5 Responses to “Ghazl el-Mahalla workers protest privatization and corruption”  

1. 1 Paul Nov 1st, 2008 at 1:29 pm

   Sorry mate,
   A few hundred workers doing a bit of chanting between shifts does not a story make. Did work stop? Was the company affected? did anything change? No. This is a place that can put tens of thousands of workers on the street. They didn’t do that, so it’s not a story. That would be like covering every one of those episodes in front of the journalists syndicate. We cover major car crashes and tunnel collapses because it involves the loss of human life. We cover protests when they are very large and change things. We can’t cover every little chat-a-thon.
   The major wires do not ignore the workers’ movement, look at the ink spilled on the events of April 6,7.

2. 2 Hossam el-Hamalawy Nov 1st, 2008 at 1:57 pm

   Oh believe me I know it’s not a story for you…
   When 25 demonstrators from Kefaya fart in downtown that’s usually a story.. but hundreds or thousands demonstrating in the biggest textile mill in the ME, denouncing the president, that’s not a story..
   If a woman in this sexist country gets circumcized, that’s a story, but when hundreds of women go on demonstrations demanding the improvement of their lives and working conditions that’s not a story..
   And I’m very touched by the wires’s concern for the “loss of human life” in the car crashes.. though the car crashes you usually cover are largely those that involves foreigners not locals habibi..
   “The major wires do not ignore the workers’ movement, look at the ink spilled on the events of April 6,7.”
   You actually prove my point.. It has to take a bloody uprising in order to grab your attention there’s something called “workers” in Egypt..
   And don’t tell me you cover the Gaza tunnels story coz it involves loss of human life.. Whether there are people killed or not, you routinely publish stories of tunnels “discovered” by the Egyptian police…
   So NO AND NO.. I think AP and the rest are doing a shit job in that regards, and your editors should be ashamed of themselves!

3. 3 Paul Nov 4th, 2008 at 10:42 am

   - We don’t cover Kifaya demonstrations of 25 people (or any of their demonstrations these days).
   - For the international press a demonstration has to be fairly large and influential before it’s covered. That’s the way it is, we aren’t the local press. The major worker events of the the last two years have been covered in the wires. The big events.
   - A lot goes on around the world, in Iran there are daily demonstrations against authorities, in universities and factories, we can’t cover them all, we have to wait until they are truly significant.
   - Yes, the tunnels have international significance that probably contributes to their prominence in coverage, though you would be amazed how many times we pass on that story. Ditto with Sudanese being shot death crossing the border.
   - Complaining about press coverage, but your nasty hectoring tone alienates the people you are trying to court.

4. 4 Hossam el-Hamalawy Nov 4th, 2008 at 11:06 am

   you don’t even have a single stringer in Mahalla in order to know whether there’s a “story” there or not..
   “Complaining about press coverage, but your nasty hectoring tone alienates the people you are trying to court.”
   I don’t “court” any one and I’m not gonna kiss anyone’s ass in order to go and cover these stories… Thankfully there are now bloggers and english language journalists like Sarah Carr who pay attention to these stories… But I’m more than happy to expose your screwed up editorial policy that describes Mubarak and Abu Mazen as “moderates”, your boring stories about the tunnels and the salafis, which have been done over and over again from the 1990s onwards..

   And by the way, I was wondering if this is “story” or not
   http://arabist.net/arabawy/2008/11/04/mahalla_sex_asaults/

5. 5 Paul Nov 4th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

   Sarah Carr, who does great work by the way, is working for the local press, and of course covers these events. That’s what local press does. That’s what I did when I worked for the local press.
   You clearly are trying to court the media, otherwise you wouldn’t bring these stories to people’s attention, that’s what activists do. And there’s a mode of discourse between “kissing ass” and spewing profanities, which seems to have evolved into your favorite form of expression. This, I’m sure, works great with people who already agree with you, but does not necessarily effectively make your point to everyone else.
   I am somewhat baffled by your sudden dislike of stories about the salafis since you yourself have written about them in the past.
   And just because stories have been done “over and over again” since the 1990s, doesn’t mean they aren’t worth being done. I recall writing a story about worker unrest in March 2007, then again September 2007 and then again in April 2008. At no point did I mind writing these sorts of things “over and over” again, because they were important.

   Just take it a notch down Hossam and focus on your real opponents and causes, not the same tired, shrill criticism of the media.