Current Analysis Popular Social Movements and the Future of Egyptian Politics President Husni Mubarak’s unexpected announcement that Article 76 of the Egyptian constitution will be amended to permit a direct and competitive vote in the September presidential election has captured the attention of the international and local media and political classes. The substance of the proposed constitutional amendment, announced on Joel Beinin • 10 min read
Current Analysis Dictatorship Remains OK for our Allies President George W. Bush likes to associate his administration’s goals with the will of the Almighty. Witness the stirring coda of the 2005 State of the Union address: “The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom.” As in many previous speeches, Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Egypt Looks Ahead to Portentous Year Not so long ago in Egypt, elections for the parliament, bar association and press syndicate, as well as presidential referenda, were dismissed as mere beautifying accessories for an incorrigibly authoritarian regime. In 2005, several developments promise to accentuate the significance of these once Mona El-Ghobashy • 12 min read
Current Analysis Fahrenheit 9/11 Plays Cairo The cinema was crowded but not full when, at the end of August, Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in a theater in Cairo's leafy southern suburb of Maadi. An audience made up of expatriate employees of UN agencies and well-heeled Egyptians snickered at each of Garay Menicucci • 6 min read
Current Analysis Protests Hint at New Chapter in Egyptian Politics The week marking the first anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq saw a flurry of demonstrations across Egypt. A protest in central Cairo marking the beginning of the war was followed by a series of demonstrations at al-Azhar and other major universities, as well as the lawyers' and Tamir Moustafa • 9 min read
MER Article Egypt's Virtual Protection of Morality Action by states to impose excessive regulations on the use of...the Internet, on the grounds that control, regulation and denial of access are necessary to preserve the moral fabric and cultural identity of societies, is paternalistic. These regulations presume to protect people from themselves and Hossam Bahgat • 11 min read
MER Article The Trials of Culture Session after session, the men stood packed against the cage bars, their eyes furtive behind masks made from torn handkerchiefs or underwear. That and their white jail uniforms gave them a ghostlike look: disincarnate in the sweaty chaos of the courtroom, incarcerated wraiths. Scott Long • 15 min read
Current Analysis Egypt's Summer of Discontent As the long, hot Egyptian summer of 2003 wore on into autumn, gloom-and-doom scenarios filled opposition papers and daily conversations, warning of a terrible quiet before the storm. Elites and the masses are slowly being pushed together by palpable disaffection at rapidly deteriorating economic con Mona El-Ghobashy • 12 min read
Current Analysis Egypt Struggles to Control Anti-War Protests For the second consecutive Friday, thousands of Egyptians gathered at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque on March 28, 2003 to voice their opposition to the US-led invasion and bombing of Iraq. But it was immediately apparent upon arrival at al-Azhar that the March 28 demonstration would be very different from Paul Schemm • 8 min read
MER Article Unsettling the Authorities Nowhere has the belittling designation “the Arab street” been more overused than in descriptions of Egypt, the most populous and politically central Arab state. Egypt’s richly textured history of political opposition, one of the lon¬gest in the region, is inevitably reduced to images of livid young men brandishing Mona El-Ghobashy • 18 min read
MER Article Two Miles into Limbo As many as five million Sudanese displaced by the country’s 19-year civil war live in Egypt, many on the urban margins of Cairo. Mostly poor and unemployed, the Sudanese displaced get by in an environment where no one -- the Egyptian government, civil society or the UN -- seems willing or able to he Pascale Ghazaleh • 15 min read
MER Article Solidarity in the Time of Anti-Normalization The 1979 Camp David peace treaty may have brought an end to formal hostilities between Egypt and Israel, but their peace is a cold one. Moreover, there has always been a wide gap between how this treaty shapes Egyptian foreign policy and popular Egyptian sentiment toward Israel. Since Camp David, Eg Elliott Colla • 16 min read
