Arab News Blog

Pic of IslamOnline strikers from Flickr user Ahmed Abd El-fatah

Over the last few days, Egyptian media circles have been up in arms about a strike at IslamOnline.net, the portal about Islam, Islamists and politics in the Muslim world. The chief meme being put out by employees and their supporters is that the “moderate” brand of Islam the site had promoted is being pushed out. A new board has come in at the Islamic Message Society of Qatar, which owns the site. Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi, the board chairman and founder, is said to be considering resigning. The new board wants to take the site in a more Salafist direction — for instance, board members objected to mentions of Valentine’s Day on the site. All of this info, of course, comes from the strikers so we have to take their word for it, the board is staying mum.

Now, I’ve always been irked at people describing Qaradawi as a moderate. But IslamOnline, which is not always necessarily so moderate, did put out an excellent media product and fascinating debates about Islamists, notably the Egyptian Muslim Brothers (I suspect that more than a few Brothers work at IslamOnline). I notably remember reading there the most trenchant critique of the Brothers’ political party program there, by a leading member of the group. It also has very wide discussion of social and personal problems from an Islamic perspective. Overall, while it wasn’t my proverbial cup of tea, it was possibly the most professional new media publication in Egypt, and certainly more “moderate” than Qatari wahhabis (they’re not much talked about, but are just as bad as their Saudi counterpart).

The strike thus far has featured a huge sit-in at the Sixth October City office of the site, which was broadcast live online, and vigils. And it’s very much the talk of the Egyptian Twittosphere.

There’s been some good reporting on this, here are a few links:

Islam On-Strike | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

Going Off-line | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

Daily News Egypt – Full Article (DNE: I thus punish you for not putting the headline of articles in the title of the page.) 

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A piece in Al-Masry al-Youm (English) on the last days of the Egyptian pork industry, as we approach the first anniversary of the great pig cull of 2009. In a few weeks, the country’s biggest pork processor will run out of its stock of frozen meat, and with the herds virtually eliminated, the industry is dying.

As the story notes, though the pig farmers themselves received financial compensation for the culled pigs, the others who made their living off pigs, from the zabbalin trash collectors to the meat packers and processors, were not so lucky.

And of course, as the names of the various pork processors quoted in the story make clear, this was a Christian industry and the Coptic population has been hit hardest by it, since the Muslim majority do not eat pork.

And Egypt had many cases of Swine Flu anyway, none of it apparently vectored through swine.

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As part of the 50th Anniversary of the Aswan High Dam the Egyptian media has been writing a lot about the period. Here’s an interesting interview in Al-Masry Al-Youm’s English pages with a Nubian displaced by the High Dam, remembering the lost villages of Nubia and showing distinctly mixed views of Nasser.

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• Egyptian billionaire poised to join Lebedev in Independent deal | Media | guardian.co.uk

  Sameh Sawiris in talks to partner on purchase of Independent newspaper.

• La mort du général Larbi Belkheir : rappels sur le parcours d’un grand criminel

  Extracts from the book Françalgerie, on the recently deceased mafiosi-general.

• Bedouinocratic Libya: Between Hereditary Succession and Reform

  By Rachid Khechana [PDF]

• Berlusconi says Israel should join EU – Yahoo! News

  Someone punch him again, please.

• CIA moonlights in corporate world – Eamon Javers – POLITICO.com

  Active duty CIA agents working for hedge funds. No wonder Bin Laden hasn’t been caught and the economy is in a shambles.

• Gaza underground wall enters final stage of construction | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

  Heavy construction activity in last two days.

• BBC News – Explosives wash up on Israel beaches

  This shores up the Egyptian claim that weapons are delivered to Gaza by sea rather (or on top of) the tunnels.

• Israelis ‘chained pregnant prisoners to beds’ | The Daily Telegraph

  WTF?

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A pinch and a punch for the first of the month:

? Arabic and the Roman alphabet | Brian Whitaker chimes on the Arabic transliteration debate.
? Sunday Afternoon Thoughts: Arabic transliteration « The Moor Next Door | Bottom line, let’s not get too anal about it, but be consistent. I agree.
? Coptic orgs call for voting against Mubarak in next election | Bikya Masr | Free Copts and American Coptic Assembly goes against the Pope!
? Dubai police say Mossad may have killed Hamas chief – Yahoo! News | So let’s not hear complaints when there’s retribution.
? Egypt could face sanctions over sectarianism | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt | Chairman of US Commission on Int. Religious Freedom said Egypt’s could be cut over discrimination.
? Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | When the alternative is not so different after all | al-Anani on the MB’s murky politics.
? Mahmoud Abbas: Israel’s West Bank occupation leading to one-state solution | World news | The Guardian | Interview with Abu Mazen, still trying to scare the Israelis with talk of one-state solution they perfectly know he’s not serious about.
? Le jour où l’Egypte a frôlé la catastrophe : foot, télévision et conflits asymétriques | Culture et politique arabes | A very nice post on the politics of Al-Jazeera’s purchase of the Orbit sports channel.
? Michael Totten: Muslim Arabs hate everybody « the human province | Why do Totten and Smith hate us?
? gulfnews : UAE editors back emiratisation of media | Goodbye expat journos? Not likely soon…
? Panetta traveled to Israel – Laura Rozen – POLITICO.com | And also to Egypt to meet with Omar Suleiman last week.
? In Egypt, Religious Clashes Are Off the Record – NYTimes.com | Slackman reports from Naga Hammadi.
? Repopulating an antique land: Egypt’s forbidding Western Desert – The National Newspaper | A look at the New Valley project by Jack Shenker.

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? Special report: The rise of Islamic militia in Somalia | World news | The Observer | By Peter Beaumont, who is good on Somalia.
? Pashas: Traders and Travellers in the Islamic World by James Mather | Book review | Books | The Observer | Dalrymple reviews a book on the Levant Company.
? Why are there no arab democracies? [PDF] | Journal of Democracy article by Larry Diamond, who concludes it’s mostly because of oil.
? Ambassador to Syria – Laura Rozen – POLITICO.com | Robert Ford, a high-level appointee, will be first since 2006.
? Egypt-Algeria: Who’s afraid of Amr Adeeb? | Al-Masry Al-Youm | Amr Adeeb and Egyptian-Algerian football rivalry.
? Autocracy-lite in Jordan | Chris Phillips | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk | Not so sure about the ‘lite’…
? Wonk Room » Looking Toward A Future Gulf Security Architecture | Big question: will US reconfigure its role?
? Daily News Egypt – Egypt Still Involved In Secret Detentions, Says Un Report | Along with US, Russia, China, Algeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, India and Iran. Wonder if Morocco too.
? Waq al-Waq: The Myth of Undergoverned Spaces in Yemen | No such thing – rather, “alternately governed”.
? Coptic Assembly of America | Activist site of Coptic emigrés.
? New MB leader slapped with travel ban | Al-Masry Al-Youm | As usual these days for senior Muslim Brothers.
? Brotherhood to Egypt: Don’t squeeze out moderates | Reuters | Interview with new Murshid Mohamed Badie.
? A Duped President’s Wasted Foreign-Policy Year by William Pfaff — Antiwar.com | Powerful op-ed by Pfaff (on antiwar.com!!!)
? Congress letter to Obama | Finally, congresspeople we can be proud off, here calling for an end to the Gaza blockade.
? Universities and Islam: Hearts, minds and Mecca | The Economist | ”A forthcoming book by Steffen Hertog, a sociologist, will argue that terrorists include a high number of engineers—not because of their need for bomb-making skills, but perhaps because of a mindset that likes rigidity and binary choices.”
? Holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda – Haaretz | On Netanyahu’s distasteful use of Holocaust remembrance for anti-immigrant, anti-Iran rant.
? The Decline of the Israeli Left | Secrecy News | Full book by Israeli writers available for download.
? Goodbye to oil that: the excesses of today’s quest for crude – The National Newspaper | Review of books on oil.
? Michael Mineo Testifies That Police Brutalized Him in Subway – NYTimes.com | NYPD Egyptian style?
? Arabic on the iPad – SaudiMac It works. Am still skeptical though, esp. as ebook reader, although it looks great for comic books.

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It may be wishful thinking on the part of the regime, but a fair amount of commentary (not just domestic but international) on the election of new Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Muhammad Badi‘ seems to be focusing on the idea that the MB is likely to retreat from political activism and concentrate on its social and educational functions under its new, conservative leader.

A few examples: a pre-official announcement version in Al-Ahram English (weekly); Al-Masry al-Youm English; the BBC; Abu Dhabi’s The National; Al-Jazeera English; and Google will give you many more. Either we are looking at a more docetist, less politicized Brotherhood, or everyone got the same backgrounder somewhere from someone.

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Sorry to keep coming back to Egypt, but as I’ve said before, I write what I know. Tensions between Copts and Muslims in Upper Egypt have been running high since the Christmas Eve killings, and now Security has arrested 28 Copts and 14 Muslims in the rioting and burnings that took place in Bahgura (or Bahjura). There’s also a newer video of the immediate shooting aftermath on YouTube which is fairly graphic and therefore I’m not embedding it; if you really need to see it you can go here. And Al-Masry Al-Youm has a chronology of sectarian violence in Egypt since 1972. It’s not comprehensive or complete, but it’s better than anything the official press (or “semi-official” as Al-Ahram is always referenced) would publish.

As the story at the first link above shows, Copts abroad are getting into the debate now. There’s some danger here. So far the government has been promising to mete out justice to the killers (remember a policeman also died). But when the overseas Coptic community starts denouncing the Egyptian government, the government sometimes has a tendency to go into the bunker.

As you’ll see in the linked story, Morris Sadek of the National American Coptic Assembly has called for the United States to intervene and even noted that Copts were better off under French and British occupation and asked for those countries’ intervention too.

I have enormous empathy for the Copts, but this was a local Muslim-Christian vendetta, and since Napoleon’s dead and so’s Anthony Eden, the British and French reference is only going to alienate Egyptian nationalists (including many Copts). The American intervention idea? Not going to happen. When a minority, however ill-treated, seems to be calling for foreign imperial intervention against its own government, that suggests an uncertain grasp of reality. But it’s mostly Copts abroad, or some like Sadek who move between the US and Egypt, who can get away with saying these things.

Back in 1981 when Anwar Sadat deposed Pope Shenouda, it was in part a response to his embarrassment at Coptic demonstrators he encountered on his visit to Washington to see Ronald Reagan shortly before. If Copts abroad get too noisy, the government is likely to react badly. A minority, in the real world of the Middle East, is better off not defying the government.

If the perpetrators are not brought to justice, there will be plenty of grounds for protest. But calling for foreign intervention? That won’t happen, so if overseas Copts want to protect their co-religionists at home, don’t through fuel on the smouldering embers. Things are already bad enough.

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The sectarian tensions in Upper Egypt have been building through the weekend. There were some Christian attacks on Muslim shops in the village of Bahgura, and Christian protests continue. There are signs the government may be ready to try to calm things down by charging the killers with terrorism and sowing sectarian division rather than just murder. (And they did kill a cop as well as six Copts.) If you read Arabic, check out Al-Masry al-Youm’s latest story and the earlier links below it. They’re giving good coverage.

This is the worst sectarian violence in Upper Egypt since Kosheh back in 2000; in my then-newsletter The Estimate at the time I wrote this analysis on “Egypt’s Copts After Kosheh”: Part One. And Part Two. It remains, I suspect, my best analysis to date on Coptic-Muslim tensions in Upper Egypt, despite being a decade old.

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