27 Apr 2011
It pains me to hear criticisms of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and his cabinet, especially since I had enthusiastically nominated Sharaf to lead Egypt’s caretaker government. I was moved to see people lifting him up on their shoulders in Tahrir Square during his inauguration in March, an unprecedented scene in modern history. That day, I felt that Sharaf had come to power in a manner...
Yes
26 Apr 2011
Prime Minister Essam Sharaf did well by visiting Sinai on 25 April, a day that marks the peninsula’s liberation from Israeli occupation. Sharaf also did well by abandoning his written speech and speaking spontaneously, using simple and heart-felt words. As a result, his message was well-received by all those in attendance.
Speaking to the residents of Sinai in particular and to Egyptians...
Yes
25 Apr 2011
Curious is the process by which 13 new governors have been appointed across Egypt. It's as if most of them were picked a by a modified version of Hosni Mubarak. The new governors include no youth and most of them have served in the police, the military or the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). The appointments do not reflect a country that has just undergone a revolution. Instead...
Yes
24 Apr 2011
It's widely believed that regimes that lack popular legitimacy often resort to torture. Desperate to retain control over their people, such regimes impose authority in the only way they can — through the exercise of brute force. Although police torture has existed in Egypt long before Mubarak, the ex-president’s police state descended to the most contemptible levels of brutality....
Yes
21 Apr 2011
The rush to erect a monument to mark the revolution and the martyrs in Tahrir Square is an insult to those who gave their lives for a new Egypt. Those men and women did not sacrifice their lives simply to have their names inscribed on a hastily designed monument in the middle of a traffic circle. They died hoping for real foundational changes in Egypt and the way it is run. Egypt consists of real...
Yes
19 Apr 2011
Like millions of Egyptians, I rejoiced at the Higher Administrative Court’s ruling to disband the National Democratic Party (NDP) and return its assets to the state. Some people were not optimistic about taking the matter to court, fearing it would get stuck in legal limbo or that the party’s lawyers would find some loophole to bring the case down. Many preferred an immediate...
Yes
16 Apr 2011
I’ve sometimes wished I was a fly on the Mubaraks' living-room wall watching the drama unfold. I pictured the former president, his customary tenacity perforated with moments of genuine bewilderment, his sons’ and wife’s urgent counsels, the disagreements, the fraternal and conjugal strife, the small gestures of tenderness (a glass of tea, a cushion for the back) to mitigate...
Yes
15 Apr 2011
Since the adoption of neoliberal policies in the 1980s, many countries have suffered from inequality even though they have enjoyed financial success. The international financial crisis in 2008 has revealed that we live in what Hans-Peter Martin aptly describes as a “one-fifth society” in his book The Global Trap: Globalization and the Assault on Prosperity and Democracy. This is a...
Yes
13 Apr 2011
It appears ex-President Hosni Mubarak is still living in a presidential state of mind. Well-aware that he's a former president who has stepped down, Mubarak still adopts a presidential attitude.
The tone of his audio message on Sunday, which aired on al-Arabiya, is proof. The ex-president responded to charges levelled against him of financial abuses. To clear his name, it may have been more...
Yes
12 Apr 2011
When I participated as an NGO observer in the negotiations and deliberations of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) review conference in Kampala, Uganda in June 2010, I wondered if one day I could see Egypt play a leading role to ensure international justice. Would Egypt one day distance itself from the worst oppressors of human rights law and promote the need for a just and sound...
Yes