Links June 8th to June 10th
Links from my del.icio.us account for June 8th through June 10th:
- New boss is determined to keep the faith at Al-Jazeera | Media | The Observer - New MD at Al-J English faces distribution discrimination
- Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Can Qatar do it again? - Is Qatar trying to do for the Palestinians what it did for the Lebanese?
- Egypt population could more than double by 2050: Mubarak - Yahoo! News - Hosni carps on about population growth
- Tough Words From This Cheney on U.S. Mideast Policy - washingtonpost.com - Liz Cheney says US policy not neocon enough at AIPAC panel
- Muting the Alarm over the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Harvard - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - Academic study shows NYT misreports IP conflict
- Egypt’s Growth Tested by Food, Oil Turmoil - WSJ.com - On how the Nazif govt is dealing with rising prices
- FT.com / Reports / Youth in the Middle East & North Africa - FT Special, many interesting articles
- FT.com / Comment & analysis / Editorial comment - Demographic time-bomb in Mideast - FT Special argues "the scale of advance the region needs is not possible while despotism persists."
- The Daily Star - Repression, the Arab state’s foul habit - Rami Khouri on Egypt and institutional decay in the Arab world
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, June 04, 2008The Egyptian Parliament's decision last week to extend emergency rule for another two years, including sweeping powers to detain
- US professors face hostile reception in Jerusalem | World news | The Guardian - Walt & Mearsheimer in Israel
- In Yemen, a Mostly Concealed Sectarian Fight Endures - Article on Yemen troubles looks at the influence of Iran-Saudi rivalry
- Mr. Obama’s Middle East - washingtonpost.com - Editorial says after AIPAC speech on "indivisible Jerusalem" that on Middle East, Obama is Bush-plus
- FT.com / In depth - Oil: Key players and movements - Nice Flash interactive map of oil geopolitics
Categories: General.
Re Egypt Population: Love it! Egypt’s problems don’t lie in the spineless ineptitude of its government, the venality of its political class or even the tendency of its army to face the wall and bite a pillow every time a Jew with a gun comes into view. Nooooooooo: Egypt’s problems stem entirely from the fact fellaheen like to ride bareback.
Re Khoury: “…Arab governments should quickly reconsider [the use of security forces to beat their populations into compliance] before they do irreparable damage to their societies.” What the heck?
“Single-party ruling elites that have been in power for three to four decades…” which took over from what? Democracies characterized by strong institutions, balanced power sharing and multiple, mature political parties? According to Khoury, who says that these wretched governments are undermining political systems and social orders held over from the 1920s, “Parliaments, political parties, elections and most civil society and non-governmental organizations have all suffered…”
Couldn’t agree more that the Mubarak crowd or the Assad crowd (or whichever other kleptocratic crowd of semi-literate bumpkins he’s talking about) have been a terrible burden on the region, but he makes it sound like the Middle East is a splinter state, created after WWII by the division of Finland and relocated to a blank spot on the map between Turkey and Africa. Come on: Egypt’s been run by despots through their security forces since… well, I dunno, when wasn’t it? And what’s more, like Mubarak, they’ve been foreign-backed more often than not since Alexander left that Ptolemy guy in charge.
These aren’t societies to which the heavy-handed attentions of village policeman raised up to the status of security thugs by village bigmen, themselves raised up to the status of colonial satraps, is foreign. Far from it. Might not be good. Might not be nice. But to suggest that the last 50 years of Middle East history has been a downhill slide from some kind of state of institutional grace is at best silly, and at worst indicative of some kind of weird colonial nostalgia.
MC needs to be beaten to near death, for talking about his masters in this way.
Please MC let me see you face to face next time you are in Cairo
Absolutely. That sounds delightful. Send me your name and mobile number and we’ll have a cup of tea.
When you are coming to Egypt..pig, email me. The adress is on my blog
Ooooh, I don’t think I’ll be visiting your blog / website any time soon, or emailing my itin to some anonymous internet wackjob. That said, offer stands: name and a mobile number and I’ll meet you.
Fine pig…. There is nothing I ever hate more than pigs crossing their lines