Egypt

The election results for Egypt’s lower house have been announced, and the Muslim religious parties appear to have gained over 70% of the seats. The Muslim Brotherhood is claiming its Freedom and Justice Party took 47% of the 498 seats in the lower house of parliament. The hard line fundamentalist Nur Party won 29% of […]

Egypt

Elbaradei Quits Egyptian Presidential Race

Juan Cole

Mohammad Elbaradei has withdrawn from the Egyptian presidential election. He is the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and was a thorn in the Bush administration’s eyes because of his honesty and lack of tolerance for false accusations. Elbaradei says he is afraid that the presidential election will be fixed by Egypt’s powerful […]

Egypt

New Year’s 2012 in Tahrir Square, Egypt

Juan Cole

New Year’s in Tahrir Square, Cairo: The leftist crowd begins by singing the national anthem. Then a woman revolutionary calls out, “Bread, Freedom and social justice!” “A civil state, civil state!” “May the military government fall!” she chants, and the crowd repeats. “Treatment for injured [protesters]!” “Free Egypt, with God’s permission!” “Free Egypt, with God’s […]

Egypt

Top Ten Myths about the Arab Spring of 2011

Juan Cole

1. The upheavals of 2011 were provoked by the Bush administration’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq Bzzt! Wrong answer. None of the young people who made this year’s revolutions ever pointed to Iraq as an inspiration. The only time Iraq was even brought up in their tweets was as a negative example (“let’s not […]

Egypt

Egyptian Blogger-Activist Alaa on Democracy Now!

Juan Cole

Amy Goodman interviews Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who was recently released from jail, on Democracy Now! @Alaa is a renowned leftist blogger from a family of longtime Egyptian activists. He was arrested for challenging continued military rule and now supports having the speaker of parliament, who will be chosen in January, assume […]

Egypt

Egyptian Court orders Military to Cease Virginity Tests

Juan Cole

An Egyptian court has ordered the Egyptian military to cease subjecting arrested female protesters to virginity tests. The ruling is a strike for women’s rights, but also is significant as an assertion of civil courts’ rights to tell the military what to do. The tests are administered because Egyptian conservatives in the military maintain that […]

Egypt

2011 Revolutions and the End of Republican Monarchy

Juan Cole

Egyptian reformer Saad Eddin Ibrahim observed in the late 1990s and 2000 that the Arab world was beginning to be characterized by a bizarre gryphon-like form of government, the republican monarchy. In a republic, power is supposed to be vested in the people, who are sovereign, and who can change out their leaders through elections. […]

Egypt

Christians in a Changing Arab World are Making their own Destinies

Juan Cole

The press is full of stories this Christmas season about the negative effects on Middle Eastern Christians of the Arab upheavals of 2011. This “vale of tears” approach does profound injustice to the actual reality of the Arab Christians. The discourse of the persecution of a helpless Christian minority serves Orientalist purposes, intimating that the […]

Egypt

Egyptian Women Rally against Police Brutality

Juan Cole

Thousands of women rallied near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo on Tuesday, protesting the mistreatment meted out to women protesters by security forces. In some instances, the police had pulled up the woman’s dress and stomped on her. Indeed, women rallied all over Egypt, according to the Arabic press. A march was held in Alexandria […]