Today, February 4th, is the anniversary of the so-called ‘Battle of the Camel’, the decisive turning point of the Revolution of January 25^th, when the peaceful democracy protesters in Tahrir were able to beat back a vicious onslaught by pro-Mubarak thugs who attacked them… Read full post »

Yesterday, as I walked to Tahrir Square along the Kasr el-Nil Bridge, I met friends and acquaintances along the way, the same people who, like me, had been so moved by the revolution a year ago, and who had shunned the ugly confrontations in Tahrir since the divisiveness and the… Read full post »

 So you had a revolution…and now, you have the first democratically-elected parliament in sixty years. Today was the day when the new parliament was seated, and all of Egypt watched the spectacle in the hemi-circle parliament hall as newly-elected candidates stood up to… Read full post »

 So you had a revolution…and now, you have the first democratically-elected parliament in sixty years. Today was the day when the new parliament was seated, and all of Egypt watched the spectacle in the hemi-circle parliament hall as newly-elected candidates stood up to… Read full post »

The day before, there had been thousands of people demonstrating against the brutal stripping and beating of women protesters at the hands of the Military Police.  But on Saturday, when I went to Tahrir Square for the first time since March of this year, it was quiet and somewhat b… Read full post »

A Western superpower invades a Middle Eastern country with overwhelming force, under the pretext of defending its interests in the region, but with the ulterior motive of extending its military, strategic and economic power overseas. The commander of the military expedition proclaims to… Read full post »

Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for thirty years under emergency powers with the justification of ‘après moi le deluge’, an argument that played better in the West than at home. He presented his military-backed regime as the sole bulwark against the flood water… Read full post »

The first inkling, for many of us in Cairo last February, was the sinister text messages that appeared on our cell phones. I remember my eighty year old mother calling me in alarm: “The military forces are sending me SMS (as text messages are referred to in Egypt)… Read full post »

 In the Middle East, the Western superpower is withdrawing its occupying troops. In Egypt, the sudden overthrow of a military-backed autocracy, followed by ‘a series of ephemeral revolutions’, plunges the country into a state of political uncertainty and general insec… Read full post »

I remember when London was the best place to get arrested- if you were Arab and not Irish, that is. That was back in the seventies, when I was a student at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. At the time, the terrorists setting bombs in the ‘Tube’… Read full post »

Schadenfreude has had a field day the past couple of weeks. First it was ‘the humblest day of my life’ for Rupert Murdoch, before whose power prime ministers groveled, Scotland Yard bowed and trade unions shattered. But that was closer to comedy than tragedy, with farcica… Read full post »

Anders Breivik’s own father wishes he’d committed suicide after his unconscionable massacre of teenage campers, but I am fervently grateful that he did not. If he had killed himself or if he had died in a firefight with police, if all they found was the dead body of the blond… Read full post »

I had never heard of Osama Bin Laden before 9/11, but within months my name was on a book about him as contributing editor. In an uncanny coincidence, a book titled Au Nom d’Oussama bin Laden, by French counter-terrorism expert Roland Jacquard, had just been published on September 11^th; Duke Un… Read full post »

In February, Vogue magazine published a flattering piece on the lovely, elegant Syrian first lady, Asmaa al-Assad- “A Rose in the Desert”- gushing about the hyperkinetic first lady’s supercharged day, the accessibility with which she and her husband President Bashar supposedly live,… Read full post »

The Mubaraks in Jail: My Memories of Torah Prison

The idea of former president Hosni Mubarak behind bars is not met with unmitigated schadenfreude in Egypt, even among those who demonstrated to end his regime. The first time I stood with the million protesters in Tahrir Square, I… Read full post »

Yesterday saw Egypt’s first free referendum in sixty years, and the results come as a deep disappointment to the very revolutionary movement that made them possible- but that’s the price of democracy. Or rather, the price of democracy after sixty years of single-party dictatorship, during… Read full post »

The thing about revolutions these days, is that the exponentially accelerated, dizzying pace of change means that the stages through which, say, the French Revolution passed, are now compressed into days instead of months or years. It’s hard to tell what stage you’re in at any given momen… Read full post »

Tom Friedman’s claim, in a recent editorial, that the young Egyptians, Tunisians and other Arabs in revolt were inspired by democracies in the US, China, and Israel, among other countries. That conclusion would find few supporters on the ground inside Arab societies. In the case of Egypt, young… Read full post »

Who would in their wildest dreams have imagined that an Egyptian Prime Minister would have to tender his resignation as a result of condescending comments he made during a televised debate, in which he essentially apologized for not preventing the bloodshed by offering to send flowers and chocolates… Read full post »

Returning to Egypt from India, on the last leg of the flight, Doha to Cairo, I see a husky man in his thirties get up and go through the plane, asking people to fill out landing cards and show him their passports. My reflex is one of Orwellian alarm. But this… Read full post »

Thsi Sunday morning, heavy traffic circumventing about twenty armored tanks lining the Corniche along the Radio and Television Building, some say to prevent a coup within the army itself. People scanning the newspapers to gage who is dictating the headlines now. Speculation: one of two Nobel Prize wi… Read full post »

This morning, after the great celebration in Tahrir Square, it is time to clean up after 18 exhausting days of occupation, protest, bloodbath, cheering, and the trampling of millions of feet. Today the square was a tourist attraction, with cars parked up and down the 6^th October Bridge- illegally, of… Read full post »

From Tahrir Square : Friday of Anger ?

Last night- after hours of building up hope, after the top military brass had issued communiqué no. 1- came the stunningly disappointing speech by Mubarak, Egypt’s once and future president, according to him; followed by the insulting exh… Read full post »

Yesterday was the biggest day yet for the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, and around Egypt. Hundreds of thousands poured into the center of Cairo, and traffic came to a near-complete standstill between the hours of 1 and 7 pm. This time, the aim was to oust, not just Hosni Mubarak but… Read full post »