely the United States, despite its long uninterrupted stable record of constitutional governance, would not even consider allowing such "assistance" from abroad. If it had been proposed by, say, Sweden, an offer of help with democracy would have been immediately rebuffed, and rudely dismissed as an insult to the sovereignty of the United States - despite Sweden being a geopolitical midget and US being the gorilla on the global stage.

And these Washington shrieks of wounded innocence, as if Cairo had no grounds whatsoever for concern, are either the memory lapses of a senile bureaucracy or totally disingenuous. In the past it has been well documented that IRI and DNI were active in promoting the destabilisation of foreign governments that were deemed to be hostile to the US foreign policy agenda. The Reagan presidency made no secret of its commitment to lend all means of support to political movements dedicated to the overthrow of left-leaning governments in Latin America and Asia.

"The individuals being charged by Egypt are not working for genuine NGOs or civil society insitutions, but are acting on behalf of informal government organisations."

The most notorious instances involving the use of IRI to destabilise a foreign government is well known among students of US interventionist diplomacy. For instance, IRI funds were extensively distributed to anti-regime forces to get rid of the Aristide government in Haiti, part of a dynamic that led to a coup in 2004. This brought reactionary political forces to power which were welcomed and seemed far more congenial to Washington's ideas of "good governance" at the time. IRI was openly self-congratulatory about its role in engineering a successful effort to strengthen "centre and centre/right" political parties in Poland several years ago, which amounts to a virtual confession of interference with the dynamics of Polish self-determination.

Spokespersons for these organisations piously claim in their responses to these recent Egyptian moves against them to respect the sovereignty of the countries within which they operate, and especially so in Egypt. Even if these claims are generally true, ample grounds remain for suspicion and regulation, if not exclusion, on the part of a territorial government. An insistence upon proper regulation seems entirely reasonable, if due account is taken of the numerous instances of covert and overt intervention by the United States in the political life of non-Western countries.

Against such a background, several conclusions follow: first, the individuals being charged by Egypt are not working for genuine NGOs or civil society institutions, but are acting on behalf of informal government organisations or IGOs; secondly, the specific organisations being targeted, especially the DNI and IRI, are overtly ideological in their makeup, funding base and orientation; and thirdly, there exist compelling grounds for a non-Western government to regulate or exclude such political actors when due account is taken of the long US record of interventionary diplomacy. Thus the Washington posture of outrage seems entirely inappropriate once the actions of the Egyptian government are contextually interpreted.

via www.aljazeera.com

Martin Peretz: One Year Later: The Failure Of The Arab Spring

An excerpt from Martin Peretz' article in the New Republic. It has truth in it but ever so slanted, and he is definitely seeing from the Israeli perspective. One can sense the nonchalant tone; Peretz doesn't care one bit about the Arabs, so his "truth" is stained.

I.

A year has passed since liberal America and the liberal opinion class, in particular, went ecstatic over the Arab debut into the modern world. I know that my standing in that class is suspect. So, being a bit flummoxed myself by the not altogether dissimilar developments in the vast expanse from the Maghreb to Mesopotamia, I conquered my doubts and made a slight stab for hope. But I quickly realized that I was wrong and left the celebration. The true-believers are still there, mesmerized by some ideological mirage or preferring to look on the brighter side of things. 

For example, Nicholas Kristof found some Muslim Brothers who promised that even Copts and the ancient Coptic Church, among the first of history’s Christian fellowships, have no reason to fear their party’s electoral strength. “Conservative Muslims insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood is non-discriminatory and the perfect home for pious Christians—and a terrific partner for the West.” Yes, he actually wrote this silliness. One 24-year old Salafist he cites went reassuringly specific: “...under Salafi rule, diplomatic relations with Israel would continue unchanged and ties with America would strengthen.” Alas, less than three weeks after Kristof published his daffy attestations, the Jerusalem Post reported on an Al-Hayat dispatch saying that the deputy head of the Brotherhood, Rashad Bayoumi, pledged that his movement would not, would never recognize Israel—“This is not an option, whatever the circumstances, we do not recognize Israel at all. It’s an occupying criminal enemy.” What this means is that, more than three decades after Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin signed a more-or-less successful peace treaty, the agreement negotiated by Jimmy Carter might just be submitted to a reckless electorate. At best! And at worst? You figure it out. 

Of course, there are some coyer journalists, commentators, and television personalities who have not dallied too long (and certainly not that long) over the democratic prospect in Arab Islam or, for that matter, in the world of Islam in general. The narrative is actually repetitive and, if not repetitive, simply too grim. And if it’s really grim, like in Syria, no reporters are allowed to or no reporters want to risk it. Which is why every story about Syria is datelined Beirut. 

A few years back there was a rush of programs by American colleges and universities to set up “international” outlets in Arab countries for their own students and for students from other institutions, both American and foreign. The most successful were situated in the emirates. But even these never reached their numerical goals. As for their intellectual aims, who really knows what they were? But even in the rich little kingdoms, soon to be marbled up with extensions of the Louvre and the Guggenheim, American educational establishments confronted serious practical and conceptual difficulties from the beginning. Already near the outset of these ventures Tamar Lewin wrote in the New York Times Feb 10, 2008 of the unavoidable (and unavoided) challenges they faced. The downward spiral of the regional economies exacerbated these problems. Syracuse, Cornell Medical College, New York University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Michigan, George Mason, and Carnegie Institute of Technology were among those exposed to questions about whether a degree from, for instance, N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi is a degree from N.Y.U. at all. The answer is obviou

via www.tnr.com

Crisis management, Egyptian style

By Rania Al Malky

CAIRO: With a renewed wave of sectarian clashes and heightened tension between Egypt and the US over the “NGO hostage crisis”, the new Egypt doesn’t seem so new after all.

The Muslim-Christian violence in Amreya, just outside Alexandria, triggered by the all too familiar inter-religious love affairs, or rumors to that effect, saw a deplorable precedent in dealing with such issues.

Following customary law reconciliation sessions led by the constituency’s MPs, affiliated with the Salafi Al-Nour Party, and the village elders, it was decided that eight “culprit” Coptic families would leave their homes in the village of Sharbat. A committee was also set up to sell their property, in a decision that was officially rejected by the Melli Council of the Orthodox Church in Alexandria and several rights groups.

Hundreds of the village’s Muslim residents had attacked on Jan. 27 the home and shops of a Coptic tailor, Murad Girgis, and property belonging to his family, after the circulation of video footage showing an illicit relationship between him and a Muslim woman.

Fearing for his life, Girgis handed himself over to the police but the homes and shops of relatives were still later set on fire.

Reactions to the strange turn of events by political players have either been muted or utterly unacceptable. Even though the developments were criticized by PA Speaker Saad El Katatny, who had stepped down from his leading position in the Muslim Brotherhood group’s political arm the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to accept his role as house speaker in the FJP-dominated lower house of parliament, the FJP’s official reaction was vague at best.

An article published on the party’s website on Feb. 15 said that Hossam Al-Wakil, FJP media spokesman in Alexandria, claimed that Copts in the Alexandria village lived among Muslims “without any problems whatsoever.”

To add insult to injury, he said that “the crisis that broke out between Muslims and Christians … ended with a decision by the village’s residents to remove the people of both Christian and Muslim families involved only, in order to prevent further bloodshed and sectarian [clashes]”, clearly trumpeting the “solution” as a breakthrough in handling messy sectarian squabbles.

An informal delegation of 16 MPs and community leaders met Thursday for an eight-hour session in an area near the village, after which Coptic MP Ihab Ramzy declared in a joint statement the delegation’s condemnation of the lack of rule of law and announced that the families will return to their homes as soon as the rebuilding in complete. He added that separate criminal investigation is already underway. A Coptic clergyman who attended the session also condemned the media’s use of the term “displacement” to describe the “temporary removal” of the families, stressing that the political outbidding by some parties and interest groups was unacceptable and betrayed a lack of understanding of the social nature and customs of tribes in his village.

The compound layers of reservations I have about how this issue has been mishandled cannot be overstated.

First, the delayed response by the security officials. In fact, it is abundantly clear that there was hardly any security presence in the village when people’s homes and shops were deliberately burnt to the ground. And if there was enough police, how could they have failed so miserably to stop the arson?

Second, the very notion that by removing the “guilty parties” whether Muslim, Christian or both, from the village, is sufficient to resolve the issue is fundamentally wrong. While it may be seen as a temporary panacea, it is in fact more likely to backfire both inside the village in question and nation-wide, leading to a copycat incidents that can even be contrived to create a veneer of legitimacy for a minority of vocal extremists wishing to “purge” their villages from Coptic residents whose ancestors have lived on the land for centuries. In short: this is a very dangerous precedent even though it is being framed as a temporary measure.

Third, the farcical idea that the police is undertaking a serious criminal investigation enjoys zero credibility. If such investigations had ever been serious, then why is it that to this day there has been no disclosure of who was behind the Al-Qeddisin Church bombing on New Year’s eve last year, or Atfih, Imbaba and Maspero, to name a few examples from 2011 alone? Paying lip service to calls for implementing the rule of law in a transparent process where culprits on both sides are punished for criminal behavior without any pressure by either side to skew the results of the investigation, is not enough. The state, specifically the interior ministry, must create a mechanism through which to report to the public the developments in probes of such high-profile and politically-sensitive issues.

Fourth, the FJP’s perpetuation of our culture of “burying our heads in the sand” is a far cry from the party’s thunderous statements about achieving justice. When their official spokesman claims that there are no problems in the blighted village and welcomes a disastrous move to displace families on both sides as a viable solution, then what exactly have they achieved to prove that they are at the forefront of a new Egypt?

Half-baked measures that do more harm than good, the false, self-congratulating attitude of the holier-than-thous, which leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the victims and anyone who believes in unwavering justice, are not what we expected in the wake of this “glorious revolution”.

Rania Al Malky is the Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt.

via www.thedailynewsegypt.com

Senator 'optimistic' Egypt NGO standoff near end

By CNN.com, by CNN Wire Staff

Cairo (CNN) -- A key U.S. senator said Monday he has high hopes for a positive resolution soon to the growing diplomatic crisis revolving around 19 American overseas aid workers facing charges as part of an Egyptian crackdown on nongovernmental organizations.

"Quite frankly, I'm very optimistic we're going to get this episode behind us," GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told CNN. "It's my hope (this will happen) sooner rather than later."

Graham spoke from Cairo after meeting with top Egyptian military and political leaders. He's joined on the trip by Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and John McCain of Arizona. McCain is chairman of the board of the International Republican Institute, one of the organizations affected by the Egyptian crackdown.

McCain said he had an "excellent conversation" with several accused American workers now receiving shelter and protection at the U.S. Embassy. But there is naturally a "certain amount of concern," he added. He stressed the Obama administration is ultimately responsible for securing the workers' release.

The Americans are among 43 people accused in a case involving foreign funding. They are scheduled to appear in a criminal court next Sunday, a spokesman for the Egyptian general prosecutor's office said.

Among the Americans is Sam LaHood, director of Egypt operations for the International Republican Institute and the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Sam LaHood is doing "fine," but "he's grown a full beard and he's not nearly as good looking as he used to be," McCain joked after meeting with the American workers.

In December, authorities carried out 17 raids on the offices of 10 organizations, including the U.S.-based Freedom House, National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute.

The latter group describes itself on its website as a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that "advances freedom and democracy worldwide by developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, democratic governance and the rule of law."

Freedom House's website says it "supports democratic change, monitors freedom and advocates for democracy and human rights around the world," supporting nonviolent civic initiatives in societies where freedom is threatened. The National Democratic Institute says it works to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide "through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government."

Adel Saeed, a spokesman with the Egyptian general prosecutor's office, said the raids were part of an investigation into allegations that the groups had received illegal foreign financing and were operating without a proper license.

The groups have denied any wrongdoing. The International Republican Institute has said the prosecution is a "politically motivated assault" that "reflects escalating attacks against international and Egyptian democracy organizations." While Egypt may call the situation "a legitimate judicial process ... the continued assault on American, German and Egyptian civil society is not a 'legitimate judicial process,' " the group said.

"We're being accused of things we've never done," institute President Lorne Craner said last month. "We are told we have operated without registration, and that is true because we filed our registration papers 5½ years ago. We were told the papers are complete, and we're still waiting."

Similarly, the National Democratic Institute said it applied for registration in 2005 through the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "and has fulfilled all of the registration requirements for the past six years, including a number of updates provided in January." The group said it will "vigorously defend the accused personnel."

"Despite promises made by Egyptian authorities to the highest levels of the U.S. government, we remain closed, our computers, files and cash still in the possession of the Ministry of Justice, and our staffs face hostile interrogations by investigating judges, and now the prospect of arrest and imprisonment," Freedom House President David Kramer testified last week before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"Nowhere else in the world has any of our offices been treated as they are in Egypt," Kramer said.

The U.S. State Department said last week it had received a 24-page document from Egyptian authorities that lays out the specific charges against the staff of U.S. and international democracy-building groups.

The employees of the American and European NGOs have been charged with operating in Egypt without licenses. An investigation by authorities revealed that the organizations received millions of pounds from abroad under the names of NGO employees and not through their official bank accounts.

Ashraf El-Ashmawi and Sameh Abu Zeid, the two judges handling the cases, said the charges could lead to five-year prison sentences.

"These organizations conducted unlicensed and illegal activities without the knowledge of the Egyptian government," said El-Ashmawi. "Documents confiscated during the raids on the NGOs offices confirm illegal foreign funding."

Documents also showed that foreign workers employed by the NGOs deliberately had tourist -- not work -- visas and did not pay taxes, prosecutors said.

Egyptian officials have blamed continuing unrest in their country on foreign interference they attribute, in part, to the organizations.

The crisis has jeopardized U.S. aid to Egypt and strained relations between the two nations. In a February 2 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, 41 members of Congress urged the Obama administration to withhold further aid to Egypt until the country's leadership lets the organizations reopen and returns seized property.

The situation may have been fueled by a sense of nationalism on the part of Egypt's military-led government, which assumed control following the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak a year ago, said Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"It's better in the short term to be seen as standing up to the Americans," she said this month. "... As the situation continues to be very unsettled in Egypt, the powers that be will look for a scapegoat. Blame your problems on outside powers. That's how it has been throughout history."

But both sides have "painted themselves into a corner," said Marina Ottaway, a senior associate at the Middle East program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Egyptians have made a legal case, she said, and the Americans will find it difficult to tell them to interfere with the work of the judiciary when they are trying to push democracy.

Briefing reporters Friday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the agency's legal team has held a number of meetings on the situation.

"We continue to work very hard on these issues. So we need to let that work go forward and hope we can solve this," she said.

Nuland has said no speedy resolution of the case was expected.

CNN's Moni Basu, Alan Silverleib, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Pierre Meilhan contributed to this report.

via edition.cnn.com

Why we pick bad leaders, and how to spot the good ones

Via CNN

Editor's note: Jeffrey Cohn was most recently a succession planning and executive assessment expert at Spencer Stuart. He is former fellow at both the Harvard Business School and the CEO Leadership Institute at Yale, and his latest book is "Why are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders?"

(CNN) -- I recently interviewed more than 60 chief executives of very large global companies. Virtually all of them said that recruiting and promoting general managers with true leadership potential was the key ingredient to their organization's long-term success. Fair enough. But the CEOs were then quick to admit that this task is much easier said than done.

Time and again, externally recruited "stars," as well as freshly promoted general managers from within their companies' ranks, failed to live up to lofty expectations. This leads to an important question: Why are we bad at picking good leaders?

Jeffrey Cohn

The short answer is, we focus on all the wrong things, like a candidate's charm, their stellar résumé or their academic credentials. None of this has any bearing on leadership potential. And despite claims to the contrary, even a candidate's past results have little bearing on whether the promoted individual will succeed once promoted.

Want to be a leader? Act like one

At best, a "track record" tells only half of the story. In a new position, the candidate will have to face new obstacles, deal with a new team, manage more people introduce new products and do it all without a clear road map.

So what qualities should you focus on before handing out the next big promotion or making big promotion decision? One thing is certain: You better get it right. Nothing short of your reputation, and your organization's success, are at stake.

Let's cut to the chase. There are seven fundamental leadership qualities that the candidate must possess to be effective. Take just one of these away, and sooner or later, the newly elevated manager will fail. Having studied the careers of nearly 1,000 executives, over the past decade, it is clear to me that failure results when a leader lacks of one or more of these seven attributes.

Integrity

It all starts with integrity. Like a foundation for any well-constructed house, integrity is the core foundation for leadership effectiveness. It is a blend of honesty, consistency and ethics. Once integrity is squandered or even thrown into doubt, it is very hard for a leader to regain the trust of his or her troops.

Passion enables a leader to keep moving forward even in tough times.
 

Passion

Yet integrity alone doesn't matter without several other key attributes. Passion, for example, enables a leader to keep moving forward even in tough times.

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, was ridiculed in 2001 for clinging to a company that many called "Amazon.bomb." It is now valued at $89 billion. Bezos told me that it was his inner passion that fueled his drive to keep pushing forward even in the darkest days of the dot-com crash, when the company was teetering on the brink of collapse.

Courage

Courage, another make-it-or-break-it quality, is necessary to make the difficult decisions when facing conflicts and mediating adversity. Courage springs from a leader's core values and commitment to a vision.

Vision

Without a compelling vision or destination, how can a boss effectively persuade people to embark upon a new direction? Visionary leaders inspire employees to imagine a better future and work hard to achieve it.

Steve Jobs: How to lead with purpose
 

Judgment

Actually achieving this vision, however, requires judgment. Good judgment allows the leader to make solid business decisions and choices. When I assess an aspiring leader, I want to see whether she can confront a complex new challenge and quickly zero in on the most important issues.

Does she ask good questions? Can she prioritize and make difficult tradeoffs? Does she know where to focus and where not to waste her time and energy? Even when looking at an individual piece of the problem, does she keep the entire chessboard in mind, recognizing the potential unintended consequences of her decisions? Judgment is needed to develop a strategy that will enable the organization to achieve its vision.

Lack of empathy is a key reason why otherwise analytically brilliant leaders often come up short.
Jeffrey Cohn

Empathy

No matter the organization, diversity of its people is the one constant. Each team member has a different personality, motivation and underlying agenda. Empathy is the attribute that allows a leader to effectively understand what makes other people tick.

Identifying the fundamental drivers of their bosses, peers and subordinates is critical. Same goes for getting people aligned and motivated around their common goals. Outside your specific organization, it is invaluable that a leader be able to quickly and accurately figure out why an important customer seems dissatisfied, even though they say everything is fine.

If a potential employee doesn't have empathy, they have very little chance of getting these, and many other, important constituents on their side. Lack of empathy is a key reason why otherwise analytically brilliant leaders often come up short.

Emotional intelligence

While empathy is externally focused, another key leadership attribute, emotional intelligence, is internally focused. An emotionally intelligent leader habitually takes a hard, honest look at himself and accurately discerns his strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. Putting personal pride aside, he actively solicits the input of others and incorporates the team's best ideas into the overall action plan.

Without emotional intelligence, hubris sets in, and a leader will overestimate his own ability and alienate others. Even though the hubris may convince him that he can bite off more than he can chew, subordinates will not be so blind. A leader who continuously lets down his or her team won't stay in the organization's good graces for long. From my vantage point, a lack of emotional intelligence is probably the top derailer of previously successful managers moving into fundamentally new and ambiguous roles.

These seven leadership attributes -- integrity, vision, judgment, passion, courage, empathy and emotional intelligence -- are all the hallmarks of great leaders, regardless of industry or geography. By gearing any candidate assessment towards these traits -- and away from false predictors of success, like a sparkling personality, a polished résumé or good interview skills -- you will be one big step ahead of the rest of the crowd who are still scratching their heads wondering why they are so bad at picking good leaders.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jeffrey Cohn.

via edition.cnn.com

SCAF, Brotherhood to back El-Arabi in looming Egypt's presidential polls

Via Ahram Online, by Dina Ezzat

        
        Arab League head Nabil El-Arabi. (Reuters/Asmaa Waguih)

Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the influential Muslim Brotherhood – along with the latter's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which currently enjoys just shy of a parliamentary majority – are reportedly edging closer to declaring Arab League chief Nabil El-Arabi as their preferred presidential candidate, well-informed sources told Ahram Online.

The same sources said that both the SCAF and the Brotherhood have two presidential contenders whom they definitely want out of the race: Amr Moussa and Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fottouh.

The SCAF, for its part, wants to exclude former Arab League head Amr Moussa, whose approval ratings are the highest according to several independent polls. Sources say that some within the SCAF leadership are uncomfortable with what they describe as Moussa's "exaggerated sense of dignity."

Moussa and SCAF head Hussein Tantawi were fellow cabinet ministers under former president Hosni Mubarak in the 1990s, before Moussa's growing popularity prompted Mubarak to kick Moussa upstairs to the Arab League in 2001.

When the SCAF conducted an online popularity poll a few months ago, Moussa came in last, while Mohamed ElBaradei clinched first place. The results were later withdrawn, however, after it was revealed that the poll had been tampered with.

However, as one of the sources who spoke to Ahram Online said, "If the SCAF wants Moussa out, then the Muslim Brotherhood will do anything to kill Aboul-Fottouh's chances."

Aboul-Fottouh, a medical doctor by profession and long-time political activist imprisoned during the Mubarak era for his association with the Brotherhood, broke away from the group following last year's revolution to announce his own presidential campaign – against the wishes of the Brotherhood leadership.

Today, Brotherhood leaders are ferociously lobbying against the renegade politician. "Members of the Brotherhood's younger generation who see Aboul-Fottouh as a viable Islamist presidential candidate fear they might be excommunicated from the group if they express support for him," said one young Brotherhood member.

To the surprise of the Brotherhood leadership, Aboul-Fottouh, whose political program is based on a consensual national agenda, has garnered support from certain Islamist and liberal – even Christian – quarters.

The Brotherhood had initially hoped that support would go to Islamist intellectual Selim El-Awa, but this didn't pan out. "El-Awa is actually now thinking about bowing out of the race," said one source close to his campaign.

El-Awa, who has thus far maintained good relations with the SCAF, had initially hoped to be the favoured candidate of the SCAF and the Brotherhood.

Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister, who resigned following mass demonstrations only weeks after Mubarak's ouster, had also hoped to secure the SCAF's backing for a possible run for the presidency. But according to a source close to the military council, Shafiq received a lukewarm reception from the SCAF, due largely to scepticism about the prospects of someone with such close associations to the deposed head of state.

Meanwhile, Mansour Hassan, head of the SCAF's Advisory Council, has turned down overtures from both the SCAF and the Brotherhood to stand as their candidate of choice. The maximum Hassan was prepared to give, according to informed sources, was to withdraw his announced public support for Moussa and give it instead to El-Arabi.

Sources close to El-Arabi say the Arab League chief is reluctant to enter the race for highest office. According to one source, he might agree to run if his term was of a transitional nature, i.e., limited to only one or two years in office.

In any case, El-Arabi is expected to announce his final decision on the matter within days.

via english.ahram.org.eg

The Islamists are here (Part II)

Two weeks into the life of the newly elected Islamic-majority Egyptian parliament, member Mamdouh Ismail of the Salafi party, a radical Islamist group, stands up from his seat, goes to the microphone, and recites the call for prayers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=prQtaJI_1R8

Let’s put matters into perspective. People don’t generally call for prayers in a public space. And never has anyone done so in parliament let alone while in session—in so doing Ismail was setting a precedent, testing the waters on how far his party can go, exhibiting how dangerously crafty this party is, and, of course, undermining the parliament itself, its guiding rules, and its speaker. 

Once the determined member began his call, a discussion ensued between him and the speaker, El Katatni. The speaker asked the member to sit down twice; each time he exclaimed, “I did not give you permission to speak,” but Ismail went on regardless. It was then that the speaker justifiably decided to shush the member. He told him off saying, “There is a mosque outside where you can pray; parliament is a place for discussion not praying.” When Ismail continued even further, El Katatni became aggravated; “You are no more devout than any of us; besides, work is yet another kind of worship,” to which the other members applauded.  This dialogue is historic and momentous from both perspectives—the plucky move on the member’s part and the even gutsier response from the speaker.

 Ismail is also the same parliament member who improvised the parliament oath during the inaugural session. The oath ends with a pledge to respect the constitution and law, and he added “and God’s law,” defying the speaker and belittling from the oath itself.

During elections, this party of extremists won almost 20% of the parliament seats, and since then it has been flagrantly promoting its views leaving Egyptians daunted and perplexed as far as what the future holds.

And they continue to baffle.  First, they emerged out of the woodwork in full force, the men fanning their unkempt beards, and the women clad in black from head to toe leaving only a slight gap to squint through. They had kept a low profile for years; now that they have equal rights, they are gloating fair and square.

The Salafis, now that they are here to stay, are putting everyone to the test to see how far they can go and how much Egyptians would allow. And stories are in abundance. At a social club, a woman was admonished by a religious one for wearing a “décolleté,” an action that would have never happened before. One university student explains that a midyear event had been cancelled since the radical Islamists wouldn’t accept entertainment. To top it all off, a story is circulating in the newspapers that the Egyptian national anthem sung at schools has, in certain religious districts, been replaced by a religious one. http://www.christian-dogma.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2080204 And many other telling stories warn Egyptians to heed.

Of course, the media went berzerk, too.  Tongue in cheek, it focused on what the Salafis denounce and what they permit. Feigning puzzlement and curiosity, talk show hosts began asking radicalists to clarify the right from the wrong. This opened a huge can of worms with the Salafis falling into the trap ever so naively. They came across as petty and ignorant, and instead of focusing on how to get the country through these trying times, they found themselves focusing on trivialities: wearing bikinis, singing and enjoying the arts, and participating in sports.

Don’t get me wrong. All Egyptians should enjoy equal rights including the extremists especially since they have a following to be reckoned with, but it works both ways. Now, other Egyptian minorities, in particular liberals and Copts, deserve the same rights, too. The ways of elapsed regimes where other voices were quieted will not work. Egyptians can’t fall into the same trap yet again. 

Will the extremists succeed? And where does this leave Egypt? Back to the past? Or better yet back to the future? Will Egypt move forward and become a developed country open in its views to other developed countries or will it close on itself to satisfy those who believe in the ways of yester years?

This will be an uphill battle. It is here that activists and revolutionists should continue their struggle. As much as there were political tyrants, there are religious ones. Freedom is freedom be it freedom of speech, basic rights, or religion.

Egypt will soon realize that it cannot replace one tyrant with another.