Issandr El Amrani's Blog, page 9

The Franchising of al-Qaeda

New York Times' map of al-Qaeda network

NYT's Ben Hubbard, on al-Qaeda's second wind:

What links these groups, experts say, is no longer a centralized organization but a loose ideology that any group can appropriate and apply as it sees fit while gaining the mystique of a recognized brand name. In short, Al Qaeda today is less a corporation than a vision driving a diverse spread of militant groups.

“Al Qaeda is kind of a ready-made kit now,” said William McCants, a scholar of militant Islam at the Brookings Institution. “It is a portable ideology that is entirely fleshed out, with its own symbols and ways of mobilizing people and money to the cause. In many ways, you don’t have to join the actual organization anymore to get those benefits.”

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Links 18-26 January 2014

A little Dalida nostalgia to add to your anniversary blues.

Activist groups reject MB call to unite | Mada Masr
A (too) late apology from MB to revs.EU to grant Egypt €500 bn in aid | Egypt IndependentU.S. Citizen Taken From His Apartment In Cairo By Egyptian Security Officialsالنائب العام يأمر بالتحقيق مع “بيبسي” بتهمة بث إعلانات تُحرض الشباب على التظاهر | ONA
Egypt Prosecutor orders investigation into Pepsi for ads encouraging youth to demonstrateAl-Qaeda made £50m from ransoms in 3 years, says British UN ambassador | Mail OnlinePriorities for Legislative Reform | Human Rights Watch
In Libya.The second death of Khaled Saeed | Mada Masr
On the eve of Jan 25, a look at the case and Facebook page that partly started it allLibya: Facing Economic Collapse in 2014EGYPT'S PRESIDENT: POLICE STATE HAS ENDED - AP
Er...Renowned Scholar in Egypt Charged With Espionage - NYTimes
On Emad Shahin.Life in the City of the Dead by Virginie Nguyen | PANORAMA
This is an amazing photo essay of the daily life of two families in CairoHammonda. »Egypt’s Salafis: ‘New Brothers’ walking a political minefield
Andrew Hammond on Nour.Demoted Egyptian editor bemoans lack of press freedom | Reuters
Hahaha - Salama was running insane stories, arselicking whoever was in power.Talk About a Dark Horse: Promoting ‘Omar Suleiman for President?
20,000 members (ironically?) support presidency of a dead man٢٥ يناير ٢٠١١ (jan25_365) on Twitter
Retweets from Egypt three years agoCars of Cairo
Beautiful blog on unusual cars spotted in Cairo.Nasawiyat | A blog on women in Egypt
New and promising blog by Nadine MarroushiAnthology of poems about Baghdad captures city through the ages
From BookforumWith truce offer, Assad has left his regime exposed | The NationalWill Oil-Rich Libya Go Bankrupt in Less Than Four Years? | Revenue Watch Institute
Gasp.Egypte : comment l'armée a falsifié le texte de la constitution
How the Egyptian army rewrote final draft of constitution after approval.ISIS judge to Sinai jihadists: 'We and you are one' - Threat MatrixMorocco’s Slow Motion Reform Process - SWP
Slow or no motion?516: Stuck In The Middle | This American Life
Featuring Sarah Carr on disillusionment in Egypt.Influence of moneyed elites rebounds in Egypt - The Washington PostLife as a Muslim Brotherhood Supporter in Egypt | VICE
Good reporting.Egypt Says Twitter Post by Liberal Was Crime - NYTimes.com
The judges have it in for Hamzawy.The Egypt outside ‘The Square’ | Al Jazeera America
Evan Hill assesses "The Square" and the bleak "Rags and Tatters"‘The Square’ is a beautiful documentary. But its politics are dangerous.
Maz Fischer overstates argument, but makes sound overall point.Iraqi IDPs from Fallujah fighting flock northWest Bank mosque attack blamed on radical Israeli settlersLebanese owner who died defending Kabul restaurantAn Egyptian coup Journalist: we will slaughter Americans in the streets, in Egypt and abroad - YouTube
Mustafa Bakry promises pogrom against Americans if El Sisi is assassinatedHere is a list of the real forces behind the violence in Iraq - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Egypt's Hobbesian moment

Thomas Hobbes. From Shutterstock.

Noted Egyptian rights activist Karim Ennarah, writing on Facebook:

January 25th might be defeated, but January 28th--I mean that Hobbesian moment that characterises everything in Egypt today--is not, and I doubt that anyone could put an end to this Hobbesian moment and turn this into a governable country. This revolution has changed things fundamentally, in a way that is irreversible (and I don't necessarily mean positively nor am I talking about democracy or rule of law) and the social crisis that remains of it is bigger than anything or anyone, despite those who think it's intellectually fashionable to use the term "uprising" instead of revolution in their headlines. As for us, those who are defeated, bruised and humiliated (for the time being, at least); I don't have the faintest hint of regret. If this nation does not progress in the future--if that social process cannot be geared towards a better life, then at least I, almost every one in this country, has changed forever. I used to have one existential crisis, no I have multiple, now this society is questioning everything--things we used to take for granted like democracy, rule of law, legitimacy, "the people", religion, and the concept of progress itself. Something's going to give, and at the very least, I know that my generation that is defined by this revolution will prevail some day, even if it takes twenty years..

The question now is, what will be the cost of all this?

There are multiple ways to use the phrase "Hobbesian moment" – one in terms of the use of brutal politics, in the usual sense of "Hobbesian" as that borrowed from Leviathan and meaning the absolute power of the sovereign, and its ruthless use, to subdue selfish or unruly citizens. It can apply to state repression or even revolutionary terror. Another, though, comes Hobbes' Elements of Law. It is about a fight to define, or frame, the future:

No man can have in his mind a conception of the future, for the future is not yet. But of our conceptions of the past, we make a future; or rather, call past, future relatively. Thus after a man hath been accustomed to see like antecedents followed by like consequents, whensoever he seeth the like come to pass to any thing he hath seen before, he looks there should follow it the same that followed then. As for example: because a man hath often seen offenses followed by punishment, when he seeth an offense in present, he thinketh a punishment to be consequent thereto. But consequent unto that which is present, men call future. And thus we make remembrance to be prevision, or conjecture of things to come, or expectation or presumption of the future.

For the last three years, the future of Egypt has looked hopeful at times and bleak at others (and of course looked different to different people). But it has always looked very uncertain, and that has not changed. This fight to define the future is likely to be long and bloody.

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Cairo blasts

For ongoing coverage of the bombings in Cairo today -- and a slide show of the damage at the security directorate and the Islamic Art Museum across the street -- go to Mada Masr.

The missing Bassem Youssef episode

The episode of the satirical news that that never aired -- and supposedly led to CBC canceling the show -- has popped up online. 

Symptoms of Imperial Soldiers

Didn't think I'd find such pointed socio-economic critique and truly inspired comedy at Cairoscene: 

But the true slap in the face was the witnessing of the whole “convince the West that this is not a coup” social media campaign. Who cares what they think, honestly? Do they care that I think that their 2000 election was rigged and that George Bush is funnier than 90% of their sitcoms? No. And why weren’t these people also trying to convince the president of China that this allegedly wasn’t a coup? Is he not in their field of vision? Personally, I wasn’t seeking validation from the West regarding June 30th but I must admit that I did write a letter to Tommy Remengesau, the President of Palau, claiming that June 30th was caused by four middle aged women masturbating simultaneously to Mohannad from Nour. I explained that the electricity cut (Yes, fuck Morsi) prior to climax, and when it returned, MBC4 became state TV Channel Two and Mohannad became El Sisi. The dark shades conducted the activity to its orgasmic conclusions and 20 million people poured into the streets to celebrate the first genuine Egyptian female orgasm by parading posters of the suave general and his nipple-erecting gaze. Suffice to say, President Remengseau was skeptical. He simply wrote back “Tawfik Okasha, is this you?”

And check out the author's previous post about the secession of the island state of Zamalek, too. 

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Alaa's letter to his sisters

“The day that they broke into my house and arrested me, Khaled was sick and unable to sleep. I took him in my arms for an hour until he slept. And what is adding to the oppression that I feel is that I find that this imprisonment is serving no purpose, it is not resistance and there is no revolution. The people that are in ongoing negotiations despite the fact that they are not in jail aren’t worth the reality that I am deprived from spending even one hour with my son. The previous imprisonments had meaning because I felt that I was in jail by choice and it was for a positive gain. Right now, I feel that I can’t bear people or this country and there is no meaning for my imprisonment other than freeing me from the guilt I would feel being unable to combat the immense oppression and injustice that is ongoing.

It is true that I am still powerless, but at least I have become oppressed among the many oppressed and I no longer owe a duty or feel guilt. To be honest, one hour with Khaled is more beneficial. I don’t even understand how I can live without him and I don’t understand how I can live without Manal. When I got the order to appear before the Prosecutor, Manal began to pragmatically prepare so that our work would not be delayed and I became so unsettled at her and a visit I had with Maysara to delegate some of my work and determine who will take on the rest of the responsibilities. I knew that I would be imprisoned, but I didn’t want to think about how our lives would go on while we are no longer together. At the end, life goes on. Just because my willpower and control on time has stopped, does not mean that time itself has stopped.

The thought is scary, I am facing two felonies and it is clear that they have decided that we must be handed down sentences. It is clear that the revolution is in poor shape. We may be handed down sentences, in which case time stops for me and continues to go on for you for years, which means that Khaled grows up without me. This means that he will undergo many colds and will sleep away from my hugs for long.”

— Letter dated 24 December 2013 by political prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah

Note: Khaled is Alaa's two-year old son, Manal his wife. He is in prison and facing charges of inciting protests. Thousands of Egyptians – almost all Islamist activists – have been arrested since July 2013. Alaa, a prominent leftwing activist, has been investigated and/or arrested by every regime since Mubarak.

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The war around us

Here's the trailer for The war around us, on our friends Ayman Mohieldin and Sherine Tadros' coverage of the 2009 Gaza war. They went on to do great things covering the 2011 uprising in Egypt, also for al-Jazeera English, which they have both since left.

If Sisi runs...

From Andrew Hammond's valuable blog, a short post reproduced below in full before commenting on it:

If Sisi gives in to temptation and runs for president, the July 3 regime may not last. If he does not, he gives it a chance. If he runs, the July 3 regime continues to define itself as a new beginning, undermining the transformative power of January 25, and in the process dooms itself to failure, but if he does not run it will have a chance to become another chapter in the long process of reconstituting Egyptian politics and society begun on Jan 25.

If he runs, Sisi will see opposition to the military’s blatant interference in the public sphere increase and opinion slowly change on the Muslim Brotherhood, which hopes he will make this mistake in order to regain the sympathy it lost because of its disastrous year in power. If he does not run, the group will find itself forced to review its mistakes and consider serious reforms. If he runs, the Brotherhood will remain a powerful anti-modern political force some factions of which could succumb to resistance politics and obsession with injustice.

If logic prevails, the July 3 ouster has the chance to be viewed by posterity as just one of a series of post-Jan 25 army interventions, some big, some small. If he and the army remain in the wings, the ‘roadmap’ launched in July last year may survive as an integral element in Egypt’s post-Jan 25 political architecture. But if Sisi steps up to take the reins of power, his argument that he was responding to the call of the people against an unpopular government will drown in the tide of voices, domestic and foreign, who denounce and will increasingly denounce his July 3 manoeuvre as a military coup.

If he runs, Egypt is doomed to long-term instability. If he does not, Sisi may realize his wish to be seen one day as the saviour his sycophantic, opportunistic admirers claim he is today. Egypt may have a chance.

Quite aside from whether Egypt's future can be reduced to the question of whether Sisi will run (and even though I broadly agree with the calculations Andrew outlines) – if we have reached the point where is so central, won't he remain central no matter what, and the outcome (with a very weak president if he doesn't run) the same? Sisi has already put Egypt on the path of an outdated model of charismatic rule, the return of the worse tendencies of the security state, and chronic instability due to both inner regime tensions and the conflict between the state and a sizable part of the population. And there is nothing to indicate that he has a vision for facing Egypt's socio-economic challenges or the tolerance to allow other strong personalities to run the government should he choose to remain at the helm of the armed forces only. Whether Sisi is president or not, won't Sisi still be the only game in town?

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Egypt's 97.7 Per Cent: If Everyone Votes Yes, Is It Democracy?

Peter Hessler in The New Yorker hits on an important truth about Egyptian politics - it's fickleness: 

Hassan was smoking a shisha pipe at a coffee shop near the polling station, and he told me that he planned to vote yes. He had voted for Morsi in 2012. “He was a good man, but there was so much corruption around him,” Hassan said. I asked him if the Brothers are really terrorists.

“Yes,” he said, without hesitating. “I see what is happening on television, the things in Sinai, and I can see that they are terrorists.”

I had heard similar comments from many others. But Hassan surprised me when I asked about Sisi. “I’m telling you, if Sisi runs and wins, then the people will hate him,” he said. “Right now everybody loves him. But, once he gets the chair, then it will all change.”

This is hard to recognize in the 97.7 per cent: beneath the surface, there’s an incredible volatility to the Egyptian majority. Outsiders tend to see two entrenched sides, the security forces and the Islamists, but in fact most Egyptians occupy a much less partisan and less predictable political space. And they still have power, whether it comes through the vote or through public protests.

Thus far, everybody who has tried to run the country in the post-Tahrir era has failed to understand how quickly things can change. Until the bitter end, Morsi and the other Brotherhood leaders truly believed that they remained popular, simply because they had won elections in the past. But, at the polls this week, I met many people who had voted yes on both constitutions, and it was common to talk to a former Morsi supporter who was now an enthusiastic fan of Sisi. Nagat Abdel Latif, a middle-aged woman who worked at the Ministry of Aviation, told me that she came to the polls not because of the constitution but because she wanted to show her support for Sisi. A year and a half earlier, she had voted for Morsi, even though her ministry had been led by Ahmed Shafik, Morsi’s opponent in the Presidential election. “I worked there, so I knew about Shafik,” she told me. “I liked him, too. Still, many of us there voted for Morsi. We just thought it was time for a change. But we were wrong; Morsi was terrible.” She told me that she was certain Sisi would be better.

I suspect that we were to draw a Venn diagram of Egyptians who voted for Morsi in 2012, voted for the 2012 constitution, voted for the 2013 constitution and intend to vote for Sisi in 2014, the overlap would be significant. 

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