Evil Exists (call me simplistic)

On Gaza. Al Ahram Weekly and The Independent let the experts do the talking

A disturbing mix: deceptive electioneering in Israel and dispicable inaction from the lack the Egyptian government's need to gather votes.

Mustafa Barghouti cuts down the myths Israel spins in the media to justify its most recent campaign of slaughter:
With these myths understood, let us ponder the real reasons behind these air strikes; what we find may be even more disgusting than the act itself.

Robert Fisk: The rotten state of Egypt is too powerless and corrupt to act

لا يا شيخ؟

نظيف: الحكومة تتحمل تكلفة إعادة بناء وترميم «الشوري» بالكامل

أمال كمان كان هيكون على حسابنا؟؟

Adding Insult to Injury

Now I'm not sure what bothers me more. No wait, I am sure. This bothers me more:

Not only did we see the dismal performance in putting out the fire, and the loss of the antique building, and the havoc created by police and officials trying to orchestrate the whole fiasco,but the efforts were directed more to repressing the opposition media from covering a very obvious disaster than to repressing the disaster itself and containing it. Once again, the police have no clear priorities, no clear mind and seem to comfort themselves using human punching bags whenever possible.

Al Masry Al Youm's Parliament correspondent, the official correspondent, who even has a press ID given from the shura council itself, was attacked by the police and his ID was torn. El Badeel, my favorite opposition paper at the moment was prohibited from issuing its paper today because the headlines claimed that "flames consume Ferry, contaminated blood, cancerous pesticides and Upper Egypt train files”. Instead they could only print their online version.

As for the state papers, the headline read "Mubarak closely follows the events of the fire and makes three phonecalls to Al Sharif"- who the fuck cares? They also, myteriously, counted ONE HUNDRED fire engines at the scene.

News flash to the news makers: the public is not blind, and most of us can count.

Official Petition to Amend Economic Indicators

I'm convinced that what actually qualifies a first world country as such despite the inevitably arbitrary (and simultaneously calculated) nature of such a category- is not in reality how much poverty or dust or filth you have- but how convincing your "uppity" parts of town are. Sure there's some dirt in Paris (Ok, I'm pushing it but I saw some ugly mounds of cigarette butts I swear) but what matters is that the clean parts, the pretty parts, the rosy picture in convincingly rosy and you cant say shit about regardless of how well your critical minds deconstructs such "illusions". It's gorgeous, even with the passed out alcoholic and the crazy lady talking to the pigeons.

In Egypt for example, we are reaching a tipping point whereby even the hippest, million dollar real estate neighborhood is infested with filth, intolerably polluted, perpetually in decay and moulding over with the inescapable stench of corruption and all around general doom.

Of course, there are other indicators of quality of life other than the height of trash piles in the pretty streets in Maadi and Zamalek, such as

- how many prisoners the police take to electrocuting each day ?

- thethe ratio of covered : uncovered skin a woman can get away with without risking gang rape.

- Decibels of noise drilling into your brain at given moment

- Proportion of population wearing ALL STAR shoes (I never said the indicators were a good or bad thing)

- Quality and overall pleasantness of music streaming in the street at given moment

- Do people insist on decorating Mosques/Churches with florescent green lights to distract from the more attractive architecture?

- the answer to the question "Does McDonalds even TRY to accommodate your culture?" (Did you know that Mcdonalds serve shisha in Turkey? Outdoors)

Palestinians make me Sea Sick, IDF makes me Sick.

I met a Palestinian girl the other day who asked me why I've never posted anything about Palestine and Israel on my blog yet. I told her that when it comes to Palestine and Israel,I wonder where to start, what year, what concept, side, what angle, what to say, who to address, and why. Its always overwhelming for me.

And then I heard about THIS. An actual checkpoint ordered by the IDF to prohibit Palestinians from entering the shores of the Dead sea in the West Bank. It makes my stomach churn.

"For now" the prohibition is imposed on weekends and holidays so as not to turn the Israeli sea side goers off with the unsightly vision of Palestinians on nearby shores.

When questioned about the legality of the move, the commander said it would be easy to find "a post facto security justification" This is truly disgusting. It just plain out says: its bad for Israeli business so lets keep them out. And lets make a law from the highest constitutional body to pass it. And lets worry about explaining it later.

So not only are we using the 'security' argument to keep the business going, we want to make this profit exclusive only to Israelis although its actually located on the Occupied Territories and of course, keep the Palestinians out of the only beach spot still accessible to them.

Pass me a bucket someone, Im going to puke all over the Israeli beach managers and the military and jurists who support them.

"The storm of terrorism blows strong around us and our enemies lie in wait"

Well the second half of that sentence is certainly true. I havent heard of any terrorists around Egypt lately. Those were the profound words of Egyptian prime Minister Ahmed Nazif in parliament the other day when they decided to extend the Emergency Law for 2 more years.

I dont know which is worse: living under emergency law for two more years, as if the past 27 (million?) were not enough..or having to wait two more years to actually see what god forsaken stipulations actually make it onto the "counter terrorism" law that was supposed to replace emergency law this year. Actually, its a little ridiculous. They promised us a counter terrorism law, are we not good enough for one? Emergency laws are so out of fashion and all the other repressive, totalitarian states will think we're uncool. Lets not even ask the question of what it would take for us to actually operate under a "normal" or say, "constitutional" law. What are we, human or something?

Its interesting the Egyptian parliament, they announce this counter-terrorism bill, and everyone gets all worked up about it, we write press releases, civil society gets all antsy and submits recommendations and panics a little bit, the UN warns of the many violations of counter terrorism laws, and then all of a sudden- bam- emergency law again. Arbitrary detention, arrests without charges or warrants, torture without investigations, lack of privacy, exclusive authority to the military and executive branches of governement GALORE! Two more years of lawlessness just passed by law. Of course its justified, after all, we've had all that unrest and terrorist attacks and we've successfully cracked down on corruption and crime because of the exceptional stipulations of emergency law...erm, ...no wait a minute....that cant be it...

Laf we Dawwar-an

The Kafr El Dawwar police outfit, much like their colleagues nationwide, are no strangers to absurdity. Their very sophisticated techniques have once again left me bewildered, not knowing whether I should be an outraged citizen or send them a note with a few pointers on how not to look/act/be total fools while trying to cover up horrendous corruption.

As the story goes, Ms. Magda Al Adly, a medical doctor and a member of the El Nadim Centre for Psychological Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence was assaulted by police inside the courthouse of the town of Kafr El Dawwar in Northern Egypt. Adly was there to testify in defence of a case of a local family who had reportedly been severely beaten and abused in the Kafr Al Dawwar prison. Before she had the chance to do so, she was attacked by a man who appeared to be stealing her bag. He pushed her on the floor rendering her unconscious for some time as well as dislocating her shoulder.

Apparently, the officer was after some documents and photographs of the prisoners that prove that they had really been tortured and treated with cruelty in the prison.

The clumsy pickpocket later confessed he was actually acting upon order of Chief intelligence officer Ahmed Maklad of the Kafr El Dawwar police.

It doesn’t end there: he later changed his story claiming that Adly had tripped and fallen over and that to his surprise, while he was courteously helping her up, found that people were running after him so he got scared and started running.

Indeed, the act of helping someone up could easily be confused with pushing someone, shoving onto the courtroom floor and grabbing a purse out of their tightly clenched fists. IT could happen to anyone. Smartness.