Catherine's Place - Cairo, Egypt, Middle East, Politics

Returning Home

2012-09-10T21:58:00.002+02:00

So I had a big leaving Egypt blog post prepared and I never posted it. I'm thinking I'll still write it at some point but for now I'm just going to talk about being back.

I returned to the US a little over a month ago and I think I'm just starting to feel that I'm not in Egypt anymore. I haven't lived in the US since I graduated college and have never had full time professional experience here.

In the last month, I keep being surprised with everything I've missed. A few weeks ago while going over a case with my learning team (a Darden phenomena where you're paired with other students to help each other learn cases) I, along with the international students in my team, needed to have Groupon explained.

A couple weeks ago while running, I saw a sign that said "Caution: Traffic Pattern Change" and I almost started laughing at the ridiculousness. In Cairo, the traffic pattern changes by whoever decides to drive down a road first and this sign seemed excessive in the face of clearly marked lanes and a traffic light.

When we were discussing a case about an Indian car company that was providing a low cost car, I found it difficult to handle the reactions of surprise from most of the class when a fellow classmate explained how it was common to see an entire family on a scooter. For me, seeing five people piled onto a motorcycle zipping down the highway was commonplace.

Almost every time I get into a friends' car I'm reminded to put on a seat belt - there are even cars that remind you itself!

I really miss baba ganoug and tahina. Oh, and I really miss my mother-in-law's hammam (stuffed pigeon).

Did you know that Amazon has two day shipping? TWO DAYS!

There's a two lane road near the school that most students, including myself, need to cross to get home. There is also construction going on near it and there is a sign that says something along the lines of "DANGER: Do not cross road here please use crosswalk." After spending three years crossing a six lane highway without a crosswalk, stop sign, traffic light or other mechanism for stopping cars other than the traffic flow, it is really difficult for me to respect this well-intentioned sign about a seemingly (for me) trivial danger.

For every thing I miss about Cairo I could list probably ten reasons why I'm really happy to be back in the US, not least of all because I can pick up my phone and call or text my family whenever I want. Unlimited text messaging?!?!

But I guess I'm finally feeling "reverse culture shock." What I'm struggling with the most is simply having people I can relate to about how I have been living. In Egypt, I was able to recount to all my friends, whether Egyptian or foreign, a harassment story or simply converse about the topic without giving an hour of context. Or I talk about Egyptian politics fluidly or have a conversation about the Muslim Brotherhood that I don't feel the need to qualify a thousand times to avoid supporting certain stereotypes about the group. I think I'm becoming mentally and emotionally exhausted trying to recount my experience without coming across as arrogant or superior. Some times I feel I need to just edit Egypt out of my comments altogether.

Perhaps part of the difficulty is the expectation that because I'm American this should be easy. I did spend 20 years of my life in the US. But I guess Egypt affected me in such a way at such a formative time of my life that it's not easy to not be affected. There's a saying in Egypt "if you drink from the Nile you'll always come back." For me, it should be "if you drink from the Nile, you'll never really leave."

Returning home is not nearly as easy as I thought.

Why Can't I Walk to the Grocery Store in Peace?

2012-07-04T15:13:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, I walked to the grocery store down the street from my house to buy some food for a family get together later that evening. It was about 9:30am and the pollution was doing little to stem the effects of the morning heat.

In my short walk from my apartment to the store, I would need both hands to count how many catcalls I received. These abuses on my freedom to walk peacefully and without harassment came from microbuses, cars, people walking on the street, and the grocery store workers themselves.

This is what happens when I walk outside my door.

Recently, there has been a lot of coverage about the savage mob attack on a young female British journalist in the area of Tahrir. Ahram Online, an Egyptian English news website, reported this story of multiple women who have faced similar attacks in the past year.

While these attacks are brutal and horrific, they are not surprising for most women like me who are harassed on a daily basis. Most of my days the harassment is minor - catcalls, jeers, elevator eyes, the feeling that a man is undressing you with his eyes - but some days it is not.

A couple weeks ago, I walking back from the bus stop down the road from my apartment in the late afternoon. Because of the heat, there were few people walking on the street. I looked up and saw a teenage boy riding his bicycle - in many countries not a cause for alarm. But then, just as he was about to pass me, his reached out his hand to try and touch my breast. Call it reflex or the product of being in similar situations so frequently, but I quickly smacked my bag into his hand before he could touch me. He laughed as he cycled away.

These kinds of incidents are commonplace. It would be difficult to find a woman in Egypt who does not have at least a couple similar stories. One of the bigger problems, is that a lot of women, especially Egyptian women, have stopped even recognizing harassment as harassment.

After watching a movie called 678, an Egyptian film chronicling harassment and issues related to it, I was discussing the ideas with my high school students. I asked the class if any of them had ever been harassed before. More than one girl answered, "well, just catcalls and stares, but that's really it." Now, these girls are only about 15 and for them to think that even something as harmless as catcalls is not harassment because it happens to them so often I think is very telling of the situation.

I really do feel that many of these mass brutal attacks on women in Tahrir are just the next stage in violence against women. There are two ways I think that people can start fighting for a solution. The first is that Egyptian women need to take a stand whenever they are a victim of harassment, because if they don't do that, they will remain victims. And the second, is that the harassment women talk about is not just the horrible and blood-curdling but the mundane daily instances that all of us women living in Egypt are subject to. Harassment in Egypt needs to be exposed for what it is: a systematic and entrenched part of daily culture that maims, shames, and degrades women.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam

Keep Your Eyes to Yourself

2012-05-16T11:19:00.001+02:00

I haven't written in awhile. Mostly this is because I didn't want my students to find new writing, but seeing as they have found my blog anyway (finally), I figured it wouldn't hurt.

Spring has sprung in Cairo. Or rather summer as spring decided not to make an appearance this year. The flowers are blooming, sandstorms blowing, birds chirping, harasser's eyes wandering...Yes, this is the time I dread each year I've lived in Cairo: the weather becoming warm enough that I can no longer wear my loose and figure hiding jackets in the street.

Yesterday was the first day I walked to the bus with my arms uncovered. It must be my mother's Russian blood in me, but I simply cannot tolerate the heat. I sweat when it is barely luke-warm outside. So no, I'm not going to wear a jacket, even a light one, when it is 90 degrees Farenheit.

Perhaps you are asking - but why do you feel uncomfortable walking around without something covering you? In one word (okay, fine two words): sexual harassment.

A few weeks later.

While walking to my bustop down the road, a group of young schoolboys accosted me. As I walked past them, they stopped their conversation and I could feel their eyes looking me up and down. Instead of moving aside to let me pass, two of the boys stood resolutely in front of me, staring. I could feel their words "hot chick," "beautiful," "cream" prick my skin like mosquitos drawing blood. Just as annoying, and leaving marks to make my skin crawl days later.

On the same walk, a man on a motorcyle yelled something that roughly translates to "oh yeaaaaaah" as he zoomed by.

After four years of living in Cairo, I have developed a super power: feeling a man's eyes.

I can walk down the street with my music blasting and intuitively know that someone's eyes are boring into my backside. I can walk past a man and know that his head is turning. I can feel their eyes caressing, feeling, touching.

This may sound narcissistic, but don't imagine that the streets of Cairo are a catwalk or red carpet. Instead, oftentimes it feels like a circus where you're the freak that everyone is staring and pointing at.

So my message to these creeps that line Cairo's streets like sentries? Keep your eyes to yourself.

Obama's Stance on Palestine Explained

2011-09-21T20:26:00.000+02:00

This is what Obama is really saying between all the lines of BS:

"Fellow hopeful Palestinians, while I understand discrimination being a child of a mix-raced couple and while I do actually believe Palestine should be a state, I also have to think of myself, I mean, my country.

See, I have this big election thing coming up in about a year, and not only do I think I might not get AIPAC's money, the Democratic Party might disown me if I make all other Democratic candidates lose out on this money too. Do you know what it's like to be disowned by those that are your own? Oh right, I guess you do - the whole Arab 'oh yeah we're totally on your side Palestine, except when we're using you for our own personal gain' thing.

So you get it right? I'm just looking out for my re-election and fellow Dems. Plus, you guys have waited what? Like sixty years? What's a few more? Just wait until after I get re-elected and then I can totally be all 'woooo Palestine! Yeah!'

Plus, Israel is like our best friend from kindergarten that is still hanging out with us high school even though they're not quite so cool anymore. It's like, we have these parents that are expecting us to just hang out all the time, but we're really trying to just be friends with the cool new kids named Egypt and Tunisia, but this childhood friend just won't leave us alone! It's sooo irritating.

You'd think they'd get the hint after awhile. Especially after the Cairo speech where I was trying to make it as clear as possible I was soooo over Tel Aviv.

Anywhoo, I know you guys will understand. So no hard feelings right that I'm not going to allow the US to vote to allow you to have a state? I mean, we all know you already are a de facto state anyway, what's the big deal if the UN doesn't recognize you? The UN is going down the tubes anyway, it really ain't no thang to be "recognized" by them anyway.

You will always be Palestine in our hearts. Plus, it's the thought that counts really and I have plenty of those."

Palestine: A State Without a State

2011-09-16T17:16:00.000+02:00

What does it really mean to be a country? Other than believing that you are one and having borders, it also means everyone else thinks you are a country too.

This month the Palestinians are planning to go to the UN for recognition of their state-ness. Anyone who knows anything about Palestine, knows that all things considered they basically have been a country for a long time. Unfortunately, Israel has a say in the matter.

Now, in 1948 when Israel declared themselves a state after a UN resolution granting them rights to former British Mandate Palestine, no one said whooooaaa, we need to have bilateral talks first - at the time many people did not consider the people living in British Mandate Palestine to have a say in anything. The rest of the world didn't stop to consider the Palestinians people until they rallied the support of the other Arab countries to attack newly created Israel. That woke Israel and the rest of the world up pretty fast.

For some reason or another (Holocaust guilt), America seems incapable of severing its "special friendship" with Israel even though America's relationship with Israel causes America an undue amount of tension between itself and other Middle Eastern countries. While I am no conspiracy theorist about 9/11, America's relationship with Israel certainly complicated feelings of sympathy from many Middle Easterners over the event.

Just the other day, a pro-Palestinian group launched a campaign in several American cities. They posted advertisements in subways asking Americans to stop sending aid money to Israel's military as the military helps perpetuate tensions between Israelis and Palestinians - not least of all between West Bank Israeli settlers and their Palestinian neighbors.

The reaction? The MTA (New York City's transportation authority) got lambasted by angry New York City residents saying that the ad was offensive - even though the ad displays pictures of families and no profanity.

What makes me personally angry about this situation is that Americans largely one do not realize the extent of support given to Israel and two, do not fully comprehend the history of the Palestinian struggle or the injustices done to them. Not that that stops many from having an opinion on the subject, though.

I wish President Obama would stand up for what is right rather than what is easy. It is understandable that there a lot of things high on his agenda these days (jobs, the economy, re-election, jobs), but if he wants to make good on any of the nice pretty speeches he gave throughout the Arab Spring about the hope for democracy and helping peoples achieving their deep-seated dreams of controlling their own sovereignty, then there is really only one thing he can do: allow the US to vote yes to a Palestinian state.

Because it already exists.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam,
israel

Riots riots everywhere...except in Egypt?

2011-08-16T21:56:00.002+02:00

In the two weeks I was in England and Scotland nothing major happened in Egypt - but riots consumed London. My Mom is really tired of calling to make sure I'm alive and well. I don't think that would have ever been a concern while I was in the UK, she probably thought she'd have two weeks off from worrying. Little did she know...

I'm not going to comment on the reasons for the London riots (if there were any) but going to the UK puts life in Egypt in perspective. Or perhaps it's the other way around.

Many of those who rioted came from the bottom of British society. But compared to the members in the bottom of Egyptian society these people are not doing to bad. Free housing, free healthcare, unemployment benefits, free public education. For those of us who have lived in "developed" countries, it is easy to feel sympathy for people who are poor in our country's because this many times the worst case economic scenario we have seen first hand.

It would be difficult to convince many poor Egyptians that these people deserve our sympathy. Living in a country which affords few unemployment or other social benefits, with little opportunity for education or equality, makes poverty infinitely more difficult. There are many Egyptians who do not have housing, or even more that make public housing in the UK seem like five star living.

So who do we feel bad for? Do the poor in developed countries deserve sympathy or support? Or should we scorn them for not realizing that they are far better off than their impoverished counterparts in developing countries?

Personally, I don't think either category should receive just sympathy - I think these people deserve support and acknowledgement. Because if we are people in a place to criticize others, than we probably have been given enough to be able to help. Given in the sense that we were born into families able to provide a quality education and encouragement to persevere or given in the sense that we have talents and brains enough to make our own way.

Poverty is not choice for most and many times is symptomatic of conditions beyond an individuals control.

I'm not advocating that people be relieved of personal responsibility - far from it. I am simply advocating that the poor should not be looked upon with contempt but rather with a level of understanding. I truly believe that most people would leap at a chance to further themselves if given the opportunity before having a chance to become embittered with their situation.

Are there bad people? Yeah. Are there people who are lazy and want to take advantage of what they can? Of course. They are called Wall Street. Just kidding. Sort of.

So why riots in London? I dunno, but if there is one thing I believe after witnessing the Egyptian revolution - people don't generally take to the streets for no reason.

Americans are Wusses

2011-07-26T12:28:00.003+02:00

As I write from my office in Cairo, hundreds if not thousands of Egyptians are continuing a sit-in that has lasted almost three weeks. They sit and camp under the blazing sun, they march to heavily gaurded military buildings, and risk their lives protecting the hard fought freedom they believe they won in Feburary.

And what are Americans? We are a bunch of wusses. Our Congress and President are about to destroy America. And by destroy I mean, the collapse of Lehman Brothers is going to look like a puppy on Christmas. Our leaders have become so inneffective at leading that they are like a tugboat pushing us out to sea instead of guiding us into a safe harbor.

Americans should be in the streets. Americans should be protesting in front of government buildings. There should be a sit-in of people in front of the White House and Capitol. American citizens should be lining the streets in DC and state capitols across the country. We should be revolting because our leaders have become revolting!

And the Chinese (and any other country built of oppression of the masses) should be partying in the streets - because their greatest economic competitor is about to throw their influence down a refuse encrusted toilet.

WAKE UP AMERICANS!

What I wouldn't give right now to be in America - and all 300 million of you are there and not doing a damn thing.

I'm not advocating a certain "deal" on the debt - to be honest who the hell cares about our national debt when the unemployment remains stubbornly high and our schools are actively failing students instead of students failing school? Here's what needs to happen: all options are on the table with the leaders of our great nation sitting down like adults to find a solution.

But you know what, it's not really just Congress and the President's fault. I mean, why should they care to be careful with our country when Americans have so obviously taken our country for granted? I know all you "patriots" have the bumper stickers saying "Freedom Isn't Free" and play awful patriotic country-western songs while looking at the American flag - but you're all a bunch of whining hypocrites unless you petition the American government to actually govern. Not pander. Not force conservative deals down liberals throughts or liberal deals up conservatives a$$es, but actually do your job.

FYI Congress/President, your job is to actively try NOT to destroy America. In fact, it would be great if you actually tried making America BETTER. Just a thought.

So American citizens, if you are in America and not thousands of miles away, please do something. We elected these idiots so lets at least try to force them to do whatever will keep our nation free and great.

The Things I See

2011-07-09T22:31:00.002+02:00

This video is from the following day of the below events in downtown Cairo in the areas near Tahrir Square. Credit to Ahram Online.

The weirdest thing about being in Egypt since the revolution is seeing the things that I see on international news.

A couple weeks ago, June 28th to be exact, I was driving with a friend and my husband on the way to meet some other friends for dinner after work. Like so many days recently, the protesters in front of the TV and radio building (Maspero) caused the Cornish, the road along the Nile, to be closed. So we had to take an alternate route to the restaurant that involved crossing to the other side of the Nile and driving down that side.

We had just been complaining about the horrific traffic, gossiping about work, getting ready to have a relaxing meal in the middle of the week. As we got off the bridge over the Nile, my husband commented that there must have just been a fight because there was a group of men walking past us looking agitated.

A normal fight in Egypt usually means one guy affronts another guy, affronted guy gets mad, both start yelling, eventually it gets physical while the entire street congregates around to calm them down. They calm down and everything goes back to normal. I was just about to make a sarcastic comment about men not being able to handle their own testosterone, when we turned the corner onto the main road and realized this was not a normal fight.

On one side of the road stood men with long poles looking around angrily. On my side was quite a few men with swords - I'm talking medieval A Knight in King Arthur's Court swords- guns, and sticks. There was, of course, traffic which meant we crept by this scene, all of us holding our breaths. A few guys were still in the middle of a scuffle, but all were in plain clothes.

We passed them, and immediately looked at each other saying - WTF???

Later, numerous accounts of this incident came out. Read a few of them to see the context (CNN, Ahram Online, Guardian, BBC), but the weird part was truly having been in the place in the middle of the action that was being reported about. And I don't care what was reported - the guys we saw were NOT families of the people who died during the revolution they were thugs - guys hired to cause problems and ignite tensions.

The next morning, we waited for news that our office was still open after numerous (and ongoing) clashes in Tahrir had been reported.

I've seen the protesters and their tents in Tahrir, calling for a sit-in until their demands are met. I drive past almost every morning where people live outside the TV and radio building demanding housing from the government. I check Twitter because it is the fastest way to be informed about events around the city and I plan my weekend around protests.

For what? many outside Egypt are asking. They got rid of Mubarak - what more are they asking for?

See, in America we vote someone out of office and think that we've ridded ourself of all the things that person stood for that we don't like. People in Egypt are demanding more. They are demanding the destruction not just of a dictator but of his entire supporting regime - the actors, institutions, and hired guns that allowed the dictator to be.

Mubarak is only a symbol - many have compared him to the top of a pyramid with the entire base beneath.

Not one person has been prosecuted for the deaths of protestors during the revolution. The police are still battling peaceful protesters, and someone is still paying thugs to start fights. Thankfully the Egyptian people have decided they after so much oppression and missed opportunities they deserve more than superficial change.

And until they get it, I hope the things I see still make it on the news.

End Sexual Harassment in Egypt (Because it Sucks)

2011-06-20T14:33:00.006+02:00

So today is "blog and tweet about sexual harassment day." I decided to write about my most traumatic sexual harassment experience.

A year and a half ago I was at a colleagues wedding and while standing outside the church (in an upper class neighborhood called Heliopolis) a guy came by grabbed my ass and walked away. In a split second reaction I ran after the guy (in heels), grabbed his shirt, and started screaming for the police.

I was extremely lucky because half of my office was right next to me and witnessed the incident and my reaction.

After about 15 minutes of me holding onto this guys shirt, a huge group surrounding us, several calls to the police (and them telling us the nearest station was extremely far away), the guy ripped himself from my grip and started running. One of my friends/colleagues ran after him, tackled him, enabling us to drag him to the nearest police station (which, incidentally, was around the corner).

The priests from the church had found out about the incident, saw the guy, and recognized him as someone many of the women at the church had complained about as being a serial ass grabber. Of course this stoked my desire to get the guy into some serious trouble.

Let me tell you, I really believe that the only way this problem will get better is if more women stand up and say something. But honestly, I don't know that I would want to go through this experience of dragging a guy to a police station again.

After an hour of yelling, crying, aplogizing, arguing, the guy's father was brought in to "aplogize." He's a lawyer, the father explained, and he's about to get married - if you press charges you'll ruin his life - please accept my aplogy so that he can go free(the father spoke English and was an engineer - assumption: he's educated). The father even went on to say his son had just been praying at the mosque down the street (not sure what his point was...).

Apparantely, in Egypt, if someone commits a crime against you, the person can be released without charges if you "forgive" that person. Victim's rights? Ha!

I didn't cave, and the next day me and my two friends who were my "witnesses" showed up at the district attorney's office to give our official statements.

First, the DA pretended that he didn't speak English forcing me to explain my side of the story in Arabic. This included a re-enactment of how the guy grabbed me using the bottom of a pencil holder. It wasn't until he was talking to one of my two witnesses who didn't speak any Arabic that he revealed he spoke English.

Then the guy was brought in wearing the same clothes from the night before. The DA told my native-Arabic speaking friend that the guy would probably spend 20 years in jail and be sodomized before asking my friend if he was really really sure that he saw what he saw.

It doesn't end there.

The next day I get a number that keeps calling me. I finally pick up and it's a woman on the phone. She didn't speak much English, so I handed the phone to a colleague. It was the finace of the guy I had just pressed charges against. She and her family wanted to meet me to "work things out." She was afraid this was going to ruin her fiance's life. And it was an accident she said.

How did they get my cell number? The friendly local police station gave the family the police report that had my phone number, address, and passport number. I moved in with a friend for a week in case they tried to show up. I also soon moved out of that apartment, partially from fear that the whole clan of sexual harassment promoters would show up at my doorstep. I'm assuming because they didn't, they managed to have him released.

Being grabbed by a stranger is one of the humiliating, degrading feelings I have ever encountered. It's horrible and depressing. It shatters your self-esteem and after the encounter with the guy's family and being accused of ruining his life, I felt guilt over something I did not do.

I haven't left Egypt over the harassment and when I eventually leave this won't be the cause for my departure. But harassment sucks and I hope and pray that Egyptian women can find the strength to continue standing up this enormous problem.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, women

Saudi Arabia: Please Stop Cutting Off People's Heads

2011-06-12T16:58:00.005+02:00

Okay, when I first saw this headline my thought process went something like this: "Ugh I wish my fellow American citizens making America's foreign policy would see Saudi for what it is - more backwards and crazy then our "enemy" Iran. Wait...Amnesty International (AI) calls for Saudi to stop cutting off people's heads. That's kind of funny, in a really sick twisted kind of way."

It's funny because I'm imagining how this conversation would have gone:

AI: Hi Prince Blah, you know, we really need you to stop cutting off people's heads. It's a bit inhumane. Especially when it seems you're not even giving people a fair trial. I mean, beheadings? What are we in France circa 1800s?

Prince Blah: See, like the French, we presume guilt before innocence. Particularly if the person is foreign hired help. Or not a member of the royal family, which is basically the same thing. It's cheaper than throwing them in prison, while presuming guilt is cheaper than long costly trials.

AI: But ummm, I think I should point out that you guys have a crap load of money. I'm pretty sure money shouldn't be a concern. I should also point out that I am from Amnesty International so I need to inform you that cost should be of no object when it comes to the humane and just treatment of your fellow human beings.

Prince Blah: Yes but we just bribed our entire country into not deposing me and my family members. Actually, we bribed them into not even allowing the thought to enter their impoverished heads. The cost of dictatorships has sky-rocketed these days. The Saudi fed is predicting the inflation rate on maintaining absolute control is going to triple this year. Triple! Damn Arab Spring.

AI: We would strongly urge you to allow everyone access to due process, including the right to a fair trial and a refrain from cruel and unusual punishment. At the very least, you could use lethal injections. That is far more humane.

Prince Blah: I would argue that cutting off someone's head with a sword is far quicker, and if you don't have to drag someone through the emotional process of a trial, you save everyone a lot of time and effort. Plus, we allow victim's the option to be the one holding the weapon. How is that for closure?

AI: Hmmm.....

*I'm really not trying to make fun of Amnesty International, which is a fine institution.

saudi+arabia, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, human+rights

UAE: Closed for Criticism

2011-06-08T14:44:00.006+02:00

Today the BBC reports that an Australian woman is suing her embassy after receiving bad advice about whether or not to report her drugging and rape by colleagues at a hotel she worked in located in the United Arab Emirates. She reported said rape and was jailed for eight months for "adultery and drinking without a license."

During the Egyptian revolution I spent three weeks in Dubai after being evacuated. I knew what most people know of Dubai - the land of finance, shopping, and an uber-conservative, but innovative, royal family. I had heard of the indoor skiing place, the Burg Al Khalifa that is currently the tallest building in the world, and the island in the shape of a palm. Cool right?

But being there, everything just seemed a bit fake. Standing next to the Burg Al Khalifa, you felt like the entire building was a mirage in the desert. And The Palm, as it is known, is really nothing special once you're actually on it.

Than there is the juxtaposition, if not outright hypocrisy, of the native "culture" with the 80 percent expat culture around it.

The Emirati women, who are covered head to foot including their faces with a niqab, compensate for their lack of individuality in dress by piling on thick gobs of make up and carrying the most expensive of hand bags.

Than there is the ubiquity of nannies following families around the malls. The standard Emirati family seemed to consist of husband and wife(s), kids, and nanny.

One day while riding the metro, whose metro stations are something out of a spaceport in Star Wars, there was a family like the one described above. Four kids all under the age of 10, including a newborn and a toddler. The husband was carrying the newborn, the nanny the toddler while the other two kids were sitting down fighting with each other. As soon as the newborn started to cry, the nanny got handed the newborn, the toddler got put in the stroller, all while the mother absently looked out the window.

I found it extremely odd that even though both parents were present, neither made a move to take care of their crying baby and instead just handed the baby for the nanny to tend to.

One night a few friends and I were going out to one of the hotel bars. A colleague whose brother lived in Dubai, cautioned us about taking a taxi home. He said that while it is legal to drink, it is illegal to be drunk and that there have been cases where a taxi driver picks up intoxicated customers and drives them directly to the police station where they are arrested and often deported.

Then of course there is the fact that there are no misdemeanors in the UAE - only felonies.

Taxi pulls over on the side of the road where he isn't supposed to be? Felony.

Default on your car loan? Felony.

Legally drink but illegally get drunk? Felony.

Getting raped? Felony...for the victim.

Sneeze too loud? Felony. Well okay maybe not sneeze too loud, unless you sneezed on a member of the royal family.

I'm also pretty sure writing a critical blog post would also be a felony.

Which brings me to another hypocrisy of Dubai in particular. They have marketed themselves as being a media hub - with all the major news agencies like BBC, CNN, and Reuters having huge hubs in a "media city." The hypocrisy? You can get jailed for being openly critical of the royal ruling family or for merely suggesting that the UAE should be a democracy as was seen in the the smallest attempt of the "Arab Spring." So yes, these media outlets are encouraged with the understanding that they toe the line. Real objective ya journalists.

My point is that it really pisses me off when people make these charged comments about the Arab World or Muslims or ask me whether I live in a "terrorist" country while Dubai gets coddled by the Western world as being some hub for internationalism. Dubai and the UAE are not promoting some internationalist mindset - they are a backwards ruling regime using the allure of making money to invite large international companies to populate the country in order for the UAE to not be oil-dependent. Smart, but selfish. Innovative, but oppressive. Open for business, but closed for criticism.

Saleh in His Own Words

2011-06-06T21:15:00.007+02:00

All the news media is talking about whether I, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, will return to Yemen. My response? Do you think I would WANT to go back to that hell hole. I mean, come on, we're fast on our way to becoming the first country to run out of water (and no I don't mean because we left our bathtubs running for too long) and the entire population is addicted to qat. Have you ever tried to talk to someone high on qat? It's like talking to someone who is high on qat. Can you imagine ruling over a bunch of addicts? It's tough. But I just make sure they have enough qat to chew and it makes my job a lot easier.

Back to my current condition. Well yeah, I got a bit hurt. But to be honest, God must have been watching out for me because I was looking for an excuse to leave the country. Yes, of course I could have signed the GCC's offer to "hand over power." But what does that mean? I mean power isn't like a baton, this isn't a relay race. No self-respecting dictator, I mean president, would just up and flee the country. I truly deserve to give the Yemeni people more than that.

Which is why I'm so glad that I was hurt in the attack on my mosque. First, who couldn't be sympathetic to a guy who got shrapnel in his neck while praying? See, I was prostrating before God and God answered my prayers. You're probably thinking it's a bit crazy for me to be glad that I got injured but it gave me an excuse to flee, I mean leave, to Saudi Arabia to treat my injuries (no person who wants to come out alive would actually go to a Yemeni hospital - have you ever BEEN in one? you might come out with one less organ!). And now I have the perfect excuse to not go back - Yemen probably won't let me.

Of course I'm not telling anyone that I have no intention of going back, or that I have been praying for a way out. But I will negotiate with my dear friends the Saudis for my settlement bonus. Or I guess re-settlement bonus. There is no better friend to a dictator than a bigger dictator scared of it's faltering neighbor dictator. The Saudis are good to us ex (or soon to be ex) dictators. They get it. You let the people think they have power and then poof! Away your power goes.

I always knew if it came to this I could pull the arm of one of my friends like America or Europe. You think I fought Al Qaeda because I cared whether they were "terrorists?" How seriously can you really take a bunch of guys who hide out in the desert anyway? If it makes America happy for me to put on a little show of being all "ohhh the terrorist threat is soooo bad, ooooooh I'm scaaaaaared" then, whatevs.

This Saudi hospital really isn't bad. In hindsight I guess I could have gotten some money from them to build a hospital like this in Yemen. But then I wouldn't be able to come to Saudi. I guess it all works out in the end.

yemen, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, Saudi+Arabia

Video Interview with Egyptian Girl Subjected to "Virginity Check"

2011-06-03T09:01:00.000+02:00

This girl is so brave for getting on camera and telling her story. Hopefully, her story will inspire other Egyptian women to stand up against sexual abuse and bring any other transgressions by the army to light.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, women

Egypt Virginity Checks, Female Saudi Drivers – Arab Women are Getting Fed Up

2011-05-31T13:41:00.001+02:00

Sexual harassment sucks. I know because I have been harassed almost every time I walk outside my apartment for the past three years.

I get harassed because I’m a woman, I get harassed because I’m a “foreigner,” I get harassed because someone thinks my pants are too tight or my shirt too low, I get harassed because some guy hasn’t gotten any in awhile (or ever), I get harassed because people think that God will praise them if they point out my sin of immodesty by exposing my arms or hair, but most of all I and every other woman in Egypt are victims of sexual harassment simply because men get away with it.

This morning, I was walking into the entry area of the building that my gym is in with my husband. I was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt – and I know I looked horrible because it was 6:45 am, I had no make-up on, and hadn’t had a cup of coffee. Trust me, my husband probably didn’t even want to be looking at me at this point.

First, the building has been under renovation for awhile so it is not unusual to see groups of workers there in the morning. So in we walk, and there was a group of youngish greasy guys sitting around chatting and listening to music.

In my head I was saying this: “Okay Catherine, put on your street face, don’t look to see if they’re looking at you, they probably couldn’t even make out the shape of your ass even if they tried, you look horrible right now – no guy would want to be looking at you right now. That’s right deep breaths, you’re almost past them, they’re probably not looking. No the immediate cease of their conversation has nothing to do with you walking past them, stop being so conceited. Don’t start a scene the elevator is just a few feet away. Okay cleared.”

As I’m walking into the elevator, a couple of the guys walk past and I see in the mirror of the elevator that the two guys are quite blatantly staring at my backside as I walk in.

“That guy was just staring at my ass,” I say to my husband in the same tone of voice that I would probably use to say – oh, the sky is blue or the grass is green. Because really, this is how normal it is for this to happen. Actually scratch that, because I think the sky is blue less in Cairo than I get harassed. And there really isn’t much grass lying around Cairo, and if there is it probably isn’t very green.

So my husband gets out of the elevator and confronts the guy because he is far less used to this happening than I am. The guy of course categorically denies he was doing anything. Obviously he missed the part in Islam about lying being a sin, and no I’m not going to comment on him missing the part where it also says you should respect women because the guy probably doesn’t even understand what respect means. He might have even thought the Qur’an was joking when it said that. Women? Respect? Ha!

Anyway. What does this have to do with Egyptian virginity tests of female protestors or a Saudi woman getting behind the wheel of a car?

Well, I believe that part of the reason sexual harassment is such a virus in Egypt is because far too few women will stand up to their aggressors – even to say so much as, what the hell are you doing? Most people in Egypt don’t even seem to think that staring or making cat calls counts as harassment because there are so many far worse forms that women deal with on a daily basis.

The fact that the Egyptian virginity test story was reported is due to the fact that these extremely courageous women actually reported what had happened to them. I could probably write essays on why this is SUCH A BIG DEAL, but let me sum to say that if you live in a society where men don’t even know what they’re doing is wrong and many women would refuse to admit to being harassed, can you imagine how much guts it took for these girls to report what the army did to them?

I would bet that a lot of these girls won’t get any marriage offers anytime soon, let’s just put it that way.

I think the best thing that has come out of this story though is that these women are an example for others to follow. It shows that women can come out and say: we had this horrible thing happen to us and we don’t think its right.

Ditto with the Saudi female who was arrested for driving a car and Saudi Arabia is a far more oppressive society than Egypt. Egypt looks like Woodstock compared to Saudi Arabia.

The woman who got behind the wheel of her car in Saudi probably did more for women’s civil rights in those few minutes than has been done in a decade. The fact that she was audacious and brave enough to post the video of her driving on YouTube – not to mention extremely media savvy in realizing the video would go viral – is a huge statement for other Saudi women to follow.

You know, for women who get harassed this often, there is a pull between saying something to every guy whose eyes you can feel staring at the back of you as you walk away, and just completely tuning the entire world out. For the purposes of keeping sane, most women, me included, tune it out.

But you know what happens when you tune the world out? It tends to grow louder without you realizing.

I hope that these instances take the ear muffs off of Arab women to fight for their rights as human beings – because they are the only ones who can.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, women

Egypt Opens Border with Gaza - A Media Rundown

2011-05-30T18:54:00.000+02:00

Article first published as Egypt Opens Border with Gaza on Blogcritics.org

Below is an explanation of what the opening of the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt means - and what it means to who - peppered with reporting from around the region and around the world.

On Saturday, May 28, Egypt permanently opened the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip.

This is not the first time the crossing has opened since the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the strip began in June 2007 following Hamas' takeover. The most notable opening was in January 2008 when Gazans literally broke the border fence separating the strip from Egypt. During the 2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza, Egypt also allowed a larger number of Gazans to pass through the border; mostly wounded civilians who were taken to Cairo hospitals for treatment.

Opening the border is a huge foreign policy shift for Egypt, and while many in Israel are nervous about the security implications, this move will also weaken Egyptian Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, who have used Egypt's close relationship with Israel to garner support. Israel worries that opening the Rafah crossing will allow more weapons to fall into the hands of Hamas. However, it will also allow Gazans access to many basic necessities and help address the growing humanitarian crises in Gaza.

About 450 people were able to pass through the border crossing, reports Al Masry Al Youm, with many Gazans happy about the prospect of being able to leave the Gaza Strip.

Intrestingly, the Israeli opposition party Kadima blames the Netanyahu government for opening of the Rafah border crossing on Netanyahu's Likud party, saying that Netanyahu had failed to prevent Egypt from breaking the blockade agreement. Of course, this rhetoric is probably no more than domestic political rivalry.

Meanwhile, Palestinians living in Gaza will be able to enter Egypt for medical treatment or other personal reasons, while other commercial traffic will go through the crossings between Gaza and Israel.

Read more: http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/egypt-opens-border-with-gaza/#ixzz1Nr9GtLyz

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam,
israel

Reactions From Around the World to Obama's Speech at AIPAC

2011-05-23T11:28:00.000+02:00

*Photo courtesy of Jordan Times
New York Times:
Obama Presses Israel to Make ‘Hard Choices’

Washington Post:
Obama seeks to reassure Israel on Mideast policy in speech at AIPAC conference

BBC News:
Obama seeks to calm Israel row over 1967 'border'

Al Jazeera (English):
Obama: US support for Israel 'ironclad'

Haaretz (Israeli newspaper):
Likud: Obama's AIPAC speech shows he listened to Netanyahu

(Also worth reading some of their opinion articles on the subject - unlike what much of the American media would have us believe, there is a wide range of opinions about Palestine among the Israeli population).

Al Masry Al Youm (Egyptian daily newspaper - this is from the English version):
After Obama Speech

Jordan Times (Jordanian daily English newspaper):
Obama forcefully defends his Middle East peace call

It's always interesting to see how newspapers interpret the same event and which part of Obama's speech each thought was the most important - evidence of which is in the title of each article...

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam , israel , palestine , obama

Obama Where Did Thou Pair Go That I Thought You Had Grown?

2011-05-22T18:27:00.000+02:00

BBC News - Obama seeks to cool Israel row over 1967 'border'

Okay, I get the need for diplomacy and blah blah blah. No, on second thought I don't. Israel is not a strategic ally for the United States. They have consistently embarrassed our leaders (see Joe Biden visits Israel the day Israel announces more settlement building), been a contributing factor to our inability to become allies with any other regional countries, and, most importantly, refused to honor international law by NOT building settlements in the occupied West Bank all the while keeping another two million Palestinians hostage (Gaza).

The threat of Iran is overblown - and to be quite honest even if they do acquire nuclear weapons there are a lot of other countries that should step up to do something. I don't know if anyone in America has realized this, but American citizens are not in direct harm from them having a nuclear weapons anyway. Why can't we let other countries fight their own battles? If we're going to give Iran a hard time about something, why don't we give them a hard time about their human rights record?

I just wish Obama could stand up to Bibi. He's really not all that terrifying. And okay, losing the AIPAC contribution wouldn't be great for the re-election coffers, but are you really willing to sell out just for a few bucks?

The US doesn't need Israel as an ally - especially not with hopefully democratic Egypt, and increasingly powerful Turkey. We can be friends (maybe even better friends) with other Middle Eastern countries. You know what they say about opposites attracting. Maybe the best marriage of US foreign policy and security goals lies not with our European-descendent friend Israel, but with its Arab neighbors that have done more to progress democracy in the past year than Israel has done in a decade, if not longer.

So please President Obama, stand up to your policy speech of last week. The Palestinians deserve to have someone in their corner for once, or at least not have a huge opponent across the ring.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, israel, obama, usa

And Finally They Rise

2011-05-19T10:13:00.000+02:00

Article first published as And Finally, They Rise on Blogcritics.

Over the weekend, over a dozen Palestinians were killedwhile trying to enter Israel from Lebanon and Syria commemorating the day Israel was created 63 years ago. The media jumped on the idea of a third intifada and the possibility of more violence. But what does this mean for the Palestinians and will their efforts be in vain?

In my senior thesis at university, I wrote about Egyptian-Israeli
relations since Egypt became the first country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. My conclusion: the relationship between the two countries would not progress beyond a diplomatic formality until the Palestinian question was solved.

The facts are that when Israel proclaimed itself to be a country a lot of Palestinians either fled because of the ensuing violence or were forced from their homes in what we today call Israel. These refugees continue to be stateless and homeless and have not become integrated in their host countries for reasons both owning to said host countries desire to exploit the Palestinian causebut also because these Palestinians still desire to one day return to their towns and villages that are located in Israel.

In many of the most recent peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine the “right of return,” as the issue of Palestinian refugees returning to Israel/Palestine is referred, is an oft ignored subject. It’s ignored mainly because Israel refuses to begin any talks if there is any reference to the return of Palestinian refugees. They refuse this because if Palestinian refugees were allowed to return it would tamper with the pleasant majority of Jews living in Israel. And what kind of Jewish state would Israel be if the majority of people living within it’s boundaries were not Jewish?

The protests over the weekend marking the Nakba - or catastrophe in English and the word used to describe the day Israel was created - reignited the question of what will be done with Palestinian refugees if Palestine is declared a state. Will they be allowed to at least return to the state of Palestine? Or will they continue to shoved into refugee camps with little hope of having sovereignty over their lives or futures?

Israel would like to ignore the Palestinian refugee question. They feel that the Arab states that play host to these communities should bear the responsibility for their future - meaning do what Jordan has done and give them nationalities. While Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt should have done this a long time ago if they actually had sympathy for the Palestinians as people rather than as a political tool, these countries are not ultimately responsible for their refugee status. They did not create the situation (Israel’s creation), they did not ask for it to be created, and they certainly did not create the cause (the Holocaust) for many European Jews to feel compelled to create their own state.

Holocaust denial in the Middle East is something that angers a lot of people in the West, particularly those of course who lost everything during this horrific period in the world’s history. However, it is not surprising in a region where illiteracy rates are high and education quality low to expect people to know their own regional history much less the history of Europe. Or to somehow overcome educational systems run by governments for whom it is advantageous to distract their populations with another enemy - Israel - by taking away the sympathy for the country’s creation.

But for those who do know the facts around the Holocaust, the general feeling is - the Holocaust was a European problem with a Middle Eastern solution.

It would be inaccurate to say that Jews in the Middle East and Africa never faced discrimination - but it would be inaccurate to say that Jews from the Middle East and Africa suffered anywhere near the amount as those living in Europe or Russia. While many Jews were expelled or indirectly forced to leave their native countries following the creation of Israel, this was much more a protest to the creation of Israel than any inherent anti-Semitism.

While we’re on the subject of anti-Semitism, Semite means person of Middle Eastern descent, not just Jews.

So what will happen next? Probably Israel is going to make a bunch of noise about how their security is paramount to any possible Palestinian state (how arrogant is that to consider you’re own security more important than an entire populations right to freedom and sovereignty?), Netenyahu will talk about Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East (it’s not democratic to hold a population hostage like in Gaza or destroy freedom of movement like in the West Bank), America will veto any UN resolution chastising Israel’s actions in killing unarmed protesters, talking heads will babble about a possible third Intifada, the American Jewish lobby will perpetuate the fear of violence and threaten any American politician who dares to go against Israeli interests with withholding campaign donations, and if any Palestinian dares to so much as throw a pebble, Israel will declare that this is irrefutable evidence that Palestinians are little more than terrorists and and that Israel has justification for occupying the West Bank and Gaza.

Hopefully, the wave of revolutions consuming the Middle East will provide more context and sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Hopefully these revolutions will frame the Palestinian cause as a fight for freedom and democracy rather than as mere violent tendancies.

There is a lot of hope riding on the renewed cooperation on Fatah and Hamas and their ability to receive UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September. If that doesn’t happen, well, you can never predict what hopeless people will do.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam,
israel

Hope Among the Chaos- Gaza and Israel

2011-05-04T16:44:00.000+02:00

I'm in draft mode of writing a longer post about the deal with between Fatah and Hamas but I saw this today and felt it was worth doing a short post about.

There are a lot people with strong opinions about any topic related to Israel and Palestine. Both sides (and everyone between) frequently use rhetoric the dehumanizes the other, turning the other into some almost mythical enemy. This creates an environment hostile towards creating sympathy or, God forbid, empathy for the "other."

This story is one about an Israeli conductor who held a classical music concert in the Gaza Strip.

I was inspired to post this because I think it's a reminder that at the end of everything, the population of Gaza are people. Real living, breathing people. They are not Hamas or terrorists first, they are people with families, and children, and dreams of the future. They are people looking for jobs or trying to put a decent meal together. They wake up in the morning and go to sleep in the evening. Their metabolic processes are the same as their Israeli neighbors, as is the amount of calories they need to eat per day and the amount of water they need to drink.

What is better to pull people together than the universal language of music?

After being through the Egyptian revolution and evacuation and being in a position where I had to worry about the safety of friends and loved ones, sometimes life just seems too short for nonsense. Maybe if more people could take a step back and just do something good because it is good we would have slightly less hatred in the world - or at least a little more understanding.

Osama is Dead.

2011-05-03T09:20:00.000+02:00

I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday even though I was only fourteen when it happened. I remember it was “Bulldog break” – an extended transition time between our first and second periods in high school.

I was walking down the hallway to my locker to get my books for my next class, when one of the class jokesters ran down the hallway yelling “someone flew a plane into the twin towers.” In my Florida high school, not everyone knew what or where the twin towers were, but in those first few minutes we thought it was funny. Many of us turned to each other saying – “What kind of idiot could have flown a plane into a building?” We thought it was an accident.

By the time we got to class and turned on the news – most teachers realizing the enormity of what was happening suspended normal class time. Even though few of us were old enough to understand what terrorism was, we all soon realized something very important was unfolding.

I remember watching as the first tower was being consumed with smoke, the news anchor in shock, and few people understanding what exactly was happening. Perhaps many still thought that it could have been some horrible tragic accident.

Then the second plane hit.

The news anchor completely lost his cool, yelling as from their location they could hear and almost feel the impact of the plane. It was at that moment that everyone realized the United States of America was under attack.

Several minutes later, our high school was placed on lockdown. No one was allowed outside the classrooms. Because as we quickly learned, this was a terrorist attack, and the place the terrorists on those planes had learned to fly was a small local airport directly across the street from our high school.

So we waited in our second period classroom glued to the TV for more information. We were watching when the first tower fell. We watched as a symbol of our country was exterminated before our eyes.

It was around that time – this was before cell phones had become ubiquitous among teenagers – that my father who was the sheriff of our county at the time called the school to make sure that I was okay. A school aide walked to the classroom to deliver the message – everything is okay.

The second tower fell. Just fell. It looked like just a toy on the TV.

What was happening? Or better, why was this happening?

There is another plane on its way to the capitol? A plane flew into the Pentagon? The Pentagon?!?!

It wasn’t until later in the day that we started hearing the story of the heroism aboard the plane that was supposed to be destined for the capitol building itself.

By the time I got home that night, my Mom was frantic calling her friends and former colleagues. One of her first jobs out of college was in the World Trade Center and many of the people she worked with still were there. Her best friend worked in one of the buildings right across the street from the tower.

But all the phone lines were jammed with thousands of other frantic people trying to call friends and family members who worked in the towers.

I didn’t see my Dad for much of the next week. He sent several of the deputies to New York City to help with the clean-up efforts and was in constant contact with them.

Our high school principal’s nephew was among the dead in the World Trade Center. In a town where half the population is originally from the North Eastern United States, almost everyone knew someone who had died or who worked in Manhattan.

My Mom’s best friend we found out a few days later had walked several miles from her office before being able to get a train home. With the cell phone network down, there were few other options.

I’m sure that asking “where were you on 9/11?” will be much like the question “where were you when JFK was shot?”

Less than a year later we visited ground zero. Even then, the site of the World Trade Center looked like a war zone. It was such a scar on the pristine financial district area.

The entire country was affected by 9/11 – even those who didn’t know what the World Trade Center was before that day or who had never been to New York City. 9/11 changed the way many Americans felt about their security, the world, and their country.

Watching older movies set in the New York City and seeing the WTC in the skyline I've still found a bit diconcerting. I'm sure for many people, especially New Yorkers, the changed New York skyline is a constant reminder of the pain of that day. Many have argued over what kind of monument to put to remember those who died on 9/11, but truly the lack of the Twin Towers when you look at Manhattan is reminder enough.

America hadn’t been attacked since Pearl Harbor and the psychological effects of that day still affect American foreign policy. We no longer felt invincible.

So to hear that Osama bin Laden is dead feels like justice for all those who have died because of this horrible person. He didn’t just kill innocent Americans, but persuaded numerous young men to complete horrific deeds by espousing a message of hatred and anger. He is responsible for perverting a beautiful religion of peace and justice into something devious and demonic.

While America is certainly responsible for its mistakes and misdeeds in both Iraq and Afghanistan, bin Laden also shares part of the blame for inspiring terror in America. Of course, America took the bait and did the deeds and therefore played into bin Laden’s hopes of what 9/11 would cause – suffering and tarnish on America’s image.

Commentators and analysts will argue over the possible effects of his death and then most of them will be proved wrong by actual events. Talking heads and pundits will scream over the aftermath and who did what and when.

Hopefully America will use this moment to try and get over much of the anger that has consumed it since that fateful day in 2001 and rid itself of much of the fear that ensued towards Islam as a religion and Muslims as a people.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, al+qaeda, 9+11

Half of Egypt

2011-05-02T11:15:00.000+02:00

Article first published as Half of Egypt on Blogcritics.

You see them on the street, you see them in the stores, you see them with their children, and you see them scrubbing floors. There might be one behind you, or driving in the next lane, but when they want their rights, you simply call them insane.

Today, May 1, Egyptian women are once again protesting in Tahrir Square for their rights. The last attempt on March 8th, to commemorate International Women’s Day, ended with fighting, harassment, and general disrespect for the women’s movement.

By the end of the day we will see whether the protest was successful in organizing enough women to gain attention to pressure the interim government to listen. But their protest is not just a protest to obtain a list of specific demands but a display that women do have a legitimate voice in Egyptian society.

Many Western stereotypes about Middle Eastern or Arab women as being meek or timid truly cannot be farther from the truth. Women here of course have a multitude of personalities so it is not to see that there aren’t meek and timid women – but just that overall this stereotype is far from the truth in Egypt.

During the Egyptian revolution, women turned out in droves to Tahrir Square. In any picture taken during the 18 days of protests leading to President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, women are quite obviously visible. Not just in Egypt but also in Yemen, one of the poorest and most conservative countries in the region, women also took to the streets to protest President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule.

To live in a society that blatantly favors men, a woman has to be strong just to survive day-to-day life.

For example, it is normal for questions to be addressed to the man, even if the question pertains to the woman – like when ordering food in a restaurant or giving directions in a taxi.

Just the other day, when my husband (who is Egyptian) and I went out with a couple friends and the doorman of the restaurant asked my husband something in Arabic. And then, in English, asked my husband about my nationality.

At that point, I interjected and told the guy, “I’m standing right here if you’d like to ask me a question about my nationality.”

“In Egypt, we always direct the question to the man,” he said.

“Well I’m perfectly capable of answering for myself, and it is actually very rude to talk to my husband about me when I’m standing right here,” I replied.

At this point, the guy awkwardly turned to my husband and made some sort of apology in Arabic (also inaccurately assuming I didn’t understand what he was saying) – although it was pretty obvious that he thought I was just being some silly girl.

I’m not the only woman who dislikes being shoved to the side by men of course. One reaction many women seem to have is being more aggressive in pushing people out of the way in crowded stores or when getting on the metro. It is easy to see why this happens when you live in a place where being a woman can be a liability in being heard.

But back to the protest today in Cairo. Women in Egypt certainly face no small number of obstacles – perceptions of women in the workplace, unemployment, under-education, inequality in the treatment of the law, sexual harassment – but to view Egyptian women in any way as being subservient or without a voice would be completely false.

Women first turned up in Tahrir Square to demand the resignation of Mubarak who oppressed and mistreated the Egyptian people for almost thirty years. Now, they are showing up again to demand that women have equal rights and equal treatment.

While obtaining these rights will be difficult, the biggest challenge facing the women that will protest in Tahrir Square today will be proving that they are half of Egypt and half of Egyptians – and for that reason deserve to be listened to.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, women

BBC News - Gaza-Egypt border crossing to open permanently

2011-04-29T15:54:00.000+02:00

Go Egypt! Hopefully this will spell an end to the way to long blockade of the Gaza Strip.
BBC News - Gaza-Egypt border crossing to open permanently

The People We Have Come to Fear the Most*

2011-04-28T09:39:00.000+02:00

A lot of awful things in this world are done in the name of something to provide justification - killings in the name of God/religion, corruption in the name of GDP growth, torture in the name of state security, slavery in the name of economic benefits.

America since the Civil War has struggled for equal civil rights. Figures like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Fredrick Douglas are recognized not only because of their heroism, but because they are constant reminders of all the struggles our country has overcome.

But have we really overcome?

President Obama needing to issue his "long form" birth certificate is a disgrace. The birther argument is essentially a reflection of deep-seated racism. But not only racism, but something even worse. It also reflects that there are Americans that continue to fear those with a different skin color or a strange sounding name. And not only that they fear these people, but that they believe their fear is somehow justified.

Racism is a funny thing. It looks very different depending on where you are. Sometimes it is a seemingly innocent comment and sometimes its riots or violence. In Egypt, it is not taboo at all for someone to comment on not liking "Africans." Or for someone to openly prefer having a nanny or maid of a certain nationality.

There is a mostly expat listserve called Cairo Scholars that I subscribe to, and one of the most memorable debates centered around a post someone had sent out asking for a "Phillipina maid." Her justification was that many Egyptian maids are unreliable or lacked work ethic - and she believed that those from the Phillipines would work harder for the same amount of money.

Another time, while speaking with an Egyptian friend, we began talking about the practice in the US of providing your ethnicity on forms like college applications. He asked what race he would be considered. I - this was early in my Cairo living experience - suggested he could probably put black or African since Egypt is in fact on the African continent. He was extremely offended by this comment saying that he was definitely NOT black - but maybe he was white, he asked?

As a white American female, I stick out in most crowds in Egypt. For the first time in my life I live as a minority. A minority both in religion and ethnicity. No Christmas lights in December, no Easter egg dye kits in the stores. Many Egyptians assume two things about white foreigners: that they are more qualified for jobs and that they are rich. Probably for many people this sounds great - but the first causes resentment and makes it difficult to make true friendships and the second is exceedingly annoying especially if you are in fact a struggling student barely making ends meet.

Once, in Cairo, my doorbell rang and my Asian-American roomate, Tiffany, went to answer it. Generally, I or another of my roomates would answer the door since we spoke better Arabic, but this time Tiffany answered. The guy at the door, one of our neighbors, asked Tiffany if her mistress was home assuming that Tiffany was our housekeeper. It didn't cross his mind that instead Tiffany was in fact an incredibly brilliant and well spoken undergraduate student at a prestigous college in California. Or just that she could be a tenant of the apartment and not the help.

Perhaps America has overcome enough that a negative reaction to being black is at least taboo to say out loud in most places. But is it?

Coming from a relatively small, racially divided town in Florida, racism is quite evident. And there are many people and places in town where it will be not uncommon to hear blatantly racist comments.

One time, my best friend in high school, who is Pakistani-American. was referred to shortly after 9/11 by a school employee working at the front desk as "Osama's neice." And it happened twice. Once after she had been reprimanded by the school.

The entire debate about the "Ground Zero Mosque." Which was neither on ground zero or a mosque - but would have been the problem if it was?

Affirmative action existing.

The statistics on black male incarceration rates. The number of innocent black men gunned down because they are thought to have a gun.

Arizona law to be able to pull over anyone just to ask for residency papers.

Immigration debate.

Hussein. Barack Hussein Obama. Hussein.
Hussein.
Hussein.
Hussein.

Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin rally last summer in DC.

Taking America back? Taking it back from whom exactly?

So what is racism? What does it look like?

It looks like all of the above. It looks like an education gap between blacks and whites in America, it looks like racially motivated off-hand comments in Egypt, it looks like any assumption based on skin color alone, and it certainly looks like a group of Americans questioning, for the first time in our history, the birth place of a president because of the color of his skin and father's background.

*Yes I acknowledge this title is based of a Dashboard Confessional title. It fit.

egypt, middle+east, arab+spring, islam, obama, usa

He Almost Touched the Sun

2011-04-18T20:13:00.000+02:00

Last week, former President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons were placed under investigation - sending his sons to Tora Farm prison and Mubarak under house (or hospital) arrest. The president many have and continue to compare to a pharaoh, flew a little too close to the sun and had his royal wings burnt off.

Why is this news significant?

Many overthrown dictators arrange for a refuge before stepping down from power. Most flee to some country willing to take them on as honored house guests.

Mubarak - whether from hubris or stupidity - decided to remain inside Egypt at his seaside palace in Sharm El-Sheikh.

He might have thought that his people in the army would forestall any legitimate investigation of his and his families misdeeds. He may have thought that he was bigger than any laws on paper or even any unwritten but expected ethical code of presidential conduct. For example, don't steal from your people. Or, try to help the poor not be poor.

His sons, with their Western educations, may have simply thought they had played the game so well that they knew all the rules. Or even that they had invented the game itself.

But, as most fairy tales go, the villain forgets his weakness and the hero is able to triumphantly slay the dragon and win the girl. Of course, the girl in this analogy I suppose is democracy. Or freedom.

The Mubarak's weakness was their inability to grasp that the unemployment they had caused through years of corruption and stealing of Egypt's economy, the growing separation between the rich and the poor, and the inability of so many to better themselves or provide for their families, had pushed Egyptians to their tipping point. Tunisia provided the spark, but the Mubarak's and their regime of cronies had already built up an impressive amount of fuel for the fire.

Mubarak and his sons being investigated for all of their to-long-to-list number of crimes sends a message to all world dictators: your populations can hold you accountable for your actions. For too long countries around the world (cough cough Saudi Arabia) have welcomed former dictators and offered them refuge.

This should not be the case. Hopefully this investigation will put the Mubarak's and many of those who benefited from them behind bars. And hopefully it will start a precedent of not allowing fallen leaders to flee the wrath of those they have scorned.

The questioning of Mubarak and his family is significant for Egypt because it allows Egyptians to have justice for the past 30 years of oppression. For the world, it will be an example of how to depose and expose a dictator.

Ex-Dictator on Trial

2011-04-14T09:21:00.000+02:00

Ex-President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons have been detained for questioning regarding corruption and other abuses of power. It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out and the psychological effects of the punishment of an ex-Middle Eastern dictator will have on other rulers in the region....

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