MEI Editor's Blog

The "Jerusalem Syndrome"

2012-02-27T18:01:00.001-05:00

Many years ago, on one of my first trips of Jerusalem, I visited an American friend who had recently joined the US Foreign Service and was assigned as some sort of junior consular officer in the US Consulate in East Jerusalem. He explained at the time that as the junior consular officer present, he was the one on call to take possession from the Israeli authorities of any self-proclaimed messiahs or prophets who showed up in town or at the airport without visible means of support and with American nationality. Apparently this was a frequent enough occurrence for there to be a designated consular officer assigned the task, and other foreign consulates presumably had analogous officials. Apparently it's a pretty frequent occurrence in the holy city for someone to show up at immigration and announce that they are Jesus Christ or King David or the Jewish Messiah. (Though I assume they needed some other documentation to get through the immigration at the airport, assuming they didn't just descend from the heavens without the help of El Al.) The Israelis, at least back then, turned them over to their respective consulates (if they couldn't support themselves anyway) and let them figure out what to do with them.

I don't know what the consular arrangements may be nowadays, but this article called "The Jerusalem Syndrome" in Wired talks to an Israeli psychiatrist who interacts with many of the chosen messengers, so obviously they're still showing up in Jerusalem.

Springborg on the Brotherhood/SCAF Alliance/Rivalry

2012-02-27T17:06:00.000-05:00

Bob Springborg has a good piece at Foreign Policy called "Egypt's Cobra and Mongoose," on the Muslim Brotherhood/SCAF dynamic. He notes the history:

The deadly struggle for power between Egypt's rulers and Muslim Brothers dates back to the rule of King Faruq, with each episode following virtually the identical script. Each time, for a brief period ruler and Brothers "cohabit," but the marriage of convenience soon breaks down amidst mutual recrimination. The ruler, recently arrived on the monarchial or presidential throne, reaches out to the Brothers to benefit from or at least neutralize the political support they command. For their part the Brothers seek purchase within the state to ward off threats, obtain resources, and gain footholds from which they may commence their final ascent to power. But this cooperation will not last, to judge by history -- a history well known to all players in today's unfolding story.

It's an interesting contribution to the analysis of the ongoing dynamic. But are we sure the Army is still the mongoose in this equation?

Khamis Qadhafi, Killed Several Times Last Year, Reportedly Captured Alive

2012-02-27T14:18:00.000-05:00

There are reports out of Libya that Khamis Qadhafi, son of the late Libyan lea.leader and head of an elite brigade, who was reportedly killed last August (and, in fact, reportedly killed two three times before that), has been captured alive.

A veritable Rasputin.
.

Still More Nostalgic Photos

2012-02-27T11:43:00.002-05:00

A few days back I posted on sources of old and nostalgic photos of Egypt and the Middle East. Now I've discovered an Arabic-language Facebook community called Antika, whose Arabic description is simply "Everything that is old and antique," and where people are posting not only nostalgic photos but old advertisements, celebrity photos, and what not. A quick sample suggests lots of Syrian/Levantine material though a mix of other sources too. (Sorry: link was absent; fixed now.)

New Work on the Jewish Himyarite Kingdom of South Arabia

2012-02-24T16:27:00.000-05:00

The Fall 2011 publication of the Institute for Advanced Study contains this piece by Glen Bowersock called "The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Kingdom in Arabia." A quote:

Friends and colleagues alike have reacted with amazement and disbelief when I have told them about the history I have been looking at. In the southwestern part of Arabia, known in antiquity as Himyar and corresponding today approximately with Yemen, the local population converted to Judaism at some point in the late fourth century, and by about 425 a Jewish kingdom had already taken shape. For just over a century after that, its kings ruled, with one brief interruption, over a religious state that was explicitly dedicated to the observance of Judaism and the persecution of its Christian population

My reaction was, what, people don't know about the Himyarites? It's pretty much old news to specialists in late antiquity, early Islamic history, Byzantine history, and the history of Ethiopia. Now, the average man in the street may not fit into any of those categories, but I would have expected the "friends and colleagues" of Professor Bowersock, a distinguished expert on late antiquity, to know the basic outlines. Anyway, this blog has been stuck in the last couple of centuries lately, so the article is an excuse for a digression to provide you some weekend reading. Bowersock is working on a book on the subject, but the linked article is rather brief and introductory. Still, one of my old mentors, Irfan Shahid, did the landmark studies of pre-Islamic Arab relations with Byzantium, including one called The Martyrs of Najran, which relates directly to this subject, so I have an excuse to pontificate though I'm in no way qualified to really talk about the subject. The rest of this post is me, not Bowersock, and may not be how he interprets the period.


Arabia and Vicinity 565 AD (Wikipedia) See Link for Creative Commons attribution

In the centuries immediately before the rise of Islam, the Arabian Peninsula was something of a competitive ground for the great regional powers of the day: the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the Sassanian Empire in Iran, and the somewhat smaller Ethiopian Empire. Two of these, Byzantium and Ethiopia, were Christian (though divided by the Orthodox-"Monophysite" split), and the Sassanians were revivalist Zoroastrians.

In addition, there had long been a series of kingdoms in South Arabia, most famously Saba (as in the Queen of Sheba) and its neighbor and successor Himyar. These spoke a group of Semitic languages more closely related to the languages of Ethiopia than those of northern Arabia, and were sometimes under Ethiopian control. From the fifth century, as noted, Himyar's kings converted to Judaism. It may be that they saw this as a means of counterbalance to their Christian and Zoroastrian great power neighbors, or as a means of proclaiming neutrality; in any event, it was one of the rare instances (like the conversion of the Khazar Kingdom in western Asia centuries later) where a kingdom with no direct connection with Jewish history adopted Judaism as its official faith.

The rest of the Arabian Peninsula outside what we now call Yemen was a zone of regional power competition, with the more powerful neighboring powers cultivating local Arab tribal kingdoms as client or satellite states. Byzantium's client state was the Ghassanid Kingdom, based at Jabiya in the Golan Heights and embracing what is now parts of Syria, Jordan, and northwestern Saudi Arabia. Like their Byzantine patrons, the Ghassanids were Christians, though of the Monophysite variety. To their east, in what is today Iraq and northeastern Saudi Arabia, lay the Lakhmids, based at Hira on the Euphrates in Iraq, a client state of the Sassanians. Though mainly Christian rather than Zoroastrian, they were Nestorian Christians, like most Christians in the Sassanian sphere of influence. The Ghassanids and Lakhmids formed buffer states between Byzantium and Persia and between both of those powers and the nomadic Arab raiders of the peninsula.

The Himyarite Kingdom in South Arabia also had its own client buffer state in the northern part of the peninsula: this was Kinda, which ruled Hadramawt and the Najd, and was usually under Himyarite influemce. (Imr'ul-Qays, the great pre-Islamic poet, was a son of one of the last Kings of Kinda.) Meanwhile the Hijaz, including the caravan cities of Mecca and Yathrib (later Medina), provided the trading corridor among these rival powers, where all the competing political and religious tendencies would be in evidence.

This is the context in which the Jewish Himyarite Kingdom flourished and eventually fell. Leaving aside a lot of history (mostly known from Byzantine, Syriac, Ethiopian, and early Islamic Arab histories, though there are some Old South Arabian inscriptions and coins confirming the basic outlines), Himyar ruled the region in the fifth and sixth centuries AD; the downfall began after the accession of Joseph or Yusuf, known to history as Dhu Nuwas, as King. Some feel he was a usurper of the rightful Himyarite line. In either 518 or 523 (the chronology is confusing) he attacked the towns of Zafar and Najran, largely Christian towns in southwest Arabia under the control of the Ethiopian Kingdom of Axum, killing the Christian population. King Kaleb of Axum, the Ethiopian Negus, went to war against Dhu Nuwas, with a Byzantine Navy providing assistance in an alliance of Christian states against the Jewish Himyarites.

That was the end of the Jewish Kingdom of Himyar; Dhu Nuwas was killed and Himyar came under Axumite rule. Eventually a Christian viceroy of the Axumite King named Abraha made himself ruler; Islamic tradition speaks of a raid he made against Mecca in the "Year of the Elephant" (570 AD or somewhat earlier), said by some to be the year of the Prophet Muhammad's birth. Abraha's successors eventually lost their independence to Persian rule.

With that little glimpse into pre-Islamic late antiquity, enjoy your weekend.

Yemen's New President Will Be Sworn In Tomorrow

2012-02-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

‘Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi has been elected Yemen's new President; he'll be sworn in tomorrow and a formal inaugural ceremony will be held Monday.

He was elected with 99.8% of the vote. His predecessor, ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih, is returning from the US and expected to attend the inauguration. Hadi was Salih's Vice President.

The Yemeni Revolution isn't looking very revolutionary right at the moment.

Not Revolution 2.0: Social Media as Lynch Mob in the Kashgari Case

2012-02-24T13:07:00.001-05:00

I haven't commented up to now on the case of Hamza Kashgari, the Saudi journalist who had to flee the Kingdom due to his Twitter tweets about the Prophet Muhammad, and who was then seized in Malaysia and extradited back to Saudi Arabia for possible trial, which could even entail the death penalty. The basic issues of freedom of expression seem clear enough, and the case is even more dismaying because of Malaysia's role in delivering him back to KSA after he had made his escape. Certainly Kashgari's tweets were ill-advised for someone living in Saudi Arabia (what parts of "Commission for the P:romotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" and "Religious Police" did he not understand?), but the potentially draconian punishment is provoking justifiable outrage. Background stories here and here if you haven't been following it.

But there's another side to the whole Kashgari issue that is worth noting amid all the talk over the past year of the Arab uprisings as "social media revolutions," "Revolution 2.0," and so on. In the Kashgari case, it is the social media that have been baying for his scalp.

As this piece in Canada's MacLeans notes, the Internet has been playing the role of lynch mob in the Kashgari case. YouTube videos call for his death; chat rooms demand it.

Then there is the battle of the Facebook groups. As of this writing, the "The Saudi People Demand Retribution from Hamza Kashgari (Arabic)" Facebook page has 26,711 members. "Free Hamza Kashgari," on the other hand, has 6,700. Of course there are other pages and other forums, but it seems clear that supporters of the Saudi religious establishment are using social media to demand punishment. Though the page itself does not immediately call for his death, many of the posters do. (In contrast, the Grand Mufti of Egypt has noted, "We don't kill our sons; we talk to them.")

Yes, social media can be a major organizing tool for revolutionary change. It can also be the modern equivalent of the lynch mob.

Al Jazeera Goes to Mahalla

2012-02-24T12:19:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I noted in passing the continuing labor unrest in Egypt's big Delta textile industry center of Mahalla; which has a good argument for being where the revolution really started; now Al Jazeera English reports on the huge factory there and its legacy of unrest. An important notice of a much-underreported story (underreported because the government has limited access).

Some Great Sources for Old Egypt Photos

2012-02-23T08:53:00.003-05:00

This blog frequently indulges in nostalgia, both to provide the historical background of present issues or just to retell some of the important events of the last couple of centuries; as a result I frequently have included old photos, old videos, etc. Many of these have been of Egypt, reflecting that country's centrality in the Arab world and my own personal interest in its history.

I thought I'd call attention to a couple of useful sites for old photos and other imagery of Egypt. As usual don't reproduce things without verifying if they are protected by copyright or are public domain.

The Biblioteca Alexandrina has a collection on Remembering Contemporary Egypt which includes sections for photos, videos, maps, and much else, and covers most of the period since the Napoleonic Expedition/Muhammad ‘ Ali era. Though the Alexandrian library has many pages in English or French, these are all in Arabic. But here, for example, is a page on portraits of public figures: rulers, Prime Ministers, other public personalities. I've only dipped into a few of the areas, but it looks like a great resource. (I blogged last year about another prize from the Biblioteca Alexandrina: The Déscription de l'Égypte Online.

Another useful site for nostalgic browsing is L'Egypte d'antan/Egypt of Bygone Days, (also available in Arabic at كانت أيام).Unfortunately as the home page notes, the author of the site, Max Karkégi-Pacha, died last year, so it is not being updated.

Not limited to Egypt but including it is the collection of thousands of vintage photos online at the New York Public Library: The Middle East in Early Prints and Photographs.

These aren't the only resource sites, but they'll do for now.

.

Updates from the Fronts of the Culture Wars in Egypt and Tunisia

2012-02-23T08:48:00.185-05:00

Tunisia and Egypt, having thrown off long-ruling dictators and reshaped their political systems and elected new Parliaments, are (or at least some of the more vocal people are) continuing to devote a fair amount of time and energy to the really important issues. No, not the economy, or jobs, or poverty, but the really important issues like whether soccer is permitted in Islam, whether to ban bikinis, whether policemen can wear beards, whether to ban an MP from Parliament for something he said, and of course the eternal vigilance required to prevent widespread outbreaks of public nudity, so common in the Arab world.

Now, I try not to indulge the temptation (beloved of certain newspapers and many Arab secularists) of pouncing on every outrageous statement by some Salafi Islamist, what might be called the Crazy Sheikh/Crazy Fatwa of the week syndrome. Since Sunni Islam lacks a clerical hierarchy like that in Iranian Shi‘ism, almost anybody can grow a beard, call himself Sheikh and start issuing fatwas. (Say, I already have a beard ...) Usually no one pays attention except perhaps his immediate family: there are official bodies in most countries for issuing religious decisions. Al-Azhar in Egypt (and to some extent Zeitouna in Tunisia) have an authority based on antiquity, prestige, and custom, whereas most of the self-proclaimed Salafi spokesmen lack even a formal Islamic degree. Some have no followers, but the Daily Mail usually doesn't ask for their credentials if their statement is outrageous enough.

For example, late last year there was a report going around that I never quoted: a sheikh had supposedly ruled that women should not eat or cook with bananas or zucchini because the phallic shape of the fruit or vegetable might give them ideas. It was so outrageous that it was hard not to report it, but my alarm bells went off: the story not only did not identify the sheikh; it simply said he was in "a European country." So an unnamed sheikh, in some unidentified country in Europe (France? Denmark? Kosovo? Bosnia?) makes an utterly outlandish statement which gets quoted all over the place without any sourcing? That's why I stayed away from it.

But then,there are the statements made by Islamists whose opinions, whatever their religious credentials or lack thereof, are enhanced by being elected to the Egyptian or Tunisian Parliament. Or, like the frequently quoted Egyptian Salafi ‘Abd al-Mun‘em al-Shahat, defeated in his run for Parliament. (But that hasn't shut him up.) Besides being one of the loudest advocates for banning bikinis and alcohol and covering Pharaonic monuments in wax, Shahat has denounced the novels of Naguib Mahfouz as promoting sex and drugs, and after the Port Said disaster announced that professional soccer is contrary to Islam. (Good luck with that one. It's going to be hard to sell to the Qataris, Wahhabi though they may be in background, as they gear up to host the World Cup.)

Shahat's latest venture is particularly sinister. since he has said that Baha'is have no rights, but I'm not really posting about Shahat, who is a marginal figure, but about some of the more prominent moves by those with some official function or who can actually effect changes in policy. Nor are these incidents all in one direction: some show a backlash against the growing Islamist wave. I've previously posted about the controversies that might affect tourism (the "booze and bikinis" debate) (also here),

Photo From Bikya Masr

but the whole question of social practices and public mores is increasingly engaging Islamists and secularists in both Egypt and Tunisia. Tunisia, with its tradition of secularism, women's rights, and Westernization going back to the Bourguiba era, is seeing more and more culture-wars sort of incidents, though Egypt remains the front line.

This represents a gathering of the culture war skirmishes in both countries over the past couple of weeks. Controversies over hijab and niqab also continue to recur, but these are new:

1. Egypt: Should Policemen be Allowed to Grow Beards?

Not every item in this list is a case of Islamists pressing for new strictures: some relates to the opposite reaction of resistance to Islamist pressures. In Egypt, where for decades under Husni Mubarak when an Egyptian police officer thought "beard," the word that came to mind was "suspect," some policemen are agitating for the right to grow beards. At least one policeman has been suspended. And of course, there's now a Facebook group called "I Am a Bearded Police Officer." (UPDATE: the actual Facebook page (in Arabic) is here.) The Interior Minister, however, is having none of it, and reportedly has threatened to try those who grow them. Some Salafi politicians have denounced the rule, but others have actually said they would respect the rules, feeling they don't need a fight with the police and the Interior Minister over a mainly symbolic issue. Most Egyptian Islamists have some experience of taking on the police and the Interior Ministry, much of it involving incarceration. There are other reports of backlash against Islamist pressures in more unofficial ways; a beard can still keep you from getting certain jobs, and reports like this one suggest that some elite restaurants are turning away women customers wearing hijab.

2. Egypt and Tunisia: Mixed Signals on Internet Filtering

In Egypt, a Salafi Al-Nour Party MP has called for a ban on pornographic sites on the Internet. Since there is little evidence that Egyptian servers are hosting such sites, this would mean filtering access to the Internet. As the article notes, there may be a real issue here:

In 2011, Egypt landed in the number five spot globally in searching for “sex” online, joined by Algeria and Morocco also in the top 10, according to Google trends. Arabic language is used second only to English as the language of search choice for adult content online.

Which may say something about the society, but it's also noted that a 2009 attempt to do the same led to the Ministry responding that it was up to the individual user. And of course, many countries that filter the Internet (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.) nobly announce they are blocking porn and then block a lot of sites using dirty words like "democracy" and "human rights" along the way. We'll see where this one goes. Of course, whether filtering pornography is the single greatest issue in Egypt today (as opposed to bearded policemen, the movie industry, women not wearing hijab, or even, say, the collapsed economy) is another matter.

In Tunisia, on the other hand, the wind may be blowing in a different direction. A ruling last year after the Revolution ordered the filtering of pornographic websites and was upheld by the Court of Appeals. But now that verdict has been quashed by the Court of Cassation, though instead of overturning it outright, the Court sent the case back to the Appeals Court.

3. Memo to Egyptian MPs: Watch Out for Folksy Sayings, They Can Get You in Trouble
Meanwhile in Egypt, a young, liberal Member of the new Parliament, Ziad Eleimy, has gotten himself into some trouble over a folk saying he quoted. Eleimy, a member of the small Social Democratic Party, gave a speech in Port Said in which he was addressing the blame for the recent Port Said football massacre. Like many others, he blames not just the perpetrators but the absence of security forces and, by extension, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). That may be unfair, but he's hardly the only one holding that opinion. He quoted an Egyptian folk saying which conveys the idea of blaming underlings while letting the real culprits go. Unfortunately the saying is, "we let the donkey get away while holding on to the saddle" (نترك الحمار ونمسك بالبردعة). Nice and folksy, the sort of thing politicians say, right?

Well, maybe not. Speaker Sa‘d al-Katatny and others immediately accused Eleimy of calling Field Marshal Tantawi a donkey. Soon Parliament was investigating him, "hundreds" of lawsuits were being filed, and while SCAF said it won't take legal action, Parliament has rejected Eleimy's explanation that he didn't mean to call Tantawi a donkey but had merely been quoting a well-known proverb. And of course, liberal demonstrators are rallying to his side.

He was also criticized for comments he made on a Salafi sheikh, but he has already apologized in person for that.

We are seeing, however, as we have before, what the Internet has dubbed as the Streisand Effect: by making a fuss about something, you call far more attention to something that might otherwise have been overlooked entirely. He probably didn't mean to call Tantawi a donkey, but if you search for himar in Arabic script now,you'll find cartoons, comments, and YouTube videos that aren't so subtle. Himar isn't even that strong an insult; it's the sort of thing Egyptians shout at each other every day in street disputes, and a little time on Twitter can find Egyptians calling the Field Marshal much worse (though they aren't Members of Parliament). [UPDATE: In addition to Al-Sha‘b yurid Isqat al-Mushir — "The People Want the Fall of the Field Marshal" — there is now, inevitably, Al-Sha‘b yurid Isqat al-Himar.]

4. Tunisia: Reprinting a Picture Can Land a Publisher in Jail, and Not for Infringing Copyright

The censorship issue usually leads to seizures of publications or even their closure; it is much rarer for it to lead to the imprisonment of the Publisher. But in usually liberal Tunisia, the latest of several controversies has produced exactly that result. The Publisher of Al-Tounissia, a post-revolutionary newspaper that began online but has now begun print publication, and two of his editors were arrested; the staffers were freed but Publisher Nasreddine Ben Said is still in prison and staging a hunger strike. [UPDATE: He was released today.] His crime? Reprinting a picture from a European magazine. The charge was not copyright infringement but offending public morals.

The picture he ran was taken from the cover of the March issue of the German edition of GQ magazine, and shows Tunisian-German soccer star Sami Khedira posing with his blonde German model girlfriend. Al-Tounissia's front page and the GQ cover are both reproduced at left. In fact, the Arabic headline reads, "Photos of Player Sami Khedira Cause a Stir in Spain." ("Player," indeed, but they mean soccer player: he plays for Real Madrid.) As you can see from both photos at left, he is wearing a tuxedo; she is wearing only his right hand. It's a suggestive, teasing cover fairly standard for a European fashion mag cover, but not so for a Tunisian newspaper, though European magazines with similar covers do circulate in Tunisia. As with some other recent controversies, calling this a "nude" cover (as some headlines have) may not be quite accurate, since her chest is concealed (apparently quite securely), but in some ways the positioning of the hand makes it even more suggestive.

But the issue, of course, is that the picture appeared at all, though some advertisements and foreign publications in Tunisia, not to mention satellite television from Europe, are far more daring. Nor was GQ claiming copyright infringement. The released Editors said they were reporting a news story about a Tunisian celebrity. I'm convinced it was purely the news value that motivated them, and that the fact that said Tunisian celebrity happened to be posing with his hand on the breasts of a naked blonde model had nothing to do with it. (Not that I've got any problems with that.)

Again if the newspaper had been seized or banned there would have been a minor kerfuffle among free speech advocates; it was the jailing of the Publisher that has provoked outrage. And as usual in these cases, the Streisand effect (see above) has also guaranteed the reproduction of the offending photo on websites and news outlets throughout the Arab world (not all showing the whole thing of course). I'm sure far more people have seen the photo (including you, dear reader) than if the prosecutor had looked the other way or just ordered the issue pulped.

On the positive side, though the Ministry of Justice is prosecuting the case, the Minister of Human Rights and Transitional Justice has openly criticized the decision to jail journalists rather than sanction the paper, and even the country's best-known Islamist, Rached Ghannouchi, founder of the Al-Nahda Party, has said he opposed the arrest. (He's not defending the picture, but criticizing jailing a journalist.)

I don't know if there is any single lesson to be derived from all this, except that the whole issue of what is and what is not permissible in the public sphere is being debated and that there are likely to be more such controversies.

You Say You Want a Revolution? I've Got a Subway Line for You.

2012-02-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

I am one of those lingering optimists who still thinks the Egyptian revolution has brought real, if still far from complete, change, but I know that there are many who feel the old regime has essentially ridden out the revolution and is returning to business as usual.

But not to worry: the Revolution is secure! The new, third line of the Cairo Metro, running from Midan Ataba to Midan Abbasiyya, will be officially named the Revolution line!

That's a relief.

Whole Run of ZDMG to 2005 Available Online, Open Source

2012-02-22T13:36:00.000-05:00

The great-granddaddy of European Orientalist scholarly journals, the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, or ZDMG to its friends, is now available online from the University of Halle, free and open source, from Volume I in 1847 (!) up to 2005. This will mean little to the vast majority of my readers, but to an old medieval Islamicist like myself it's great to know. Back in 1847 it wasn't scholarship if it wasn't in German, but in the 20th century a fair number of articles in English and French start to be included as well.

Marie Colvin, Another Western Journalist Die in Syria

2012-02-22T11:22:00.000-05:00

The deaths of Marie Colvin of the London Sunday Times and of a French photographer in Syria, coming so soon after the unexpected death of Anthony Shadid (though he died of an asthma attack, not from gunfire), naturally helps focus attention on the carnage in Syria. One can, of course, and should, note that over 5,000 Syrians have died at the hands of the Asad government (and probably many more), and that their names have not made the headlines. But the role of the foreign media in calling attention to what is going on despite Syrian government determination to keep the media out is an example of the role foreign correspondents can play, despite the risks. Journalists operating in Syria without government sanction are risking all to get the story out, and are a credit to their profession.

FJP Declares Support for NGOs

2012-02-22T11:04:00.001-05:00

Egypt's Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's Political Arm, has issued a declaration supporting the work of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working for democracy in Egypt and has called for the lifting of all restrictions on their registration and operations.

This is the latest of several posiions which distances the FJP from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and seems shrewd: it seemingly positions the party on the side of democratization and, not so incidentally, is a gesture to the US on this issue (they recently met with Sen. John McCain), even though many Brotherhood positions are at odds with US policies in the region. Though I am not a great admirer of the Brotherhood and believe their democratic rhetoric needs to be judged by what they actually deliver in power, this is a reminder that they are far more attuned to the political vibrations of the moment than the remarkably tone-deaf SCAF. It's also a sign, I think, that the FJP, after working closely with SCAF for a year, is now preparing for a struggle to give the Parliament real power vis-a-vis SCAF.

Lynch on Syria for CNAS

2012-02-21T15:29:00.000-05:00

Marc Lynch has a new report out from CNAS on Syria, urging diplomatic but not military intervention. It's a thoughtful contribution to the ongoing debate. (Summary page at the link, full PDF here.)

Yemen's One-Man Election

2012-02-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

Yemen is having Presidential elections today. On the one hand, for the first time in some years, there's only one name on the ballot. On the other hand, for the first time since 1978 (!), ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih is not on the ballot. Danya Greenfield at Foreign Policy suggests "Yemen's Election Might Matter." And here's the ballot in case you need time to make up your mind:

A Photo from Homs: Dangerous Neighborhood

2012-02-21T08:29:00.006-05:00

Homs. From a Facebook album. There are far bloodier and gorier photos, of course. But this one says a lot.

Some Cairo Vignettes for a Three-Day Weekend

2012-02-17T20:00:00.000-05:00

This is the beginning of the three-day President's Day weekend in the US and I'll only be checking in if circumstances demand.

To help keep you occupied, at least those of you who are old Cairo hands or are interested in the region's biggest city, here are a number of vignettes relating to various aspects of the city, from a variety of sources (though a majority are from the great CairObserver website):

Al-Horriya Cafe/Bar. Here's a piece from the Guardian website on a place known to many old Cairo hands. Al-Horriya is a classic old Cairo coffeehouse, complete with mirrors on the walls, backgammon and domino games etc. But it has an additional attraction that used to be more common in Cairo coffeehouses but has become scarce: it serves beer. On Midan Falaki, it's only a few blocks from the AUC downtown campus and well known to lots of expatriates. I understand they've remodeled lately; I hope that doesn't mean your glass no longer sticks to the tables.

Uruba Palace/Former Heliopolis Palace Hotel. Gamal Abdel Nasser lived in a modest home while President and many of the old royal palaces became museums. Anwar Sadat was having none of that and began assembling a number of Presidential palaces for various roles. The old Heliopolis Palace Hotel was transformed into the Uruba Palace, which, in Husni Mubarak's day, became Mubarak's chief residence. CairObserver has photos from its earlier incarnation as a luxury hotel, and notes that a government commission is now surveying the Presidential Palaces, raising questions about where the new President to be elected in May will reside.

Al-Hakim Mosque. At the north end of the old Fatimid city, up against the northern walls of the city, lies the huge Mosque of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. A masterpiece of medieval architecture, under Sadat it was renovated (by the South Asian sect of Bohra Ismailis); CairObserver celebrates it today as "a place to idle."

The City of the Dead. Another CairObserver piece notes the showing in Cairo of a recent film on the City of the Dead, the name often applied to the great eastern and southern cemeteries on the edges of the old city, where many people live among the tombs. As the article notes, the film exaggerates the number of residents. The trailer is, however, on YouTube and may be of interest.

Graffiti After the Football Catastrophe. Graffiti on the walls of Cairo's streets has been one of the great artistic expressions of the Revolution, and though the authorities keep repainting it, the ubiquity of telephone cameras has guaranteed a great deal of documentation of what has been, however briefly, created. Some is high art; some creative protest; some funny; some just rabble-rousing or rude. The blogger who goes by suzeeinthecity has been among those collecting photos of the graffiti on her website; she has also interviewed some of the better-known street artists. Her latest post is on the graffiti of the Ahly Ultras that went up after the Port Said football catastrophe, though you may want to browse through some of the earlier collections as well. The whole subject of revolutionary graffiti is probably going to produce some Ph.D. dissertations down the road, I suspect;

Enjoy the long weekend if you have it; I'll check in as needed and resume regular blogging on Tuesday.

MEI Remembers Anthony Shadid

2012-02-17T14:18:00.000-05:00

MEI now has a few reminiscences up remembering Anthony Shadid. Everyone in the field is in a state of shock today, I think. A truly great loss.

The "New Syrian Constitution"

2012-02-17T12:49:00.000-05:00

Syria's announcement a couple of days ago that it would hold a referendum on a new constitution does not seem to have convinced many people that any real change is afoot; after all the following day the best-known dissident blogger, Razan al-Ghazzawi, was arrested again, and no one can comprehend how you hold a referendum on two weeks' notice in the midst of a near civil war.

The past year has seen plenty of examples of dictators promising reforms that are too little, too late, and merely symbolic. Daniel Serwer labeled the attempt "bizarre."

I should note, however, that there was some substantive discussion of the proposed constitution over at Syria Comment a couple of days ago, and you can read the full text (in Arabic) of the proposed new constitution here, if you're so inclined. None of which changes the likelihood that this particular proposal is pretty much dead on arrival.

NYT, WP on Anthony Shadid

2012-02-17T08:41:00.000-05:00

I noted the shocking news of Anthony Shadid's sudden death last night. The New York Times obit now has links to his most recent articles. And The Washington Post, where he worked until moving to the Times, has its own appreciation. I think he was probably the best US Middle East correspondent of this generation. The blogging community will be full of appreciations today.

Anthony Shadid Dies in Syria

2012-02-16T21:50:00.000-05:00

Shockingly, The New York Times has just reported that Anthony Shadid has died in Syria while on an assignment in eastern Syria, apparently of an asthma attack. His photographer took his body across the border into Turkey. He was only 43. Though he had been held by government forces while reporting from Libya last year, ironically he died not from hostile action but from asthma.

Shadid was one of the best journalists covering the Middle East; an Arab-American who spoke the language, he also showed real understanding of the region. Twice winner of Pultizers, he covered the region for The Washington Post before moving to The New York Times.

This is a shocking loss.

A Far Cry from 1956: Port Said Shunned, Ostracized by Other Egyptians

2012-02-16T15:09:00.000-05:00

Since the football massacre in Port Said at the beginning of this month, the Suez Canal city has found itself the subject of opprobrium from the rest of the country, taking the brunt of the blame for the disaster in which 74 people died, though others place the blame on the security forces' inaction or the Ultras from both teams. The result has been a boycott of Port Said, leaving shops and coffeehouses deserted, and the city struggling economically to the point that the government has sent in supply convoys from Cairo. Details are provided by Ahram Online here, and earlier and with more details on Port Said in the Mubarak era, by blogger Zeinobia here. As Zeinobia notes, blaming the whole city for the football massacre seems extreme.

Both of these accounts note, and quote Port Said residents as also noting, that it was not always so. Port Said was long celebrated as the city at the center of resistance to the Anglo-French landings to seize the Suez Canal during the Suez War of 1956; Port Said resisted fiercely and became a patriotic symbol across Egypt to resistance to the "Tripartite Aggression" of Britain, France and Israel.

Later, after Israel occupied Sinai and the eastern bank of the Canal in 1967, the three Canal Cities (Port Said, Ismailia, Suez) became the front line. During the "War of Attrition" of 1967-71, Israel and Egypt exchanged artillery fire across the Canal until the Canal Cities were depopulated and largely destroyed.

After Israel withdrew from the Canal after the 1973 War and the Kissinger shuttles, the Canal Cities were rebuilt; under Anwar Sadat Port Said became a free trade zone and prospered. Under Mubarak the city did not do so well, and now, with the boycott, finds itself ostracized by the rest of the country.

To evoke a little of the memory of the 1956 invasion, however, here are two YouTube videos: one an Egyptian tribute to the city showing the resistance to the invaders (some scenes look staged and romanticized); the second is a British newsreel of Anglo-French occupation forces in Port Said after its fall.

Kuwaiti Parliament Meets; More on Election Results

2012-02-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

Veteran political figure Ahmad al-Sa‘doun has been chosen Speaker of the newly elected Kuwaiti Parliament; he has held the post several times previously.

As I've noted before, I haven't really followed the Kuwaiti elections, so I've been offering links to others' analyses. Here are two more: at The Gulf Blog; and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen at HurstBlog.

UAE Looking for Markets for Locally Built Missile Corvettes?

2012-02-16T12:58:00.000-05:00

According to this story in The National, the UAE is looking for possible foreign markets for Baynunah-class corvettes being built by Abu Dhabi Ship Building in partnership with France's CMN. The UAE is building six of the missile corvettes for its own Navy, The article mentions Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as possible markets.

For more on the class and its capabilities, see here.

The GCC Navies have all been eager to build up their capabilities in recent years, with an eye on Iran.