As Women Fight Back in Tahrir, TV Sheikh Explains they are "Crusaders" with "Fuzzy Hair" Who "Want to Be Raped."

Now, there have been some "crazy sheikh/crazy fatwa" stories where I've debunked or at least questioned the story, but every so often a real Salafi says something so incredibly offensive and ourageous that to call him a Neanderthal would be a slur on homo neanderthalensis. This is one of those times.

Salafi preacher Ahmad Mahmud Abdullah, known as "Sheikh Abu Islam," has his own "Umma" TV station in Egypt. On Wednesday he explained what's really going on with the resistance to sexual assault in Tahrir (see my recent post on the subject):

They tell you women are a red line. They tell you that naked women -- who are going to Tahrir Square because they want to be raped -- are a red line! And they ask Mursi and the Brotherhood to leave power! ... And by the way, 90 percent of them are crusaders and the remaining 10 percent are widows who have no one to control them. You see women talking like monsters ... You see a woman with this fuzzy hair! A devil! Devils called women. Learn from Muslim women, learn and be Muslims. (text from Al-Arabiya English)

Well,thank you for clearing that up. As a husband and the father of a daughter, my first reaction is that this man is a shame and scandal to a great religion. (That is not entirely true. My first reaction is that he is an asshole, but I'm not sure I can say "asshole" here, or the obvious adjective that goes with it.*[See note below.] My second (or really third) reaction is to wonder if Egyptian law allows one to charge a man who has just given religious sanction to rape, on television.

Al-Arabiya has a video with an English translation which is at the link above; this YouTube is of the Al-Arabiya video though apparently posted by an Islam-bashing site (I can't find an embed function at the original), but I post it because this has nothing to do with Islam.

Fuzzy hair? Huh? And they're going naked to Tahrir Square? Why is the mainstream media hiding the pictures of the fuzzy-haired naked women Crusaders? And he calls the women "monsters"? I pity his wife (wives?) and daughters. This man has a TV station and all I have is a blog?

*I can, however, with a suitable language warning (as I've done from time to time), quote a third party, in this case a tweet from Egyptian-American commentator Mona ElTahawy, who gives him his due:

 Yeah. That's about right.In fact, there's a certain eloquence to "fucking misogynist shit" that I probably wouldn't have used in my own voice.

Jebali and Al-Nahda Spar Over Dissolution

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali's announced intention of dissolving the government and forming a technocratic cabinet has been rejected by his own al-Nahda Party, which says he doesn't habe the power to do it. No one seems to know for sure if he does or doesn't; they're still writing the Constitution. But Jebali is al-Nahda's Secretary-General. Does this portend a split in the party, or will Jebali back down, or will the party?

Tomorrow there's a general strike in the offing. Things could go downhill fast, if these issues aren't resolved.

Have We All Been Too Complacent About Tunisia?

Yesterday's assassination of Chokri Belaid in Tunis has had a profound impact on the situation in Tunisia, far exceeding the political clout of Belaid's leftist party: the Prime Minister says he is dissolving the government and creating a technocratic Cabinet of national unity; the leftist and some other secular parties are withdrawing from the Constituent Assembly, and the country is rocked by disorders.

Over the two years since the Tunisian Revolution, I think the Western commentariat has been rather complacent about Tunisia, myself included.  It's a small country, one that's always seemed peaceful and comfortably Westernized. Riots over wearing niqab in the university, or violent attacks on art galleries, bars, or Sufi saint's tombs seemed to be growing pains, the actions of a radical minority. Egypt, so much bigger and so much more central, was also far more dramatic, with dozens dead just in the latest rounds of clashes.

The secularists were warning that the dominant al-Nahda was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and even came up with a secret video of Rached Ghannouchi, al-Nahda's seemingly moderate leader, suggesting alternative agendas. My last post on the Salafi-vs-Sufi saints vandalism, on the burning of the tomb of Sidi Bou Said, was something of a personal complaint since "they" attacked the place where I spent my honeymoon. Lately the transition process has bogged down over negotiations for a Cabinet reshuffle, but that, too, seemed routine: God knows, we understand partisan gridlock here in Washington these days.

The pundits are trying to catch up; so are the human rights groups; and some are drawing what I hope are extreme historical parallels.

I think many of us have indeed underestimated the potential for violent conflict in Tunisia. But I also suspect that now, many will veer too far the other way and declare the sky is falling.

So here's the positive side: Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, who is a senior figure in al-Nahda, is dissolving the government and appointing an interim technocratic one. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACIES DO UNDER THREAT. This is also what has visibly not happened in Egypt, where each deepening crisis provokes a "we won. live with it" response.

That's the good news. The bad news is, well, a Lebanese scenario. Assassination (virtually unheard of it Tunisia up to now, especially professional-type hits like this one) begets assassination, which begets civil war. That may seen remote from the beaches of Hammamet and Port El Kantaoui or the bars of Avenue Bourguiba to those Tunisia hands like myself who didn't smell the teargas in Avenue Bourguiba today. It's not the apocalypse, and hopefully won't become so, but it's definitely time to start paying attention.

Kandil's Remarks with Subtitles, and a Subtext Many are Missing

If you've followed any Egyptian media or, even more so, Egyptian social networks the past couple of days you've probably already heard of Prime Minister Hesham Kandil's curious discourse which has generally been reported primarily for his comments that many infants in rural Egypt suffer from diarrhea because their mothers are ignorant and nurse them from "dirty breasts." Plenty of the Egyptian elite have contempt for Kandil, a seeming nonentity elevated to head of government by President Morsi but still seemingly something of a nonentity. Kandil's critics immediately went into a sort of Middle School level of humor (OMG! The PM talked about breasts!), while his supporters said he was in fact urging better hygiene. In fact, of course, most experts say that studies show infants who are breastfed in Third World countries have much lower instances of diarrhea than those fed on formula, because of the unreliability of the water supply. Given the fact that before he was elevated to the premiership, Kandil's job was as Minister of Water Resources, one might think he would know something about this.

What is really curious, however, is how he got to the subject of nursing infants in the first place. In answering a question about police brutality and the televised beating of a man (the "Hamada" he refers to), he launches into a discourse in which he says he is 99% sure that Hamada didn't pay his electric bill (???), then starts talking about the provincial town of Beni Suef south of Cairo, and how he himself has seen, in the 21st century, those women nursing with dirty breasts . . . in other words, in context, it makes even less sense. 

Now the  video below has captions in English which are clearly intended to embarrass Kandil, but as far as I can tell the translation is accurate. (I'd be more confident if it made any sense.) But what strikes me is that the real story is not that he said something stupid about women's breasts (which is both an unusual subject for an Egyptian Prime Minister and especially an Islamist one, which is why it was quickly pounced upon), but that he's also showing an enormous amount of condescension towards rural Egyptians. Since I criticized Mohamed ElBaradei in December when he tweeted about the illiteracy of the Egyptian voter, I need to be consistent and also criticize a Muslim Brotherhood (well, FJP Party at least) member who also disdains the rural voters who, in fact, supported his party. (I wonder how the party office in Beni Suef is feeling about this?) The urban elites are having so much fun making breast jokes in both Arabic and English that they've missed the real anti-rural bias visible in the comments. Anyway, see if you can follow the thread of the Prime Minister's reasoning in what follows.

Fighting Back: Marching (and Organizing) Against Sexual Harassment and Assault in Cairo

Today's march from Sayyida Zainab to Tahrir Square was the latest women's protest against sexual harassment and assault in Egypt, and as the photo at left shows, some of them are sending the message that they aren't going to take it anymore. It's part of a visible new determination, visible in recent weeks, to push back against a long endemic scourge that many activists fear has recently taken on a more sinister aspect: they suspect it is systematic and organized.

While we've addressed the issue here on several occasions, and women in Cairo (whether dressed in Western garb or wearing hijab or even niqab) have routinely complained of groping and harassment, since the revolution there are several disturbing new trends, including large groups of young males surrounding, stripping, and assaulting women activists. Many of the activists are convinced that these young men are organized and encouraged by elements (perhaps the government, Islamists, or remnants if the old regime) to deter and dissuade women from appearing at demonstrations. There have been numerous incidents in Tahrir Square during large demonstrations. The women's group Baheya Ya Masr has openly accused the government of involvement, and recent posts by Zeinobia seem to agree. As Ursula Lindsey recently noted, and as Amnesty International has also remarked, these attacks meet the technical definition of rape and are of a far different order than the traditional groping.

This Amnesty International Report notes the recent wave on the January 25 anniversary of the revolution:

The horrific testimonies emerging following protests commemorating the second anniversary of the “25 January Revolution” have brought to light how violent mob sexual attacks against women have happened, but have rarely been brought to public attention.

Operation Anti Sexual Harassment/Assault (OpAntiSH) is an initiative by a number of Egyptian human rights organizations and individuals set up to combat sexual harassment of women in the vicinity of Tahrir Square. It received reports of 19 cases of violent attacks against women on 25 January 2013.

Activists leading the group “I saw Harassment” told Amnesty International that they managed to intervene in a further five cases before violence escalated. Four women were assaulted inside the Sadat Metro Station and one behind the Omar Maqram [Makram] Mosque.

The Amnesty report contains some rather graphic descriptions, as does this article by Egypt Independent News Editor Tom Dale. It's grim and hard to read, but necessary. I won't quote them here but do recommend you read them. Prepare to  be angry. [UPDATE: A new Amnesty Report just today emphasizes how the lack of punishment or law enforcement encourages the violence.]

OpAntiSh, or Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment, (Facebook page here) mentioned in the Amnesty Report and in Dale's article is a recently formed ad hoc group of men and women activists seeking to counter (and to document) such attacks. They succeed such earlier efforts as the HarassMap, an interactive map tracing incidents of harassment, but they are seeking not just national but international attention. They released this harrowing, if somewhat dark, video of rescuers attempting to free a woman from a crowd of attackers. There are already subtitles in English and a variety of European languages (click CC at the left of the buttons on the lower right if captions are not defaulting on), and they are crowdsourcing translations into other languages as well. I'm also printing the narrative below the video. [Video dropped out for a few hours. It's back now.]

“This is not a fight. There is a girl stuck inside this circle. This girl is being sexually assaulted. Right now, there are 3-4 hands inside her pants, and 3-4 inside her blouse. There are about 10 people pulling at her from every direction, and there is one taking off her shoes right now so that his colleague who’s taking off her pants can do so easily. There is a man holding the girl right now and telling her he’s protecting her. The truth is he is also sexually assaulting her, and his hands are in her undergarments right now. There is a man taking off his pants to give them to her. There is another taking off his jacket, and another trying to cover her, and tens trying to stop them with knives. The men trying to help her are telling her to run. The girl is screaming and trying to tell them that those around them are not trying to help them [but] are pulling her back, that she’s scared she’s going to fall, that someone is trying to take off her pants again, but no one can hear her. This girl can’t breathe from the pushing and pulling and is about to faint, but thank God she is not wearing a scarf so they can’t strangle her with it as they did to the second girl. Or the third girl, whom they violated with a knife. Or the fourth and fifth girls that were dragged inside cars but thankfully managed to escape. Or the mother who was violated in front of her children. These girls were gang raped, publicly, for all to see. These girls did not think they would make it out alive. These girls won’t receive any visits from people heralding their heroism. Because no one wants to know about these girls. No one wants to hear [about], read [about] or see these girls. But we will not stay silent. We will not be broken. We will not be ashamed. Tahrir Square and its surrounding areas are the scenes of mob sexual assaults/rapes. Go down and help fight against sexual assaults because we have no intention of staying at home. This Midan is our Midan. This revolution is our revolution. And we will fight this battle until our dying breath.”

Today's demonstration is one small response, but the efforts of OpAntiSH to spread the details both in Egypt and abroad  may draw enough attention to pressure the authorities (at least the police, who by all accounts do nothing) to identify and constrain these mobs. At any rate, the women are at least fighting back.

The Assassination of Chokri Belaid

Chokri Belaid

It was becoming fashionable to say that the Tunisian Revolution seemed stalled, its future direction uncertain, but the assassination this morning of secular leftist political figure Chokri Belaid marks a violent turn that is now provoking protests in the capital and elsewhere. President Moncef Marzouki has returned from a visit to Europe and canceled his participation in the Islamic Summit in Cairo, which opens today.

The Party's Emblem

Belaid, 48, was Secretary General of the Movement of Democratic Patriots, a leftist and pan-Arabist party with a fiercely secular and anti-Islamist agenda. It has one seat in the 217-seat Constituent Assembly. He was shot dead in front of his home this morning.

Protesters and Belaid's brother are reportedly attacking the ruling al-Nahda Party for the assassination. At a time when the country is increasingly seeing violent confrontations between the secularists and Islamists, the assassination of Belaid is likely to further destabilize the situation.

If the Sheikh al-Azhar's Looks Could Kill ...

Methinks the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar is not amused ...

Ahmadinejad Attacked with Shoe in Cairo

I already noted that President Ahmadinejad's visit to Egypt was encountering some rough spots. Well, while visiting the Sayyidna Hussein mosque (a Fatimid foundation honoring a Shi‘ite imam, though Egypt's small Shi‘ite community cannot hold services there), a man described as a Syrian attacked the Iranian President with a shoe, apparently for Iran's support of the Syrian regime. He's in custody.

This Turkish news agency clip isn't terribly clear, but it captures the moment:

Ahmadinejad in Cairo: Swan Song for a Lame Duck?

For the first time since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, an Iranian President is in Cairo. Mahmud Ahmadinejad has already met with President Morsi and the Sheikh al-Azhar, and thus is ending years of open hostility, suspended relations, and mutual exchanges of accusations. Everyone is calling it a historic visit  and, of course, it is, in that no Iranian leader since the Shah has been welcome in Egypt.

But despite diplomatic niceties, this is no massive geopolitical shift. The Iranian Preaident is getting lectured about Syria by both Morsi and the Sheikh al-Azhar, warned against adventurism in the Gulf, and told not to try to spread Shi‘ism in the Arab world. (It hasn't been reported whether Ahmadinejad has brought up the plight of Egypt's small Shi‘ite population.)

Meanwhile Morsi is getting flak from the Salafis, who apparently consider any fraternization with a known Shi‘ite to be beyond the pale.

And let's not make too much of this "breakthrough": Ahmadinejad is there for an Islamic Summit Egypt is hosting, so it's not exactly Nixon going to China. And of course, he's term-limited, will be leaving office later this year, and has been engaged in a running battle with the Iranian Parliament, so he's not exactly dealing from a position of strength. (But then, of course, neither is Morsi.)

As a reminder of better times in Egyptian-Iranian relations: here's a 1939 photo of King Farouq with then-Iranian Crown Prince (later Shah) Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, visiting the Delta prior to the future Shah's marriage to the King's sister.

Then again, the Shah later divorced her.

Egypt's Revolving-Door Ministry of Culture

During Husni Mubarak's 30 years in power, Egypt had only three Ministers of Culture; the last, Farouk Hosni, served from 1987 until Mubarak's last days.  By contrast, by Egypt Independent's count, with the resgnation in protest this week of Muhammad Saber Arab, who quit to protest police violence, Egypt has had five Culture Ministers in the past two years.

Whitewashing Jordan's Elections?

Jadaliyya has a cogent and provocative piece by Ziad Abu-Rish called "Romancing the Throne: The New York Times and the Endorsement of Authoritarianism in Jordan." It's a strong indictment of Western coverage of last month's Jordanian Parliamentary elections. It doesn't lend itself to a short summary, but argues that by treating the elections as a success, they misread the degree of manipulation involved. I recommend you read the whole thing.

ICG Alert on Egyptian Standoff

The International Crisis Group has a new "Egypt Crisis Alert," dealing with the current standoff. It's not terribly optimistic. Excerpts:

It is difficult to know which is most dangerous: the serious uptick in street violence; President Morsi’s and the Muslim Brotherhood’s serial inability to reach out to the rest of the political class inclusively; or the opposition clinging to the hope of some extraneous event (demonstrations, foreign pressure, judicial rulings or military intervention) allowing it to gain power while bypassing arduous compromise and politics. They are tied of course: the president’s cavalier treatment of the constitution-writing process and the judiciary and the opposition’s lethargic approach to politics and rejection of Islamist legitimacy alike have eroded the authority of state institutions. This encourages in turn unrest and contributes to the economic slide. Together, these heighten risks of a complete breakdown of law and order. For two years, political factions repeatedly have failed to reach consensus on basic rules of the game, producing a transition persistently threatening to veer off the road. It is past time for the president and opposition to reach an accommodation to restore and preserve the state’s integrity . . .

Overshadowing this is a broader political context: a persistent, perilous standoff between on one side the president and his Islamist backers for whom elections appear to mean everything, and, on the other, opposition forces for whom they seem to mean nothing; between those in power who deny adversaries respect and those not in power who deny Islamists legitimacy. The constitution-writing process was a sad microcosm: Islamist contempt in forcing through what ought to have been a carefully constructed, consensual document; opposition recklessness in seeking to exploit the moment to topple the Brotherhood; one celebrating a narrow conception of majority rule, the other holding to a counter-productive notion of street politics. 

In the absence of a shared view of the foundations of a future political system, Islamists are pressing their vision, while their opponents play spoilers. This has the makings of a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more the opposition obstructs and calls for Morsi's ouster, the more it validates the Islamists' conviction it will never recognise their right to govern; the more the Brotherhood charges ahead, the more it confirms the others' belief of its monopolistic designs over power. Even if leaders back away from the brink, this could quickly get out of hand, as their ability to control the rank and file — and, in the case of the opposition, ability to represent the rank and file — dwindles.

Make Up Your Own Comments

Real BBC headline: "Iran's President Ahmadinejad Offers to Go Into Space."

Real photo caption: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right) met the monkey that Iran says it sent into space last week."

No ... wisecracks here would be just too easy. I'm not going there. You're on your own.

Another Bloody Friday in Heliopolis

Only a day after al-Azhar announced a ten-point initiative to end violence in Egypt, there has been a new round of police/demonstrator violence near the Presidential palace in Heliopolis, leaving one dead and dozens injured. Predictably the Muslim Brotherhood and the Presidency (increasingly hard to distinguish) and the opposition are each blaming the other, and there are widespread complaints of police excesses, at least some if which were documented by video:
It's probably pointless to try to assign blame at this point: except that clearly, the police are still using their Mubarak-era rules of engagement.

Six Questions on the Algerian Raid

Hugh Roberts at the London Review of Books LRB Blog asks  "Six Questions about Tigantourine," referring to the gas plant attack near In Amenas in Algeria. These do seem to raise pertinent questions about the official story so far and the gaps that have yet to be filled in.

Saudi Prince Muqrin Given Number 3 Post

Saudi Arabia's Prince Muqrin bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz has been named Second Deputy Prime Minister, the third ranking post in the Saudi governmental structure (the King is Prime Minister and the Crown Prince is First Deputy PM). The post also is traditionally seen as an indicator that the holder is next in line to be Crown Prince.

With King ‘Abdullah increasingly frail and widespread concerns that Crown Prince Salman (already the third Crown Prince since ‘Abdullah has been king) is suffering the effects of a stroke a few years ago, there has been increased speculation about the line of succession after Salman, particularly whether it may go to one of the next generation of princes. The appointment of Muqrin appears to say: not so fast. Muqrin though one of the youngest sons of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (and the youngest in public life) is still of the older generation; he is 67. While trying to read the tea leaves of Saudi family politics is notoriously unreliable, the appointment would seem to suggest that despite recent promotions to key posts for several of the younger generation the throne will remain with the older generation a bit longer.

Formerly head of Saudi intelligence, when he was removed from that post Muqrin became an advisor to the King. As Second Deputy Prime Minister, however, he is likely to enjoy a much higher profile, especially as ‘Abdullah declines and if Prince Salman proves to be impaired.

February 1, 1979: Khomeini's Return to Iran

Khomeini Returns, 1979

Though the Shah's departure from Iran two weeks earlier was essential to the success of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the enduring symbol of the Revolution and the action which clearly determined its future course took place 34 years ago today: the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran from his French exile. Though February 10 is celebrated as Revolution Day, the return of Khomeini remains a key image. (So much so that in some versions some of those on the stairs who later fell out with him have disappeared, Trotsky style.)

Last year's commemoration was a bit strange: it involved a giant cut-out figure:

Giant Cut-Out Figure Returns, 2012

Some Good Stuff on Mali and Timbuktu

The war in Mali has produced a great deal of opinion, most of it rather ill-informed.  Here are several very different readings (two from the modern policy world and two more historical) that may help clarify matters:

Laura Seay, Mali is Not a Stan, at Foreign Policy, argues that comparisons to Afghanistan (in addition to some fairly obvious topographical differences) misreads the situation; the French were invited in, know the country well, and are not plunging into a quagmire.

Marc Lynch, at Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel, asked his readers, Is Mali Part of the Middle East?  The conclusion is no, but certainly the events in Mali have resonances in the Maghreb, as the Algerian gas plant attack showed.  My on approach on this blog is to be as inclusive as possible; when Mali affects events in North Africa, we can look at it, though that doesn't make it part of the Middle East. But historically, it is part of the greater trading area for North Africa (as the Indian Ocean is for the Gulf), and will occasionally demand attention.

On more cultural issues, the African and Berber linguistics blogger Lameen Souag, at his Jabal al-Lughat blog, knows the territory well (one of his specialties is Songhay, the language group which includes the dominant language in Timbuktu). has two useful posts: "On Book-Burning in Timbuktu", and "Languages of Timbuktu," the latter of which seeks to clear up some confusion about the ethnicities and languages in the city.


http://lughat.blogspot.com/2013/01/languages-of-timbuktu.html

Good News from Timbuktu?

Via Jadaliyya, some good news on the question of the safety of the Timbuktu manuscripts. The South African partners in preserving the manuscripts are hearing they are indeed largely safe.

Gamal al-Banna, 1920-2013

Gamal al-Banna, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was the youngest brother of Hassan al-Banna, founder and first Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. He did not share his brother's views, but advocated a flexible, modern interpretation of Islam and opposed the Muslim Brotherhood. He questioned the traditional collections of hadith on which much Islamic law is based; he opposed the Brotherhood's advocacy of a Sharia-based state. A trade union activist as well, he evolved an anti-capitalist interpretation of Islam.

Though long prominent in Egypt, he was discovered by Western media in recent years, who were fascinated that the Brotherhood's founder's own brother (though 14 years his junior) advocated such a different approach to Islam.

Though he was in his 90s, the irony of his passing at this moment of crisis for the Muslim Brotherhood will doubtless be remarked upon.

Were Most Timbuktu Manuscripts Hidden?

There are reports today suggesting that the vast majority of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts may have survived (also here). These are much more encouraging reports than the initial fears of major losses; let's hope they're true.

The Israeli Strike on Syria

Today's Israeli airstrike along the Syrian-Lebanese border, if (as the leaks are saying) it was aimed at missiles being shipped to Hizbullah, raises a number of questions. Is Syria seeking to escalate in Lebanon as its own civil war goes badly?  Is it seeking to provoke Israel as a distraction from its domestic issues?
Whatever really lies behind the raid, it marks an escalation of tension in a region that is already highly unstable. If it remains merely a surgical strike that took out a specific threat, that's one thing. But any of the parties (Syria, Israel, Hizbullah) could use it as a pretext to escalate an already explosive situation.

With the Canal in Revolt and Tourism Directly Thretened, General Sisi Speaks

General Abdel Fattah Sisi', Egypt's so-far sphinxlike Defense Minister and Armed Forces Chief, has spoken. Well, not exactly spoken; he's posted on Facebook, but it's the best we're likely to get from him. He has warned that the growing conflict between President Morsi and his Islamist supporters and their secularist opponents "on running the affairs of the country may lead to the collapse of the state and threatens the future of the coming generations." "Collapse of the state?" Not exactly mild commentary from the man who controls the tanks.

Delphic in a sense, but also stronger than anything we've heard from the Army since they retired to the barracks in August. Is this an explicit hint of a coup? Not yet. Is an implicit one? Well, duh.

Over the past several days the deteriorating security situation has threatened two of Egypt's major sources of hard currency: the Suez Canal and tourism. The attack Monday night on the Intercontinental Semiramis Hotel saw some LE7 million (over a million US dollars) in damage to the hotel lobby and the looting of the elegant shops in the lobby; the hotel was evacuated as guests checked out not only there but from other hotels along the Nile Corniche. Egypt's tourist industry has been moribund; this may have taken it off life support.

Of even greater concern is the virtual open revolt of the Suez Canal Cities. Beginning with the violence in Port Said over the verdicts in last year's football riot case, and fueled by demonstrations in the (often dissident) Suez, President Morsi ordered a State of Emergency in the Canal Governorates, and this included a curfew.

Plate reads "Republic of Port Said"

Port Said, Ismailia and Suez responded to the curfew by turning out in huge protests, staging football games and other public events, and sending President Morsi a very big raised finger in response. The Canal cities have often been harbingers of change in Egypt (as Ismailia was in 1952 and Suez in 2011), and this collective revolt along Egypt's economic lifeline may have had more to do with Sisi's response/threat/hints than the Semiramis affair. The Army has moved the Second and Third Field Armies, based along the Canal, into position to protect the Canal and if necessary restore order in the cities.

Morsi has shown signs of backing off a bit: pledging to create a mechanism to amend the controversial new constitution, and allowing the Canal Governors to reduce the curfew if they feel it is justified. A new outburst of pragmatism, or military pressure?

Timbuktu's Lost Libraries

All wars lead to some destruction of parts of the world's cultural heritage, but the deliberate burning of books and the destruction of works of art seems a particularly barbarous event. It is especially outrageous when it is done in the name of the very religion that created the books and art. Yet the Jihadis who burned the Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu (having already destroyed most of the Sufi shrines in the area) have almost certainly burned far more Qur'ans than Western Islamophobes have ever dreamt of doing. When the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan it was equally appalling, but at least they could claim to be destroying idols; in Timbuktu, the modern Vandals destroyed some of the most precious treasures of Islamic culture.

European Image of Mansa Musa

The golden age of Timbuktu was golden indeed, and the wealth of the 14th Century Emperor Mansa Musa was so vast that even the European map at left considered him one of the main points of interest in all of Africa.

The news is not all bad; locals managed to preserve at least some of the thousands of ancient manuscripts, though just how bad the losses are may take some time to appreciate. But the losses are certain to be profound, however much mitigated.

Saving Aramaic: A Smithsonian Article for our Continuing Aramaic Topic

Minority languages in the Middle East have been a frequent theme on this blog, and Aramaic probably has more posts to its credit so far than any language other than Tamazight, the Amazigh language, which is enjoying a renaissance in the Maghreb. Aramaic is not, and since most Aramaic speakers today are Christians (though there are Jews, Mandaeans, and a few Muslims even), it is facing the erosion Christianity in the Middle East is facing across the board; since the two countries with the bulk of Aramaic speakers are Syria and Iraq, the decline is accelerating.

I have posted before on a lot of Aramaic issues and have discussed its two major surviving varieties: spoken Eastern Neo-Aramaic, mostly in Iraq with pockets in Turkey and Iran, and spoken Western Neo-Aramaic, in three villages in Syria (one of them Muslim!).

There is, however, a diaspora as well. And this article, "How to Save a Dying Language,"  by Ariel Sabar, (who notes that his on father was an Aramaic-speaking Jew from Iraqi Kurdistan), in the February issue of Smithsonian magazine, focuses on Geoffrey Khan, a scholar from Cambridge University. He has made it his mission to study and preserve the many dialects of spoken Aramaic before they disappear. Since Chicago is one of the centers of the American Assyrian Christian community, Khan in this article is using a speaking engagement at Northwestern to visit and record elderly Aramaic speakers. Khan, who started as a student of the Cairo Geniza but was fascinated to discover living speakers of Aramaic, which he knew as a classical tongue, is his main focus. You should read the whole article. But beyond Chicago, Khan apparently has some great stories:

The work has its exhilarating days, though, and few moved Khan more than his 2008 trip to the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He was in the capital of Tbilisi in search of Aramaic speakers from Salamas, a city in northwestern Iran. One wave of Assyrians fled Salamas after a Kurdish chieftain murdered a Church of the East patriarch there in 1918; another, after an earthquake a dozen years later

In Tbilisi, people told Khan that all but three of the dialect’s “pure” speakers had died. At the first house, the man’s daughter apologized: Her father had recently suffered a stroke and was mute. At the second, an older woman lived with a quartet of energetic Rottweilers. “I took out my microphone and they just started howling and barking,” Khan recalled. “It was impossible.”

Finally, a local Assyrian escorted Khan one night into an imposing Soviet-era apartment block. At the top of a dark flight of stairs was a one-room apartment. A frail woman in her mid-90s answered the door.

Khan looked at her brittle physique and wondered how much she could handle. He told himself he would stay for just a few minutes. But when he got up to leave, the woman stretched a bony hand across the table and clasped his wrist.

“Biqir, Biqir,” she pleaded, in a small voice. (“Ask, ask.”)

“She literally grabbed onto me,” he said. “It was as if this was her last breath and she wanted to tell me everything.”

For two hours she hung on his wrist as his recorder filled with the sounds of a language in twilight.

The Monkey Gap: Iran Can Now Threaten to Rain Monkeys on its Neighbors

Events in Egypt kept me from reporting yesterday on the latest aspect of the Iranian threat: the Islamic republic is closing the monkey gap.  Even if Iran abandons its nuclear program, it may soon threaten its neighbors with a rain of primates from the sky. PressTV:

As this space.com report on the history of monkeys in space notes, Iran has caught up with the United States, or at least to where the United States was in June 1948! That's less than 65 years ago! (This was a simple up and down test, not an attempt at orbiting the monkey.)

Of course, the spoilsport US is saying they can't confirm the monkey's flight and if it's true it may have violated a UN Resolution, but that's predictable sour grapes. It's a great step upward from Iran's previous launch of a rat, two turtles, and some worms in 2010. (A 2011 monkey launch failed, apparently to the detriment of the monkey in question.) A rat, two turtles and some worms are hardly a threat to Iran's neighbors, but think about this: monkeys throw poop.

All joking aside, the West of course interprets non-US/European/Russian/Chinese space launches (except by Israel, India, Brazil and sometimes Pakistan) (which pretty much means Iran, North Korea, and sometimes Pakistan) as ballistic missile technology tests, while Iran is insistent it hopes to put a man into space by 2019 or 2020. (Ahmadinejad will be unemployed later this year, but I won't make a joke since I'm sure many Iranians already have, perhaps involving the monkey.)

At least for now, I'm not panicking about the monkey gap.

Carrying the "Black Saturday" Comparison Too Far: Semiramis Intercontinental Under Attack

Earlier today I compared the current disorders in Egypt not only to January 2011 but also to the violence of January 1952, which reached its apogee in "Black Saturday," most famous for the destruction by the mobs of the iconic British colonial Shepheard's Hotel.

At the time, I worried I was indulging in hyperbole. Now I'm not so sure: in the past hour this has been the Twitter feed of the Intercontinental Semiramis on the Cairo corniche:

I can only hope that help comes.
UPDATE: Special Forces are said to be arriving. Let's hope there are no injuries. The last thing Egypt needs is another blow to its tourist industry.

Some Other People's Takes on Egypt's Dilemma

In my earlier post, I quoted Steve Negus' insightful piece at The Arabist on the present situation in Egypt. Here are several other useful takes on the current problems.

• Khaled ElGindy on "The Failure of Egyptian Politics," at Tahrir Squared. All sides are responsible for the current mess.

• Charles Holmes, "The Revolution Continues," at Foreign Policy. The ongoing dismantling of the Nasserist state.

• Amr Adly, "The Opposition's Lost Bet on the Economic Crisis,"  Neither side seems to be able to address the worsening economic situation. at Egypt Independent.

• Steven A. Cook, "Wanting Egypt to Fail,"  at his Council on Foreign Relations Blog. On critics of US policy towards Morsi.

• Sarah Carr, "Back to the Squares, without the Brothers," at Egypt Independent. On the anniversary.

• And if you haven't already seen Yasmine El Rashidi's "Egypt: The Rule of the Brotherhood" in The New York Review of Books, you should take a look at it.

• Bassem Sabry for Al-Monitor: "15 Things Egypt Must Do to Get Back from the Btink."

Egypt and the Twin Ghosts of Januarys Past

The violence that has shaken Egypt for the past several days is, in part, provoked by the ongoing polarization of society and inability of any of the parties to  find a way to consensus; and in part by the anniversary of the events of two years ago, the early days of the Revolution. The protests began on January 25, and January 28 was the bloodiest day. Everyone recognizes the echo of those days.

But let me suggest that there is another specter haunting the events in Egypt today: the specter of another January: 1952. Saturday was the 61st anniversary of "Black Saturday" and the widespread burning of downtown Cairo. Though the British are long gone, there are echoes of Black Saturday still in the air: armed partisan groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, an ineffective executive, a demoralized police, and, perhaps, an Army waiting in the wings.

The parallels are not exact; history doesn't really repeat itself (but, as Mark Twain allegedly said, sometimes it rhymes). The various parties in Egypt increasingly see events through highly polarized lenses: the National Salvation Front rejects Morsi's offer of talks, suggesting they would not be productive, thus further undermining Morsi's legitimacy; but however ill-advised his policies may be, he did in the election, and his partisans continue with their "we won, so we don't need to listen to anyone else" approach. Both sides exclude the middle, exclude compromise, and in so doing probably exclude the views of most Egyptians.

This piece by Steve Negus at The Arabist offers, I think, one of the best assessments I've seen: this is not a new dictatorship with the Muslim Brotherhood in the place of Mubarak; it's rather a fragmented state with no one clearly in firm control. The reason I bring up the specter of January 1952 is because the events in Ismailia and Black Saturday led directly and inexorably to the military coup of July of that year, and the beginning of six decades of authoritarianism.

I know that some liberals in Egypt are talking almost wistfully about a possible army intervention. Have they forgotten how recently they sent the Army back to its barracks? Have they forgotten the old rule that if you bring in the Praetorian Guard to get rid of a rival, you will have  a lot harder time getting rid of the Praetorians than you did the rival?

I'll have more to say about events in Egypt soon, but in evoking the ghosts of January 2011, all sides would do well to remember the fires of January 1952.

My Four-Year Blogiversary, and Post Number 3416

Four years ago yesterday, January 27, 2009, this blog began with a single placeholder post; four years ago today, I began regular blogging.

I had posted 3415 posts as of Friday, with posts every day except for (most) weekends, holidays, and a few days in 2010 when I was hospitalized with a broken hip and the painkillers made me too incoherent (even more so than usual, at least) to blog.

Let me thank my regular readers. In that first post I noted that the blog would eventually move from the Blogger platform to the main MEI website. Four years (and a couple of MEI webmasters) later, let me say that again; only this, time, I believe we're really going to do it. Don't worry; nothing essential will change.