The 100: Egypt's Constituent Assembly

Ahram Online has published the names of the 100 members of Egypt's Constituent Assembly, the designatio of whom has continued to provoke controversy. I'll analyze at some point, but for now (spellings as given by Ahram Online, order alphabetical by first name in Arabic:


1.         Abul-Ela Madi, leader of moderate-Islamist Wasat Party
2.         Ahmed Ibrahim El-Halwani
3.         Ahmed Diab, secretary-general of Muslim Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc
4.         Ahmed Omar
5.         Ahmed Maher Ibrahim Tantawi, April 6 Youth Movement founder
6.         Ahmed Mohamed Khalifa, cassation lawyer
7.         Edward Ghalab
8.         Osama Mohamed El-Abd
9.         Osama Yassin, MP for Freedom and Justice Party, head of parliamentary youth committee
10.       Ashraf Thabet Saad El-Din: MP for Salafist Nour Party, deputy president of People’s Assembly
11.       Ahsraf Abdel-Ghafour: Actor, head of Egyptian Actors Syndicate
12.       Ekrami Saad
13.       Amani Abul-Fadl
14.       Omaima Kamel
15.       Bishop John Paul Fatla
16.       Bishop Paul, Coptic Orthodox Church representative
17.       Ayman Ali
18.       Ayman Nour, former presidential candidate, leader of Ghad El-Thawra Party
19.       Bassem El-Sayid Hassenein Metawly
20.       Bahaa El-Din Abul-Shoka, prominent lawyer, leading Wafd Party member
21.       Taymour Fawzy Mostafa
22.       Gaber Gad Nasar
23.       Gamal Gabril
24.       Hossam El-Gherainy, head of Supreme Judicial Council, known for closeness to Brotherhood
25.       Hassan Mahmoud Abdel-Latif
26.       Hussein Ibrahim
27.       Hussein Hamed Hassan
28.       Khaled Mahmoud El-Azhary
29.       Dawood El-Baz
30.       Sameh Ashour, head of Egyptian Lawyers Syndicate
31.       Soad Kamel Rizk
32.       Said Abdel Azim
33.       Samir Marcus, liberal Christian thinker and writer
34.       Shaaban Abdel-Hamid Darwish
35.       Shaaban Ahmed Abdel-Alim
36.       Shahira Halim Dos
37.       Sobhi Saleh, MP and leading Freedom and Justice Party member
38.       Salah Abdel-Maboud Fiyad, MP for Nour Party
39.       Taher Abdel-Mohsen
40.       Talaat Marzouk Abdel-Aziz
41.       Adel Abdel-Hamid Abdullah
42.       Atef El-Banna, Cairo University constitutional law professor
43.       Abdel El-Galil Mostafa, general coordinator for National Association for Change
44.       Abdel-Diyam Mohamed Nossair
45.       Abdel-Rahman El-Bar
46.       Abdel-Rahman Mohamed Shukry
47.       Abd El-Send Yamma
48.       Abdel-Fattah Khatab
49.       Abdullah Said Abul-Ezz
50.       Essam El-Erian, MP, head of parliament's foreign affairs committee and leading Freedom and Justice Party member
51.       Essam Abdel-Rahman Sultan
52.       Atiya Fiyad
53.       Ali Fath El-Bab
54.       Emad Hussein Hassan
55.       Emad El-Din Abdel-Ghafour, leader of Nour Party
56.       Amr Daraag, leading Freedom and Justice Party member
57.       Amr Moussa, former presidential candidate, former minister of foreign affairs, former Arab League secretary-general
58.       Fouad Badrawy, vice president of Wafd Party
59.       Farouk Gowida, poet and writer
60.       Farid Ismail, MP and leading Freedom and Justice Party member
61.       Safwat Naguib, priest
62.       Maged Mamdouh Kamel Shabita
63.       Maher Ali Ahmed El-Bahairy
64.       Mohamed Ibrahim Kamel, MP and leading Wafd Party member
65.       Mohamed Ahmed Sherif
66.       Mohamed Ahmed Abdel-Kader
67.       Mohamed Ahmed Atta Omara
68.       Mohamed El-Betagi: MP, parliament speaker and leading Freedom and Justice Party member
69.       Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat: MP, head of parliament's human rights committee and leader of liberal Reform and building Party
70.       Mohamed Ibrahim Hassan, prominent Salafist preacher
71.       Mohamed Khairy Abdel-Diyam
72.       Mohamed Saad Gawish
73.       Mohamed Selim El-Awa, former presidential candidate, Islamist thinker, lawyer, and Wasat Party co-founder
74.       Mohamed Abdel-Gawad
75.       Mohamed Abdel-Alim Daud
76.       Mohamed Abdel-Moneim El-Sawy, MP, head of parliament's culture, media and tourism committee and Hadara Party founder
77.       Mohamed Ali Bashr
78.       Mohamed Amara
79.       Mohamed Fouad Gadallah
80.       Mohamed Maged Kholousy, head of Egyptian Engineers Syndicate
81.       Mohamed Magdy El-Din Barkat
82.       Mohamed Mahsoub Abdel-Maguid, leading Wasat Party member and law professor at Menoufiya University
83.       Mohamed Mahmoud Abdel-Salem Abdel-Latif
84.       Mohamed Mohi El-Din Mohamed
85.       Mohamed Nagi Darballa
86.       Mohamed Yousry Ibrahim, Salafist preacher and former Nour Party spokesman
87.       Mahmoud Ghozlan, official Muslim Brotherhood spokesman
88.       Moatez Belallah Abdel-Fattah, political science professor and former prime ministerial adviser
89.       Mamdouh El-Wali, head of Egyptian Journalists Syndicate
90.       Mamdouh Shahin, lieutenant-general, defence minister's aide for legal affairs and SCAF member
91.       Manar El-Shorobagy, political science professor
92.       Manal El-Tiby
93.       Mouncif Naguib Soliman
94.       Nader Bakr, Nour Party spokesman
95.       Nasr Farid Wassel, Al-Azhar sheikh and former grand Mufti of Egypt
96.       Huda Ghonia
97.       Wahid Abdel-Maguid, political science professor
98.       Walid Abdel-Awl
99.       Yasser El-Borhami, Salafist sheikh and Nour Party co-founder
100.    Younis Makhioun, Nour Party MP

Tom Friedman, Advice Columnist

The omnipresent, unforgiving, and parody-producing Thing Known as Social Media and the Internet is joking about Tom Friedman of the New York Times again. (For an earlier example of a Friedman parody, see here.) One reason is that Friedman does sort of ask for it, with his omniscient tone and sometimes overdone rhetorical devices, so that he crashes his Lexis right into an olive tree, to use a Friedmanian metaphor; and the other reason is that Friedman probably makes more money than all the rest of us combined, so we figure he deserves it.

This time credit for starting this goes to Joshua Keating, who posted this at Foreign Policy: "When the Young Women of Egypt Need Advice, They Turn to Tom Friedman." He noted this passage in Friedman's column this past Sunday:

I had just finished a panel discussion on Turkey and the Arab Spring at a regional conference here, and, as I was leaving, a young Egyptian woman approached me. “Mr. Friedman, could I ask you a question? Who should I vote for?”

and it reminded him of this, from April 2011:

When I was in Cairo during the Egyptian uprising, I wanted to change hotels one day to be closer to the action and called the Marriott to see if it had any openings. The young-sounding Egyptian woman who spoke with me from the reservations department offered me a room and then asked: “Do you have a corporate rate?” I said, “I don’t know. I work for The New York Times.” There was a silence on the phone for a few moments, and then she said: “ Can I ask you something?” Sure. “Are we going to be O.K.? I’m worried.”

 As Keating notes, "Is Friedman just being constantly accosted by anxious young Egyptian women seeking his sage advice about the future of their country? Isn't there anyone else they could talk to?"

Perhaps the usual taxi drivers haven't been talkative enough lately. Anyway, in the age of social media, this did not stop with Keating. Now there's a Tumblr: "Mr. Friedman, Could I Ask You a Question?" Among the (illlustrated) entries: " Mr Friedman, what’s the fastest way to get from Tajrish to Narmak if the Resalat Expressway is backed up?" and  "Mr. Friedman, how much saffron should I use in my zereshk polow?"  (These would, however, suggest that it isn't just Egyptian women who have need of Friedman's advice.)

Read, and contribute if the spirit moves.

suzeeinthecity: Cairo Graffiti for the Elections

The blogger suzeeinthecity has been documenting graffiti in Cairo ever since the revolution, and I've linked to her a number of times. Now she has a new post on the graffiti relating to the presidential elections. As usual, it's worth a perusal.

Since, as I've done before, I'm going to reproduce some of her graffiti, let me also note her notice/complaint to those who have taken without attribution. I've always attributed her as the source and linked to her post, but apparently others have not been so scrupulous. She says bloggers may use her work in exchange for linkbacks, duly provided here, and credit, but print publications need to pay for rights to her photos. I'm both giving credit and adding her copyright here, and urge others to respect her rights as well. A selection follows, but by all means go to her site.

A mural:

"Forget What is Past ..."

©suzeeinthecity

"...and Focus on the Elections"
 ©suzeeinthecity

Right to left below: Mubarak, Tantawi, Amr Moussa, Ahmad Shafiq. Caption: He who names a successor never dies."

©suzeeinthecity

Her comment on the below: "My favourite stencil: Justice has been made into a belly dancer, wearing a military beret and a moustache."

©suzeeinthecity

The military as puppeteer manipulating the Presidential candidates:

©suzeeinthecity

After the above was painted over, repainted with the two runoff candidates:

©suzeeinthecity

Nationalist icon and hero Saad Zaghloul's last words in 1927 were "Ma fish fayda," "it's no use. Here Saad Pasha is repeating them and giving the finger, which has been painted over:

©suzeeinthecity

Shafiq's Attacks on Brotherhood Getting Stranger and Stranger

I'm not an enthusiast for the Muslim Brotherhood; even if I wwere a political Islamists, which I clearly am not, I'd be bothered by their secrecy, their cell organization, their deference to a "Supreme Guide," and their track record on consistency: we won't run a Presidential candidate, no, never, right up until they do.

But Ahmad Shafiq's Presidential campaign has lately been painting the Brotherhood not just as a religious threat but as something downright bizarre. Even Husni Mubarak never accused the Brotherhood of — I am not making this up — planning to move Egypt's capital to Jerusalem and planning to sell the Suez Canal. Yes, Shafiq has made both assertions,though the first on may have been intended metaphorically. I'm not clear yet on why they would sell the canal.

The Brotherhood candidate, Muhammad Morsi, is attacking Shafiq as the neo-Mubarak, and at times Shafiq seems to be cultivating that image, appealing to the law-and-order vote, attacking the revolution or aspects of it, and using former National Democratic Party cadres as his power base, especially in the Delta. In turn, he portrays the Brotherhood as an extremist group of religious fanatics.

There are many who suspect that both candidates are right: one is the reincarnation of the old regime and the other is an extremist religious group. So what are the liberal revolutionaries to do? Apparently many are deciding which they consider the lesser evil. The overseas runoff vote turnout is reportedly quite low.

I'm reminded of this:

Arabic Really Must Still Be Dying: Even the New York Times Says So

It's been a while since we've had a "death of Arabic imminent" article, which I always enjoy dissecting; purists have been complaining about the threat to the language since the lexicographer Ibn Manzur back in the 13th century, when Persian was threatening it. These days the culprits are usually English or French, or the spoken dialects. You can find many of my earlier comments on these types of articles (a surprising number of which are published in the Middle East in either English or French, apparently without a sense of irony).

But it must be true. Now even The New York Times says so.

Actually, the key point that is apparent in the article but not in the headline is that this is talking about the Gulf, where English has long been the primary language of higher education, and where Modern Standard Arabic is often neglected after the primary grades. It's not surprising that graduates of some of the (US) universities in Doha have to offer courses to train Qataris and other Arabs to speak media Arabic well enough to appear on Al Jazeera. If (Modern Standard) Arabic really is under threat anywhere in the Arab world, it's the Gulf (and maybe still Algeria, where French still holds elite dominance).  The University of Qatar is switching its language of instruction to Arabic, and the Saudis and others are placing new restrictions on English.

So I won't be as snide about the "death of Arabic" theme as I usually am: in the Gulf, the story is not so exaggerated.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/world/middleeast/11iht-educlede11.html

Egypt State TV Suspends Anti-Foreigner Ads

Egyptian State TV has suspended (apparently not "pulled" for good as some are reporting) two public service announcements that had raised controversy by warning young Egyptians against associating with foreigners who, it suggests, are probably spies. The ads struck many as an odd approach for a country depended on tourism as a major source of revenue, though they seem to play into the theme of blaming the revolution on foreign agents and plots. The public service announcements are still appearing on some private channels.

The two ads are in the tradition of "loose lips sink ships"-type propaganda; the first warns against talking with foreigners, the second against interacting with then online.  Being introduced just a week before the Presidential election runoff adds to the curious questions.  Even if you don't understand any Arabic, I think the messages comes across:

Mind-Bending Headline to Start Your Week

A real headline from the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) from a couple of days ago: Kuwaiti Beach Volleyball Team Head to China.

Ponder that thought for a moment. Yes, Kuwait is sending a team of women players to China for the third Asian Beach Volleyball tournament. Yes, your immediate mental image was — well, you did try to picture a Kuwaiti beach volleyball team, didn't you?  And wonder about their, um, outfits?

But "out of adherence to Islam's teachings," we are told, "Kuwait players will wear modest uniform."

Oh.

"Mideast UFO" Captivates Social Media; Turns Out to Be Russian Missile Test

I think it was Ronald Reagan who once reflected that one thing that would end our geopolitical rivalries would be an alien invasion. Any hopes that Middle East tensions would be relieved by the arrival of aliens has faded, however, now that it appears the great "Mideast UFO" last night was nothing but a Russian ICBM test.

I have several things I'm working on that will turn up on the blog in the coming days, but I can't think of a better way to segué into the weekend than a good UFO story. Or even a so-so UFO story.

Actually, I shouldn't be so flippant. Many people in Syria thought the regime was launching a chemical weapons attack, a reminder that even something relatively harmless (and distant) can nevertheless cause panic in a tense situation. This Storify collection on the phenomenon, put together by Andy Carvin and giving a good view of the Twitter evolution on the story, includes tweets like these:

Now to the actual sighting. Let's start with this:


Some may recall a similar "spiral UFO" from Norway in 2009 that turned out to be a failed Russian missile test. So, apparently, is this one, though Russia claims the test hit its target in Kazakhstan, and space expert James Oberg explains here that the spiral is created by a roll aimed at dumping fuel before impact, so the test may have been successful. Although supposedly the missile impacted in Kazakhstan, it was apparently high enough above the horizon to appear nearly overhead in Turkey, Armenia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, among others.

You can find reportage and more videos at The Huffington Post, Zeinobia's Egyptian Chronicles blog, Zeinobia also tweeted a particularly Egyptian angle to the UFO:

So it appears this dramatic phenomenon was another Russian missile test, but it clearly caused a ruckus in the Middle East, especially in Syria, where rumors of a chemical weapons attack alarmed a great many people. But the aliens were just Russians this time.

Judith Yaphe on Maliki

I haven't been paying much attention to Iraq lately, despite the growing struggles between Prime Minister Maliki and his enemies; I've been diverted by Egypt and Syria and other places. Fortunately, Judith Yaphe has an analysis of Maliki's position at Foreign Policy, to which I refer you.

Ghassan Tueni, 1926-2012, Dies at 86

Al-Nahar

Ghassan Tueni, lynchpin of a Lebanese political and journalism family, has died at the age of 86. The son of the founder of the Beirut newspaper Al-Nahar, he himself served as its Editor-in-Chief and Publisher for half a century, before handing it off to his late son. He also served in the Lebanese Parliament and in several Cabinet positions, and as Lebanon's Ambassador to the United Nations. (Full disclosure: This obituary is partly based on those of Al-Nahar and Naharnet.)

His father, Gebran Tueni, founded Al-Nahar in 1933, seven years after Ghassan was born. A Greek Orthodox Christian, Tueni attended AUB, where he studied under Charles Malik, and was pursuing further studies at Harvard when he had to return to Beirut on his father's death in 1947. He took over Al-Nahar, and was its Editor-and Chief and Publisher from 1948 to 1999.  and again in 2003.

His first wife, the poet Nadia Hamadeh, of a prominent Druze family, died of cancer; he lost a daughter, Nayla, quite young, and a son, Marwan, in an auto accident. His son and heir, both at Al-Nahar and in Parliament, also named Gebran Tueni after Ghassan's father, was assassinated in a car bombing in 2005 in the wake of the Hariri assassination. He is survived by his second wife, Shadia Al-Khazen, and several grandhildren.

In 1951 he was elected to the Lebanese Parliament from Beirut he was its Deputy Speaker 1953-57. He sered ss Deputy Prime Minister in 1970-71 and Minister of Information and National Education. In1975-77 he was Minister of Tourism, Social Affairs, Industry, Labor, and Information. From 1977 to 1982, during the early years of the Lebanese Civil War, Tueni served as Lebanon's Ambassador to the United Nations.

After the younger Gebran Tueni's assassination, he served again in Parliament, in the "family" seat (the Greek Orthodox seat for Beirut), 2006-2009.

Though his politics, like those of any Lebanese in the civil war era and since, made him both allies and enemies, his role as one of the most prominent Arab journalists of the 20th century is indisputable.

Today's political cartoon in Al-Nahar:

New CNAS Report on Iran Nulclear Program

Colin H. Kahl, Melissa Dalton, and Matthew Irvine have a new report at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) on "Risk and Rivalry: Iran, Israel and the Bomb," which is getting a lot of attention for its apparent comprehensiveness. I haven't finished reading it but it seems a useful contribution to the debate. Excerpts from the Executive Summary:

A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a significant
challenge to U.S. and Israeli interests and would
increase the prospects for regional conflict.
Nevertheless, a preventive military strike against
Iran’s nuclear program by either the United States
or Israel at this time is not the best option, and
rushing to war would risk making the threat worse.

Although Iran could probably be deterred from
deliberately using or transferring nuclear weapons,
a nuclear-armed Iran would be a more dangerous
adversary in several respects. Believing that
its nuclear deterrent would make it immune from
retaliation, the Iranian regime would likely increase
its lethal support to proxies such as Hezbollah and
Hamas and commit more brazen acts of terrorism
abroad, thus creating more frequent arises in the
Levant. The Israeli-Iranian rivalry would be more
prone to crises, and these crises would entail some
inherent risk of inadvertent escalation to nuclear war.
Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons
should therefore remain an urgent priority for both
the United States and Israel.

Until Iran appears poised to weaponize its nuclear
capability, however, the preferable option is to
continue the current combination of pressure
and diplomacy. All options, including preventive
military action, should remain on the table, but
policymakers should recognize that the potential
risks and costs associated with using force are high.
Military action should remain a last resort, which
should be contemplated only by the United States
and only under stringent conditions.

Give it a look. The link above offers downloads in PDF, E-reader, and Kindle formats.

Minya Hoping Tourists Return to Amarna

Minya Montage (Wikipedia)

Reuters has a piece, "Egypt Province Hopes Vote Will End its Isolation," about the Middle Egyptian city and Governorate of Minya. While I doubt that the Presidential election results will directly resuscitate tourism in Minya, a return to something like normal life in Egypt may well do so.

Though I suspect a lot of non-Egypt-hands have never heard of Minya, it is a major city and university town and has been a center of radical Islamist politics; during the violence between Al-Gamalsquo;a al-Islamiyya and the state in the 1990s it was a center of frequent clashes. As a region with a high Coptic population as well as a  hotbed of Islamism, sectarian conflicts have been frequent.

As the article notes, Minya used to be a stop for tourist cruises going up the Nile, and the base for visits to the ruins of Tell El Amarna, the ancient capital (Akhetaten)  of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten. Amarna is of course one of the key archaeological sites in Egypt,though less visited than Luxor, Aswan, and the Pyramids around Cairo.

Akhenaten

Since Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti are rather famous for his religious innovations and her famous bust, and he is the predecessor and usually presumed to be the father of Tutankhamen, one of the few Pharaohs most tourists have heard of,Amarna should probably be a more frequented site than it was even before the troubles of the 1990s killed the limited tourist trade that existed.

With Gun to Heads, Egyptian Parties Cut a Deal on Constitution

Laboring through the night under a drop-dead deadline this afternoon, Egypt's political parties have agreed on a formula for representation on the new Constitutonal Assembly. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had given a 48-hour ultimatum on Tuesday, saying that if the political players did not reach an agreement by this afternoon, SCAF itself would unilaterally issue an "amended Constitutional Declaration" and do so itself.

By most accounts, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Al-Nour party were the sticking points as they wanted to assure for themselves the same dominance of the Constituent Assembly that they enjoy in Parliament; as recently as last night the parties were said to be still at loggerheads. Many analyses saw the SCAF deadline as a sign of a growing rift between the Brotherhood and SCAF

No official results have been announced, but Ahram Online reported that:

After hours of wrangling at the meeting that began Wednesday and ended at 4am Thursday, the parties agreed that 39 of the 100 seats on the constituent assembly would be given to political parties, of which the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) would hold 16; the Salafist Nour Party eight; the liberal Wafd Party five; the Free Egyptians Party two; the Egyptian Social Democratic Party two; and one each for the moderate-Islamist Wasat Party, the Nasserist Karama Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the liberal Reform and Development Party and the Islamist Building and Development Party.

The Egypt Independent adds somewhat different details:

Wafd Party leader Al-Sayed al-Badawy, who has been presiding over the negotiations on the Constituent Assembly, announced the results of the meeting. 

The assembly has been split straight down the middle between Islamists and non-Islamists, signaling a victory for secular and liberal forces after the initial formation had a decidedly Islamist majority. The 50/50 split was reached after Jama’a al-Islamiya agreed to give up its two seats.

It was also agreed that in order to pass a proposed article for the new constitution, the article must be approved by a 67 percent vote. If the article does not garner the required percentage of votes, it would be reworded and then voted on again, with only 57 percent needed to pass it the second time.

Shades of Carrie Nation: The Salafi War on Liquor Stores and Bars in Tunisia.

Steve Inskeep at NPR is on a "Revolutionary Road Trip" across North Africa, and in his report "Once Tolerated, Alcohol Now Creates Rift in Tunisia." he tells this story of a hotel where he stopped:

Over dinner in the hotel restaurant, one of my traveling companions ordered a beer, only to have a staff member in his red blazer inform us sadly that the hotel did not serve alcohol. Later, the staff member whispered more of the story: If we had only arrived sooner, he would have been able to serve the beer.

A few days before our visit, he said, conservative religious activists came to the hotel and objected to the serving of alcohol, particularly on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

Tunisia has long cultivated a variety of decent wines, and brews a decent French-style beer called Celtia; its tourist industry is  major currency earner,  Though the Ixlamist Al-Nahda Party has a plurality in Parliament, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has insisted that there'll be no banning of the "booze and bikinis" being targeted in other countries. Well, the government isn't banning anything. Alcohol is still very much fully legal in Tunisia.. But as the anecdote above shows, some Islamists — the hardcore Salafis, not Al-Nahda, at least so far — are resorting to bullying, as in this story, or worse, smashing up and burning liquor stores and bars.

In recent weeks, radical Salafis have attacked establishments selling liquor in several places. On May 19 there was an organized attack on bars and liquor stores in Sidi Bouzid, where the Revolution was first sparked. Police were apparently passive, but after things got out of hand, the Justice Minister warned of harsh consequences.

Those who attacked liquor stores crossed the “red lines,” according to the minister. Bhiri said that there can be no “state within a state” and the culprits would be severely punished.
The statement came in response to the Salafist assault on bars as well as the house of a bar owner on Saturday (May 19^th) night, which resulted in an armed melee. The owner of the bar retaliated by firing on the Al-Rahma Mosque.

It sounds as if the barkeep might have been sampling his own product. Then in the northwestern town of Jendouba, sc3ne of confrontations over the wearing of niqab at the local university, masked "Salafis" attacked and burned bars, and also the police station for good measure,  There was some dispute about the identity of the attackers:

The perpetrators themselves, as well as the Jendouba residents, defined these individuals as  ”Salafists,” but Achraf believes that this may not entirely be the case. In his eyes, the wrongdoers described themselves as religiously conservative Salafists solely as a pretext to justify their actions. “These people pretend to be Salafist, but they used to be thugs. The people of Jendouba know them really well,” he asserted.

Though the government is pledging to stop such attacks, the NPR anecdote suggests many establishments are going dry out of fear.

Carrie Nation & Hatchet

Shades of Carrie Nation. The Salafis, and perhaps others of my overseas readers, may not be familiar with the singular career of Ms. Nation 1846-1911), an American temperance crusader whose formidable visage, and emblematic hatchet, appear at left. Wikipedia explains the origin of the hatchet and her attacks on saloons at the turn of the last century:

Nation continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, "That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you."^[2] The couple divorced in 1901, not having had any children.^[9]
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Her actions often did not include other people, just herself. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times for "hatchetations," as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets.^[10] In April 1901 Nation came to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various bars on 12th Street in Downtown Kansas City.^[11] She was arrested, hauled into court and fined $500 ($13,400 in 2011 dollars),^[12] although the judge suspended the fine so long as Nation never returned to Kansas City.^[13]

Carrie Nation, proto-Salafi?

UPDATE: I missed this post on thr Kefteji blog about the sort of down-market (what in Egypt would be called baladi) bars and liquor stores, which aren't what tourists would see on Avenue Bourguiba. Definitely read it. I hadn't seen it yet, though we seem to have used the same picture of Celtia.

For D-Day: Remembering a Decorated Moroccan Regiment in the Liberation of France

Emblem, 1er Spahis Marocains

Today is the 68th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy. Usually when we talk of World War II, even the North African campaigns, the fighting in Syria and Lebanon, the interventions in Iraq and Iran, we picture Europeans fighting in Middle Eastern countries, and rarely think of Middle Easterners unless it is Anwar Sadat being arrested for links to a German spy, or Moshe Dayan losing an eye fighting against Vichy in Lebanon. Not only do we forget the many French colonials who fought in the Free French Forces, but so do their countrymen today, since having fought for the colonial power is often, But North Africans fought and died not only in North Africa and the Middle East, but also in the liberation of Italy and of France itself. That they fought under a colonial flag has dimmed their memory at home. I thought a suitable D-Day commemoration might be to remember one of them.

None seem to have actually landed at Normandy on June 6, but many were already on French soil, having landed with the Dragoon landings in the South of France. (The only Free French engaged on D-Day were paratroops.) But General Leclerc's Second Armored Division, consisting of many North African, West African, and Equatorial African units (not all of indigenous troops: the Chasseurs d'Afrique were largely Algerian pieds noirs, French and other European colonials, and the Foreign Legion units of course were international, but French-officered). Leclerc's troops famously took the lead (with Allied consent) in the liberation of Paris. I thought for D-Day I'd note a Moroccan unit that had a distinguished career. The 1er Regiment de Marche de Spahis Marocains not only fought well in Europe but in other theaters as well. The regiment holds the Croi de Guerre and the Liberation Cross. When the last Spahi (native cavalry) units were disbanded in 1962 with Algerian independence, the 1st Regiment of Spahis (no longer Marocains) was retained, and continues as the inheritor of the tradition of all the Spahi units. For the current unit and its history, see here (official page, in French). For its history, there is an English Wikipedia page,  and a more detailed account in French here

The regiment was created in 1914 as a light cavalry unit by General (later Marshal) Lyautey, and served on the Marne and then on the Greek front. It then was deployed to Syria and Lebanon when France occupied its mandates there. Like all Spahi units, the officers were French.

At the time of the fall of France it was stationed in Syria. At the Fall of France part of the force crossed into Transjordan and Palestine to join British forces, and became part of the Free French forces, The still-Vichy part of the force later fought against the Allies in Morocco. The Free French unit was mechanized (it had been horse cavalry up till then) and the personnel came to include more French, though it remained a Moroccan unit. It fought with the British in Eritrea and in the North African campaign, and joined Leclerc's Second Armored Division as a reconnaissance unit. It landed at Normandy August 1 with Leclerc, took part in the Liberation of Paris, and sustained heavy casualties in fighting in France and Germany, and took part in the capture of Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden.

After the war it served for a time in the occupation of Germany, and also saw action in the French Indochina War. Its successor unit in the French Army saw action in  Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

The regimental campaign flag:

Tunisia: Ben Ali's 50 Cars to Be Auctioned Off

The first eight of some 50 cars owned by the family of deposed Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali have been shown to the public prior to auction.

The auction included two Fiat 500s, a Berlingo, a Mercedes 200, a Cabriolet, a Patrol Nissan, a Golf4, and an Isuzu D-Max. Tunisians from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds seized the opportunity to scrutinize the cars of their former ruling family.
According to Mohamed Lassad Hmaied, a member of the Management Commission, the remaining 42 cars — including Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Cadillacs — will be exposed to the public at El Kram fair, held during the months of July and August.

It isn't clear how many family members used these 50 cars.


My family has a Kia and a Saturn, but can't auction them as we need then, Sorry, you'll hae to try for the Lamborghinis.

The Real Khaled Said

Khaled Said, the young Egyptian beaten to death by police after his arrest at an Alexandria Internet cafe in 2010, two years ago today, became the icon of the Egyptian Revolution, with "We are all Khaled Said" the name of the Facebook page that helped organize the original demonstrations. Now Amro Ali at Jadaliyya offers us a detailed look at the real, not the mythic, Khaled Said: "Saeeds of Revolution: De-Mythologizing Khaled Saeed.":

Has Tahrir, Divided between Secularists and Islamists, Lost its Effeciveness?

Just as Tahrir Square in Cairo filled with demonstrators after the verdict in the President Mubarak case, so it filled again today in a demonstration aimed at protesting the candidacy of Ahmad Shafiq. But the crowd was divided between the liberal revolutionaries of various stripes on the one hand, who want to see a "Presidential Council" set up consisting of Presidential candidates other than Shafiq, in place of holding the election runoffs, and then writing the constitution and holding new elections, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to see Shafiq disqualified from running, but opposes the Presidential Council idea.  The Brotherhood candidate, Muhammad Morsi, is of course in the runoff, and hardly eager to see the runoff canceled. They seem to have canceled each other out:

The revolutionaries may well see Tahrir through a romantic lens as an empowering symbol of the great days of January and February 2011, but then Tahrir was the focus of a nationwide revolt with smaller demonstrations throughout the country. Today, Ben Wedemann of CNN noted that:

and linked to thjs photo:

Although many of the revolutionaries responded to the verdict by calling for a renewed revolution, there are some uncomfortable facts facing them this time. Despite many claims of rigging to guarantee that Shafiq, the perceived candidate of the old regime, made it into the runoff, no one has brought forth genuinely incriminating proof.  Assuming the results resemble the truth, nearly half the electorate voted for the two top vote-getters. (And by the same token, just over half voted for others.) The "Presidential Council" approach, especially since Morsi rejects it, is a non-starter, and if, as some are pledging, ex-candidates Sabahi, Abu'l-Futuh and Khalid Ali proclaim it on their own, it will be an empty gesture with no legality. As liberal Member of Parliament and longtime democracy activist Amr Hamzawy has noted, it would in fact be a "coup d'etat against democracy."

Some of the revolutionaries seem to recognize this:


Sarah A. Topol at Foreign Policy has a piece on the growing "revolutionary soul-searching." She captures the confusion about what to do next:

The renewed revolutionary zeal has buoyed activists' shared assumption that they are not alone in their fight. But on the million-dollar question of what to do next -- boycott the vote entirely, approach Morsy with demands for concessions in exchange for political support, push a "nullification campaign" to convince 51 percent of voters to spoil their ballots, or plug an initiative for a five-member presidential advisory council -- some stalwart activists remain torn.

She finds some of the revolutionaries willing to recognize that they made tactical mistakes:

Everyone readily admits that after deposing Mubarak, the revolutionaries did not have a post-Tahrir plan, and time and again, they fell back on their mainstay tactic of protesting in the street when military rulers did something they didn't like -- shutting down central Cairo and sending the local economy into a tailspin. Although they won concessions at times, most Egyptians lost patience with the instability and yearned for security.
"We were so keen to ensure that we would not start anything to get [personal] benefits and do everything for the sake of the country, and to ensure this, I think we harmed the country," said Islam Lotfi, a member of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition and a founder of the Egyptian Current, a political party created by Muslim Brotherhood Youth members who were kicked out of the Islamist group last spring. The coalition, for example, refused to negotiate with SCAF shortly after Mubarak's fall on the grounds that they didn't want to say they represented the Egyptian people -- thereby losing a valuable bargaining chip.

She quotes another who agrees, but does so more concisely and pungently (language warning, but I'm just quoting Foreign Policy so don't complain to me):

But whatever happens next, there is widespread agreement that the revolutionaries' performance since the magical 18 days of protest that ended Mubarak's reign has been nothing short of disastrous. "We fucked up a lot," said Ahmed Hawary, a leading member of Our Right who ran as part of a liberal coalition in last year's parliamentary election and was defeated. "We're always fucking up. Since day one, it's all a series of being fucked over by our own decisions. Since March 2011, it's downhill all the way from there."

I would agree, but add that SCAF,  which began the revolutionary era as the people's ally and is today opposed by almost everyone except Shafiq's voters, has also, in Hawary's accurate if inelegant phrasing, "fucked up a lot."  Many decisions made by SCAF have been every bit as bad as those made by the revolutionaries, especially holding Parliamentary and Presidential elections before. We've all been plagued by the question of whether SCAF is massively incompetent or genuinely malevolent; I think a lot of people have concluded that it is both. But within this highly imperfectly managed transition, Egyptians did vote. There has been no convincing proof of massive fraud, or fraud entirely on one side.

I would not want to have to choose, as Egyptians must, between a remnant of the old regime and a Muslim Brother. Shafiq still faces corruption charges as well as the question of the Parliamentary law that banned candidacies by key members of the Mubarak regime; either might still disqualify him constitutionally, but the time for that is fast running out.

Ironically, the growing hostility of the left and middle of the secular vote to Shafiq is likely to drive a portion of the non-Islamist vote to bite the bullet and vote for Morsi as the lesser evil (an unproven judgment). But one thing seems clear: however angry and frustrated the massed demonstrators in Tahrir may be, the Muslim Brotherhood half of the square knows exactly what it wants, while the secular half seems increasingly bewildered.

The Fifth of June: The "Naksa" Plus 45 Years

Forty-five years ago today, on June 5, 1967, in the midst of a continuing Middle East crisis, Israel struckl pre=emptively against Arab Air Forces and, in six days, won one of the most decisive short wars in modern times. It also created the Middle East we've been dealing with for the past four and a half decades.  Later wars and peace treaties have changed the details, but all one has to do is realize how often we talk about "the 1967 borders" to confirm that those six days in June created the Middle East we know today. They shattered Gamal Abdel Nasser's reputation and, though he lived another three years, his real era ended with the war. Having dubbed tghe 1948 war that produced Israeli independence the nakba, or catastrophe, the Arab world came to refer to the 1967 war as the naksa, the "setback."

SInce this is the fourth June since I started blogging, I've posted a lot about the war in the past. Rather than repeat myself, I'll just link to myself. My 1967 war tag will bring up previous links, but rather than repeat myself, let me link to them individually:

June 5, 2009: June 5, 42 Years On: Some of the 'What Ifs?'" 

June 5, 2010: June 5, After 43 Years

June 9, 2010: The USS Liberty Incident: Still Starting Fights After All These Years

June 10, 2010: And on the Sixth Day ... 

June 15, 2010: Levi Eshkol in the Six-Day War 

June 6, 2011: June 5, 44 Years and a Day Later

Of course you'll find a lot under my Nasser tagged posts as well, and then there was my recent post on the death of Zakaria Mohieddin.

A Tribute to Muhammad Naguib

Longtime readers know I have done my best to remind people of Egypt's largely forgotten first President, Muhammad Naguib. He spent much of his life as a nonperson, only emerging in ailing old age under Mubarak,who attended his funeral. On the Cairo Metro, Nasser, Sadat, and the former Mubarak (now Martyrs') Stations were major hubs on the first line; Naguib eventually got a local stop on the second line.

This photo tribute to Naguib was posted on Bassem Sabry's "An Arab Citizen" blog last year, but I only just was directed to it. It's a great collection, including this memorable one, above left, of Naguib in old age:

Spiegel on Israel's German Subs, Nukes

 Der Spiegel has an in-depth report (English version here) on Germany's role in providing Israel with submarines, and asserts that the subs carry nuclear-capable cruise missiles. It's a detailed account, with much detail on the history of German (and formerly, West German)-Israeli defense cooperation.

Though it asserts the nuclear capability of the subs, of course no official, German or Israeli, is likely to confirm that on the record, not while Israel continues its official "ambiguity" about its nuclear arsenal.

On the other hand, the assumption the subs, which are known to have cruise missile capability, may carry  nukes on those missiles, is hardly headline news. The subs are widely seen as Israel's "second strike" capability, the deterrent against anyone launching a pre-emptive nuclear attack aimed at neutralizing Israel's land-based nukes.

Does anyone think this articles appearance at this time is purely coincidence, and has nothing to do with Iran?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israel-deploys-nuclear-weapons-on-german-built-submarines-a-836784.html

Husni's Got Those Tura Prison Blues

I hear the train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend,
And I ain't seen the sunshine,
Since, I don't know when,
I'm stuck in Tura Prison,
And time keeps draggin' on,

(With my sincerest apologies to the estate of Johnny Cash)

The Egyptian and Arab media has been a bit preoccupied with the Big Man's first days in the Big House. After the verdict Saturday in which former President Husni Mubarak was sentenced to life imprisonment, he apparently boarded the helicopter which brought him to the court expecting to be returned to his suite at the International Medical Center where he has spent the months of the trial. When the helicopter landed instead at the notorious Tura Prison outside of Cairo, Mubarak reportedly refused to disembark for some two hours. Some reports say three.

Based upon this summary of the Egyptian papers, Al-Wafd is reporting he has treated the warden as if he were still President and kicked out all his nurses; AL-Shorouk reports he passed out three times while being checked in to the prison hospital, and demanded that his personal staff be transferred from the International Medical Center, which was denied. Also:

Al-Shorouk’s coverage also includes a moment of Shakespearean self-reflection, with Mubarak reportedly overheard wondering aloud, “What will come after the sentencing of Mubarak? What else is there to be desired after all that has taken place?” The paper reports: “[Mubarak] then began shouting, ‘May God punish those responsible for sending me to jail, this is unjust! Unjust! I have always been with the people,’ before surrendering to sleep until the morning.”

Forgive me if I suspect Al-Shorouk here of the old Egyptian journalistic tactic known in the trade as "just plain making stuff up.

Some reports say his son was allowed to spend the night with him, but the official press reports say he had to spend the night alone.  Suzanne Mubarak and the two daughters-in-law have visited him in prison.

It's also been reported that he rejected wearing prison uniform, and Al-Ahram says he may be exempted.

One reason for the fascination with Mubarak's life in prison is, of course, the rarity of a deposed President ending up in prison after an actual judicial trial, as opposed to a coup. As well as, of course, the "how the mighty have fallen" aspect, and the irony that Tura prison has a long reputation as the repository of political prisoners. (I plan to post soon on the prison's history. As noted last year, it may have been founded  on the very day Mubarak was born.) And perhaps the media hopes to defuse anger about the sentence, or reports de-emphasizing the life sentence and noting that Mubarak will be eligible for parole in 25 years. (When he will be 109. But some people seem angry he could get out that soon.) Perhaps, too, they want to emphasize he really is in jail, since some reports of his suite at the International Medical Center emphasized he had several rooms for visitors, and a pool.

With renewed apologies to the Johnny Cash estate:

I bet there's rich folks eatin',
In a fancy dining car,
They're probably drinkin' coffee,
And smokin' big cigars,
But I know I had it comin',
I know I can't be free,
But those people keep a-movin',
And that's what tortures me.

Well, if they freed me from this prison,
If that railroad train was mine,
I bet I'd move out over a little,
Farther down the line,
Far from Tura Prison,
That's where I want to stay,
And I'd let that lonesome whistle,
Blow my Blues away.
 

Nostalgia to Start the Week

I'm sure the week will be full of turmoil in Egypt, bloodshed in Syria, and all the usual angst, so let's start with something different.

Via Blogger Diana Buja and other sources, some nostalgia to start the week (those with Arabic narration are worth watching even if you don't know the language, and some are silent):

Qasr al-Nil bridge, the Nile bridge in Cairo which leads into what is today Midan al-Tahrir, has become familiar to the world. Here it is in earlier days:



Old silent clip on Egypt:



A collection of old Lehnert & Landrock photos:



Scenes of daily life in Cairo, late 1800s:

The Verdict: Life. So Why is Everyone So Angry?

When I woke thus morning I checked my phone for news headlines and learned the verdict in Mubarak's case was life imprisonment. Given his age, any sentence was likely to mean he would end his days in (possibly comfortable) custody, and it seemed a judicious judgment to me: no one really expected they sere going to impose a death sentence, and it seemed harsh enough to satisfy all but the most bloodthirsty, while an acquittal would provoke outrage. I thought it was probably going to be an acceptable decision.

Qasr al-Nil Bridge

I'm sure that for many, it is. What the headline alone did not disclose, however, was the fact that only Mubarak and Interior Minister Habib al-Adly received life sentences; everyone else, the Mubarak sons, the senior police and State Security officials, were acquitted.

Mohammed Mahmoud
 by AUC Graffiti Wall

Assembling in Tahrir

As the crowds erupted in demonstrations all over Egypt, reporters have had no trouble finding protesters who are calling for execution, and perhaps are missing finding the more nuanced view of those who are most outraged by acquittals of all but the top two men. (Don't we all remember pictures of Mubarak and Adly, standing alone shoulder to shoulder, gunning down protesters as the State Security forces looked on in horror? Me neither.) Others are worried on legal grounds that because the prosecution did not call every potential witness nor introduce every piece of evidence, the verdict has set up a scenario for the Court of Cassation to void the sentence on appeal, and everybody gets off scot free. (Part of the case might be: if all the lower-echelon police generals and heads were innocent, how can the two top bosses be guilty?)

Tahrir tonight

I suspect, too, that a lot of the outpouring into the streets today is a response not just to the verdict, but to the result of the first round of Presidential elections. First, the revolution seems about to end in either the  bang of a Muslim Brotherhood President and Parliament or the whimper of a neo-Mubarak in the person of Gen. Shafiq; then comes the verdict which, if at first seeming to be a stiff one for Mubarak and Adly, on reflection seems to have punished only the figureheads and left untouched those who actually gave the order to fire.

Tahrir After Dark

Whether today's huge outpourings are transient or a sign of renewed confrontation remains to be seen. The Brotherhood's candidate, Morsi, is said to be in the square, along with several of the failed Presidential candidates. The Brotherhood missed out on the initial revolutionary fervor last year and doesn't want to make that mistake again.

There was already a lot of anger and frustration after the elections, in which the revolutionaries found that sometimes democracy doesn't produce the result you dreamt it would; but other than denouncing Shafiq there was no great rallying point. Now the frustration is shared by many, including the Islamists, who were content with the electoral results. This could provide fuel for a rough runoff campaign and new violence.

Would the results of the election have been different if the verdict had come first? The Arabist labels as "Pic of the Day" this one of Hamdeen Sabahi crowd-surfing in the Tahrir protesters: and remember, he ran a rather close third behind Morsi and Shafiq. (Note: flag in foreground with green stripe is the Free Syrian flag):

Backgrounders for the Mubarak Verdict Tomorrow

The Mubarak verdict should come down in the morning. I'll try to post on it some time over the weekend but family commitments may slow down my posting, but here are a couple of backgrounders to understand the results, whichever way it goes:

• A Human Rights Watch Q&A on the trial and the charges;
• Zeinobia's blog has  the basic stats and numbers on the trial.
• A timeline of the trial from Ahram Online.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is in a guesthouse in Jidda and Mu‘ammar Qadhafi is dead; only Mubarak, so far, has faced a court. As I noted earlier a small army of 20,000 police and security forces and 160 armored vehicles are reportedly being deployed around where the court is sitting.

Egypt's Hobson's Choice: Rock or Hard Place?

from April 6 Movement

It's been a week now since Egypt's election results became clear and it became rather obvious that the two candidates left standing were about the most polarized choice possible: the Muslim Brother and the fallul, the Old Regime remnant. Mubarak always said the only choice was him or the Brotherhood, and his prophecy seems fulfilled: Shafiq is a former Air Force commander, facing charges of corruption already.

I have held off on long analysis, posting mostly on specific developments, but as this runoff gathers speed I want to finally take a shot at it. I assume my readers have been following the commentary on the subject, but especially want to note the pieces by Marc Lynch, The Arabist (of several posts, especially "Why Accept These Elections?"),  Magdy Samaan,  Mirette Mabrouk, Barbara Slavin on the reaction here in Washington, VJ Um Amel at JAdaliyya on Twitter, Hani Shukrullah in Ahram Online, and many more. There is a huge body of commentary already out there; perhaps I'm not going to add much here, but I'll try.

You also need to study these maps from Ahram Online, showing how the vote broke down by candidate and governorate. Let me start with this pie chart from that source:

Ahram Online

The electorate did not split between Morsi and Shafiq: they each took about a quarter; the other three candidates split just over half among them. A slight increase would have pushed Sabahi (Sabbahi here) past Shafiq. What is in fact striking is the degree to which this was a five-man race, though only two could be in the runoff. Only about half of eligible voters voted, and the results split five ways to all intents and purposes (the remaining candidates being marginal). Here:

Ahram Online

The results weren't polarized but spread across a spectrum, but the two survivors happen to represent the most extreme poles. Complaints that "5 million shouldn't decide for 50 million [eligible voters]" aren't really valid; the vote was genuinely diverse. As Marc Lynch put it:

It's important to keep the results in perspective.   The results look less surprising once it's recognized that the two most powerful forces in Egypt won the first round.  Neither did especially well.  The Muslim Brotherhood won 25%, which is just about exactly where most experts have pegged their popular support for years and is significantly lower than in the Parliamentary elections.  Another quarter of the vote went to the SCAF's candidate, Shafik, likely reflecting the widespread reality of popular exhaustion with the revolution.  Neither of those results should be a surprise.  The real tragedy is that the center, just as many had warned, destroyed itself by failing to unite around a single candidate and dividing the remaining 50% of the vote among three candidates.  This too, alas, should not be a surprise.

In fact, the elections also reveal the profound differences between the two metropolises and the rest of Egypt, a problem often commented upon but rarely fully appreciated during and since the revolution. Hamdeen Sabahi led strongly in Cairo and Alexandria. Morsi and the Brotherhood swept Upper Egypt, though Shafiq ran strong there as well. Shafiq carried the Delta strongly, except for Alexandria.

Ahram Online

Let's leave aside the question of whether there was any rigging. Some have raised the fact that a large number of new voters were registered since the Parliamentary vote last year and that this somehow favored Shafiq. Maybe it did, but increasing voter registration in itself is a standard tactic of candidates anywhere, unless they weren't actually eligible. Despite lots of rumors, the observers of the elections didn't detect huge systematic fraud. The five-way split looks like no Egyptian election in history, even in the pre-1952 period. The election was a success, but the polarized second round raises tensions all around. One side is for God and the other side is for Law and Order, and the voters are left with a choice which, based on the pie chart above, fully half of them rejected in round one: they are left voting for the lesser of what they already determined are two evils.

Many say, of course, that you can get it right four years from now. But many suspect the Muslim Brotherhood, and more probably suspect Shafiq the Mini-Mubarak, might not in fact yield power to new elections in four years, or five, or whatever (remember, the Constitution is still to be written). Morsi says he will govern with all elements of society and respect women's right to dress as they please, and might ("might")  even have a Copt for Vice President. But he, his FJP Party and the Brotherhood itself all promised they wouldn't run a candidate for President right up to the moment they did so, so some reason exists to doubt their promises. As for Shafiq, he has reportedly told businessmen he would use executions if needed to restore order within a month, which is hardly reassuring. Egyptians just had their first competitive Presidential election and now must choose between two men neither of whom seems to reassure them they will have another in just a few years.

There is much more to say. I'll be returning to the subject. Meanwhile, another commentary from the great middle ground who found themselves with a Hobson's choice: the banner says "The difference between Morsi and Shafiq is like the difference between a disaster and a black [worse] disaster."

Mubarak Trial Verdict: What Impact on the Presidential Vote?

The verdict in the trial of deposed Egyptian President Husni Mubarak is due tomorrow. Reports that "20,000 police and 160 tanks" will be deployed around the Police Academy where the trial has been held may suggest that the authorities suspect that the verdict (do they know it already?) may provoke public outrage. That may suggest they expect a relatively light verdict, if not an acquittal, though of course they may just be taking precautions whatever the verdict may be.

Although theoretically the court could impose the death penalty, they aren't going to do that on a dying 84-year-old, unless they immediately commute it on the spot. Some kind of serious-sounding sentence, even if it just means Mubarak ends his days under house (or hospital) arrest, seems more likely, though a really lenient finding (acquittal, a minor slap on the wrist of some sort) could provoke outrage.

Now that one of the two Presidential candidates, Ahmad Shafiq, is an old crony of Mubarak's, a fellow ex-Air Force chief and Mubarak's last Prime Minister (and the man who carried Mubarak's home province of Menufiyya overwhelmingly), it's clear that the verdict could have some impact on the Presidential runoff. But what impact, precisely? Would sympathy for Mubarak (if the sentence is harsh) strengthen Shafiq, or would a lenient sentence raise fears that Shafiq represents a return of Mubarakism (lots of people believe that already, including many of Shafiq's supporters who are old NDP types) and lead to a backlash against Shafiq? The exact affect depends on the verdict of course.

What seems certain is that, with Shafiq and the Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi as the candidates, Mubarak's fate will become a campaign issue beginning tomorrow and probably continuing to the vote.  With the campaign already dividing between the religious candidate and the law and order security candidate (where's the fix-the-economy candidate, anyway?), the verdict will just polarize the debate even further.

What's in a Name? In Parts of Iraq, Your Name Might Get You Shot

Here's an interesting recent piece from the Iraqi news site Niqash, called "What's in a Name? Iraqis at Risk for Having 'Dangerous' First Names." At least in Mosul and Ninawa province, parents of newborns are increasingly giving their newborns names that don't reveal their sectarian affiliation since Sunni-Shi‘ite violence is a continuing threat. And it's not just newborns:

Thamer also points out that in Ninawa a lot of people have two identity cards – one with their real name and another with a fake name, depending on where they live or work or which areas they need to pass through. This is because some neighbourhoods or localities in Ninawa are inhabited by mostly Sunni Muslims and others are populated by mostly Shiite Muslims.

Most of the people with two identity cards are truck or taxi drivers, Thamer notes. Every day Sunni Shiite drivers must pass through Shiite Muslim dominated areas and vice versa.

Take Siddiq for example. He is a Sunni Muslim and his real first name is Abu Bakr – in scripture, the latter was a close companion of the Prophet Mohammed but whether he was a meritorius individual is something that Shiite and Sunni Muslims disagree on.

Siddiq’s younger brother was a taxi driver like him; he was killed by extremists while driving the road between Mosul and Baghdad. “He was just a taxi driver and he was only murdered because his name was Umar,” Siddiq tells sadly.

 And there was a post-2003 rush to change names for another reason:

“People were obsessed with changing their names,” the employee remembers. “And especially those who were named after Saddam or those who had very Baath names.” And by this, he means names that were particularly Arabist or nationalist in nature. At the time, the rush for name changes caused his department to put more restrictions on the practice in an attempt to maintain some order and their records correctly.

This is Making the Rounds

Said to originate with Mim Nash on Facebook. Brilliant.