Egyptians and Arabs in general should learn a lesson or two from the Israeli Election. Our presidents and kings talk a lot about democracy as if it really exists in our countries but it is all just empty talks. We are the farthest away from democracy and can only smell it across the border in the country of our cousins!.
You can talk all day long about our cherished democracy but at the end of the day we don’t have it and will never do as long as the son takes over from his dad. Unless they really mean dictatorship but don’t know the difference!.
Perhaps our Palestinians brothers and our Israeli cousins can give us some private lessons in democracy so won’t flunk it over and over again.
Bring it on WP. That’s the way I like it!. It talks about new found freedom in the independent newspaper scene in Egypt such as Al-Masri al Yom. Unfortunately, the writes forgot to mention the many journalists who were jailed for voicing their opinion in the same newspaper.
Promises promises…, that’s all we ever get. I’ll believe it when I see it. Changing the law’s name but keeping its content is likely though. After all, they have to put us (Egyptians) on a leash so we don’t cause trouble and disturb the peace
The Egyptian government is not responding well to the avian flu disease. They are eliminating the small poultry farms to attempt to stop the spread of the disease even though the greater risk is in large poultry farms where chickens are held in a confined space making them vulnerable to disease and much weaker than the cage free birds. Not to mention the great economical impact that resulting form the decision that affects everyone associated with the small poultry farm industry.
This strategy will end up ruining the poultry farm industry in Egypt and will make Egypt dependent on import poultry from questionable sources that may not be as good as the domestic ones.
So instead of vaccination they are incriminating innocents who attempt to feed their children, as if chickens are like illegal drugs. This will only make matter worse, it will raise the prices of chicken and bring more suffering to the poor who can’t afford beef products as they will end up with no viable source for proteins.
If you were following the Egyptian premier soccer league lately, you would definitely sense a referring bias favoring Al Ahli club. This was very obvious in the 2-2 tie match against Ghazel Al Mahala, where the ref awarded two penalty kicks to Al Ahli club. Their last game 1-0 win against Haras Al Hodood was no different where the ref denied Haras two penalty kicks to ensure victory for Al Ahli. In the previous game against Enppi, a clearly wrong decision by the ref to award a free kick to Al Ahli resulted in the only goal in the game so club can claim the win.
It is not a fair competition when any club playing against Al Ahli has to also withstand consistent referring bias towards Al Ahli. It is bad enough that Al Ahli keep buying the best talents from the smaller teams to deprive them from their chance to compete on par.
It is not a healthy sporting environment, that hurts Egypt chances to improve its international soccer status. It makes the Egyptian premier soccer league boring, predictable and annoying to watch. It also removes all the excitement from the sport.
I understand that most Egyptians are Al Ahli fans, after all people like the winning team, that is ok but it is a shallow gratification when you know that your team is winning by erroneous referring decisions instead of team efforts and good talents.
This soccer situation is just a mirror to all facets of society where only few dominate and the rest either watch or suffer the consequences.
I don’t understand the government role in all of that, why they keep pumping money to Al Ahli and Zamalek while depriving the other teams; after all neither teams are public institutions and should never be supported by the government. If it is the government policy to make people happy by letting Al Ahli always win, then it is the wrong policy and should be stopped. Let the best team win regardless of who is playing or else why not just award the title to Al Ahli without playing and save us all from this boring game.
Egyptian Stock Market I’m glad that I don’t invest in the Egyptian Stock market, there seem to be lots of irregularities going on there. Today the market crashed in early trading then it was halted for a while then resumed and then the market rebounded!. There is no transparency in trading and select few use their insider information to make quick gains while regular investor loose their money. There seem to be no regulation to control trading and no watchdog agencies to monitor violations. In essence it’s a lost cause for regular investors while insiders reap all the money
Regardless of the outcome of this trial, I’m happy to be living in a country such as USA where the judiciary authority is separated from the might of the government. Unfortunately, we can’t say this about Egypt, where judges rulings are often influenced by the government.
Yes I do!. Mubarak’s diplomacy to gather support for Hamas is a good thing, after all Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people. Mubarak is very smart in a Machiavellian way, probably the smartest leader out there. He’s the longest serving Egyptian leader since Mohammad Aly. Unfortunately he only uses his smartness to survive, not for the country goodness.
What I like best about him is his foreign policy; in his era Egypt managed to be a friendly nation, admired by the rest, and without enemies. He avoided confrontations with rest of the world and saved us form sanctions, embargos, wars and other damaging situations. I think history will be kind on him only for that.
I admire Mubarak for his survivor skills, and foreign policy, but I blame him for not doing nearly enough to improve the Egyptian standard of living. I blame him for wasting 24 years and counting of Egyptian history without any significant improvement in the economy.
Foreign policy is only one small piece of the puzzle but it has little value for the average Joe Egyptian.
Like Syria, we are heading towards the second phase of the Mubarak dynasty. The path is clear and nothing short of a miracle or a coup would stop it. The opposition has been blown away, and the constitution has been prepared for a smooth transfer of power from father to his son.
I have to admit it, the Egyptian people have shown little resolve to change that, they just given up. We’re being led by a stick and a carrot, they tell us about the carrot but we never get it, we only see the stick.
So Gamal Mubarak is our next president and what you gonna do about it, It is in your face. Now Egyptians are in the same situation as our Syrian brothers who we used to make fun of for their incredible submission and lack of resolve.
To me, I don’t hold any grudges for the son, I don’t know him all that well, actually I don’t know at all, but he is getting more and more familiar to me everyday. He might turn out to be a great leader like Mohammad Aly and do some good to this country. It’s highly unlikely though, but I’m just giving him the benefit of the doubt . My gripe is with the corrupt system of the way the country is run. After all things are set and done, the truth of the matter is that the quality of living for the average Joe Egyptian is in a steady decline since the old man took power.
Take for example the education sector, when I was going to school in Egypt back in the 80’s, the system was not perfect, schools were in bad shape, there was no lab equipment, little physical education, but education though was at least somewhat decent. After all I managed to get my high school degree without ever taking a private lesson or attending after-hours school. I just relied on myself and on in-school teachers. Now-a day education is much worse and private lessons are the norm. The system is now broke and schools are useless.
That’s just an example, but overall everything is declining and the gap is widening between the poor and the rich. This has impacted all walks of life; so for us to endure another 30 years of the Mubarak clan would be catastrophic.
Gamal might be a good guy, but I’m sure there are more qualified people in Egypt than the beloved son. There has to be but nobody is looking. I would think a change would be good. It would give the people some hope for a brighter future. The statuesque means more corruption, more deterioration to the standard of living and a gloomy future that can be very unpredictable.
In Egypt, if you watch state TV channels you’ll be very board because they don’t offer anything interesting. On my last trip to Egypt last summer, I spent one morning switching between channels only to find the same live broadcast of the president attending some boring ceremony. It was really stupid because the same broadcast was on Channel One, Nile TV, and Channel Two. I was bored out of my mind so I decided to buy a satellite dish receiver to keep up to speed with the latest news even though I only had 2 days left before going back to the USA.
When the dish guy came to install the device, he warned me about certain channels and asked if he should block it, but since I don’t believe in self-imposed censorship, I declined. After he left I started flipping through the channels which are so many to count. There was the Arabic channels from all over, including specialized music channels, and free European movie channels in French, English and other languages, but that was not all...
I was shocked to find few pornographic channels broadcasting free to air. That was crazy, we are talking about Egypt, the country where majority of women are veiled and prayer calls (Athans) are hared every other hour. What a contradiction. I’m not a big fan about conspiracy theories, but I think it might be a government sponsored idea to keep the people busy watching pornography while THEY do their things. It might be just another ploy to distract the youth so they don’t revolt against their ever declining standard of living. I might be wrong but again who knows.
Now a day Satellite programming is in many households in Egypt, I figure that the government discovered that it can’t provide decent news coverage or entertaining programs on their own, so they let pornography be accessed easily so viewer won’t watch news channels that often tells the truth in favor of pornography, specially that the truth cannot be good for them can it?
I feel sorry for adolescents in Egypt who watch these 24/7 pornography content. It can screw up their minds to put it mildly. I’m glad I was not raised up in such an environment, it is just not healthy
A blog covering Egypt's political, and cultural news and comments from a new perspective by an Egyptian blogger living in USA and hoping of a better Egypt free of corruption.
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