Midan
Keeping Hope AliveLaila El BaradeiAt present, what is of major concern to the Egyptian citizen is a need to realize the January 25 demands for better quality of life, freedom, human dignity and social justice. Read More
Damage ControlRozina AliA political prisoner freed. An affidavit documenting police abuse. An audience with lawmakers. When Egyptians rose up in 2011, human rights campaigner Heba Morayef dared to hope that such incremental accomplishments were giving way to freedom and democracy. But the dream didn’t last for long. Read More
Egypt’s PredicamentNabil FahmyTwo and a half years after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, a year after the election of his successor, Mohammed Morsi, and after Morsi’s sudden ouster and the appointment of an interim president, Mansour Al-Adly, head of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court, in July, the country is still searching for its identity. Read More
An American in TehranHolly DagresAs I was turning thirteen, I packed up everything I had to embark on a new life in Tehran with my Iranian mother and stepfather. In 1999, I left behind everyone and everything I knew in Los Angeles, including my American father. Read More
East and WestNabil FahmyWhile the consequences of Asia’s rise have been exhaustively analyzed in the global context, relatively few have questioned the effect of a rising East on the rapid transformation of the countries of the Middle East. Read More
Remembering MedhatNabil FahmyI had the good fortune to work with a man of great skill and quality of character who was an exemplary diplomat: Medhat Haroun, American University in Cairo's provost, who passed away on October 18. Read More
Sailboat DiplomacyStephen KalinThe wake from a larger vessel rocked the felucca, a traditional Egyptian sailboat, heaving it against the pontoon it was docked beside. As water entered the hull, the two Americans aboard pictured their mission of personal diplomacy sinking along with their second-hand boat. Read More
Chomsky in TahrirMadeline B. WelshTwo hours beforehand, a crowd was already pressing the gate outside Ewart Hall on the Tahrir Square campus of the American University in Cairo. When American linguist and author Noam Chomsky arrived on stage, the packed audience of twelve hundred rose in a thunderous standing ovation. Read More
Elections, American-StyleMadeline B. WelshCairo was dark when U.S. Representative Patricia Schroeder stepped off the plane in Egypt. Very dark. It was the beginning of the 1973 Middle East war, Israeli forces had reached Kilometer 101, and the capital was under a blackout. Read More
Witness to an Election, and to HistoryThomas PlofchanAyman Mohammed Abdel Sabour is a lawyer from Alexandria and a member of the I Am Egyptian Association for Development and Human Rights. It is a warm spring evening, and we are both official observers for the 2012 Egyptian presidential election. He and I are in the Nile Delta city of Damanhour, standing in the city’s cultural center where votes from polling stations in two of the Behera governorate’s fifteen districts are being aggregated. There are a few journalists here as well, watching a team of senior judges tally the figures under military protection. Read More
The Shape of Things to ComeJonathan GuyerWhat is a revolutionary foreign policy? Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr provided a broad sketch during a talk in March at the American University in Cairo. With a battery of foreign ambassadors listening attentively from the front rows, Amr spoke reassuringly of continuity. Egypt’s foreign policy, he noted, has seen no dramatic changes since former President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in the January 25, 2011, revolution.Read More
Our Carbon Footprint Richard Tutwiler , Marc RauchOf all the countries in the Arab world, Egypt may be the most
vulnerable to global warming. The rising sea level predicted by climate change models threatens to flood large swaths of the Nile Delta, Egypt’s breadbasket, undermining Egypt’s food security and threatening the livelihoods of millions of agricultural workers. Key population centers are also at risk, most notably the city of Alexandria.Read More
Long ViewFritz Lodge Eugene Rogan is an American, but when he arrived in Cairo recently, to present a talk at the Cairo Opera House and appear on a panel at the American University in Cairo, he was in some way coming home. The son of a military contractor, he spent much of his childhood in the Middle East–initially in Lebanon, where he witnessed the reverberations of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War; and later in Egypt, at the time of the bread riots and Anwar Sadat’s dramatic visit to Israel. Rogan, a lecturer at Oxford University, returned to Egypt for the launch of the Arabic translation of his acclaimed book, The Arabs: A History.Read More
The Guerilla Cartoonist of RioErin BielCarlos Latuff has penned some of the most acerbic political cartoons of the Egyptian revolution. One of them shows a shoe hurtling toward Hosni Mubarak, such use of footwear being one of the gravest personal insults in Arab culture. Another iconic image portrays Egypt’s longtime ruler as a diminutive figure, dangled from his collar by Khalid Said, the young Egyptian whose death in police custody fueled the January 25 uprising. Latuff’s cartoons are ubiquitous in Egypt, adorning everything from blog sites and Tahrir Square t-shirts to the front pages of Cairo dailies. Yet, the cartoonist is not an Egyptian, but slings his ink-tipped arrows from a studio in far away Brazil, his native country.Read More
Oriental Hall, etc.Madeline B. WelshHappenings, speakers and events at the American University in Cairo in Winter 2012. Read More
Images of WarMadeline B. WelshMohamed Messara seems enveloped by calm, which is surprising given his occupation. The year 2011 was a very dangerous one for photojournalists. Revolutions present opportunities for dramatic pictures, but the risks for conflict photographers like Messara are immense. Five journalists died in the uprising in Libya, and twenty have been killed elsewhere covering the Arab Spring.Read More
The Fruit of RevolutionNabil FahmyLittle over a year ago, no political analyst I know would have argued that the leaders of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen would be deposed in the immediate future. This set of leaders, cumulatively, had been in office for more than 100 years. Nor would anyone have projected that there would be uprisings in Bahrain and Syria. Clearly, 2011 was the Year of Revolution in the Arab World.Read More
Africa, Famine and SolutionsMadeline B. WelshIn the quest for solutions, here’s a deceptively simple idea: provide Africans with better business education.Read More
Graffiti NationErin BielA curious image is displayed on a wall outside the American University in Cairo’s Tahrir Square campus. Inconspicuous at first glance, the red and white chess board is more than a game. The pawns are grouped together at one end, and an upside-down king is flanked by bishops, knights, and castles at the other. An apt metaphor, to many revolutionaries, of how a ruler was toppled yet strongmen remained in power.Read More
Oriental Hall, etc.Madeline B. WelshHappenings, speakers and events at the American University in Cairo from Fall 2011Read More
Oriental Hall, etc.Madeline B. WelshHappenings, speakers, and events at the American University in Cairo from Summer 2011Read More
Egypt's ChallengesMohamed A. El-ErianEgypt, led by Egyptians, is today at a very special juncture. Egyptians have a remarkable opportunity to shape a new and better destiny for their country. And the rare combination of both willingness and ability comes wrapped in a new sense of purpose, energy and engagement on the direction of the country.Read More
Old Funny Song Madeline B. Welsh, Lauren E. BohnVendors in Tahrir Square have been doing a brisk business selling T-shirts of various colorful designs that usually have “January 25” emblazoned on the front. Certainly the first day of the Egyptian revolution, when tens of thousands initially gathered in Cairo’s central square, was a milestone. Now, with the television cameras largely gone and souvenir stands taking over, the revolution might appear to be over. Egyptians know better, perhaps none more than Hossam El-Hamalawy.Read More
A Woman’s BusinessMadeline B. WelshWomen in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) are making appreciable strides in social development. They now outnumber men attending universities in most Arab countries. Disparities in literacy and enrollment in primary and secondary education have fallen dramatically in the last few decades. The impact of these changes can be seen in the labor market as well. As a result of better educational opportunities and growing economies, employment for women has been rising at a faster rate than for men.Read More
Oriental Hall, Etc.Madeline B. WelshWhen Egypt’s popular uprising began on January 25, the American University in Cairo became part of the historic events. Read More
Training Arab Policy Makers Ross S. DonohueDue to its geography and political standing, Egypt has interacted with the wider world throughout its long history. In taking its place on the international stage, it has produced honored statesmen and Nobel laureates. It has provided numerous global public servants, including a secretary general of the United Nations and a director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Read More
Islam and GenderLauren E. BohnButler is harsh on the tendency in the West, especially among feminists, to categorically condemn the veil. “Negotiating questions of sexuality and gender is not always done according to the same language you find in the U.S. or in France,” she explains. Read More
Lisa Anderson’s World ViewLauren E. BohnUpon entering the office of the American University in Cairo President Lisa Anderson, you’ll admire the beautiful colored globe prominently displayed on a table. But dozens of globes? There’s a collection of smaller globes on a bookshelf. There are bowls of tiny globes (key chains, actually) on a coffee table. Globes, globes, everywhere. Read More
A University and a RevolutionLauren E. BohnThree young Egyptians talk about their roles in the revolution Read More