The Problem with Bassem Youssef

Bassem Youssef's El Bernameg is well-produced, witty and topical.  It is good in its own right, and especially good relative to the tired standards of feigned seriousness, pumped up shouting matches and bad drama for comparable shows on Egyptian and pan-Arab television. Bassem Youssef, however, has become too big for his own good.

Oh Superman, where are you now?

Egypt has gone from this...

Days of romantic hope

to this...

One of Spidey's less fruitful adventures

Dr. No

 Another reason to vote "no."  Would you prefer seeing this... 

A Revolutionary Constitution

James Madison...Egyptian style

In all of the endless bickering regarding the proposed new constitution for Egypt, there has been scant detail on how the existing draft can be improved.  Though there have been a few exceptions to the banal debates -- such as the ever-so-intelligent idea of setting specific maximum wages (in contrast to those failed world economies that only have minimum wages established by their legislatures), capping land ownership to five feddans (because the existing 50 feddan limits have been so successful in creating a vibrant agricultural sector) and ensuring universal healthcare that extends not just to the poor, but to all Egyptians (because Egyptians with means really want to have access to pristine state-run hospitals) -- such modest proposals really have not captured the imagination.

Egyptians pride themselves in being unique, and all the more so in a post-January 25 era.  In the interest of jump-starting discussions on a founding document befitting of its people in these exciting times, here are some specific proposals for Egypt's Revolutionary Constitution:

In Defense of America

"S" is for Salafi!

Of the many idiotic explanations for the mess transpiring these days in Egypt, one of the most incongruous is that this is all America's fault. U.S. policy toward Egypt under Obama has been far from perfect, especially in too eagerly accommodating, and hence legitimizing, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. But to assign all, most or even any significant part the chaos of the last twenty-three months to the United States, amounts to little more than a limp attempt to shift the blame for Egypt's demise since January 25. From the outset, and unfortunately still continuing, the self-proclaimed revolutionary vanguard that triggered the events leading to the present has been lacking in vision, leadership, organization, responsibility, accountability, and credibility, even if being full of energy and passion. The ensuring takeover by the Islamists was as much a victory by default as it was anything else. 

We Shit You Not

President Smiley

In these trying times, Egypt is in need of a man in whom its desperate and divided populace can place its trust, a man who provides a sense of reassurance and integrity, a man who has his priorities straight, a selfless, modest and non-attention hungry man whose very face restores belief in all that is good. While there may have been one or two teeny doubts of his track record, Egypt's revolutionary vanguard has found its new savior: 

And in other news...

Heaping praises on El Dictator

While President Obama impressed himself with the link he formed with Morsi to cool the political hot potato of Israel and the Palestinians, the "pragmatically confident" Morsi was busy at that very same time usurping near total power on the domestic front in Egypt.  The contrast between U.S. perceptions of a moderate and democratic Egypt and the realities of a theocratic dictatorship in the making could not be sharper, and the rosey perception is most definitely aiding and abetting the culmination of the crude reality.  

What the President of the United States thinks matters.  It matters because the United States is the world's sole superpower, and it has, does and will continue to dominate in the Middle East generally, and in Egypt specifically.  Unfortunately, this president has managed to convince himself early on that Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood can be accommodating partners, whether because he really believes so, or because he lowered the standard so much as to make the concept of partnership nearly irrelevant, or some of both. Whatever the case, Morsi has taken note of the air cover, and the ground offensive is now in full swing.  

Be Careful What You Wish For

Egypt today can seem a depressing place.  Discourse seems to only revolve around price hikes, fuel shortages, tragic train and road accidents, attacks on innocent girls and scary plans by scary-looking people to take the country back to the stone ages.  Anything and everything is cited as yet another piece of damning proof of the incompetence and danger of the Islamists, feeding into a spiraling cycle of depravity that can only be broken by a full fledged coup d'etat by mystical heroic figures who will intervene to save the day. 

The principal proponents of this desperate outlook are very same "progressive" idealists who initiated the overthrowal of Mubarak's rule, and who now look longingly to an era where traffic was apparently less chaotic, where tragic accidents were apparently less horrific, where the educational system was apparently less awful, where people and religions were apparently less uncivil, where Gaza was apparently less incendiary, and on and on and on.  And apparently forgotten and forgiven are the cynical and stifling politics, cultural atrophy, failed war and foreign policy, stagnant economy and mass corruption emblematic of the military state.  

The world rejoices the annointed one

Egypt's Disastrous Courts

The current state of Egypt's court system is an unmitigated disaster.  A toxic blend of populism, Islamism, corruption and outright idiocy is steadily chipping away at what little credibility remains in a post-January 2011 Egypt.  Though the Muslim Brotherhood and their Salafi cohorts, as well as the military establishment and its systemic oppression, represent clear and present dangers at the constitutional, presidential, parliamentary and administrative levels, those risks are checked by at least of modicum of transparency and opposition that is entirely lacking with the self-serving, activist judiciary.  

Impossibly wide claims, fabricated evidence and reversals of the burden of proof leave defendants with virtually no chance of success.  In one recent, high-profile decision against a foreign gold mining company, Centamin, an administrative court ordered the cancellation of  a concession (which was once cited as a case study of Egypt's economic successes), because the revenue-share allocation to the state was deemed insufficient.  In proclaiming victory after the decision, the lead prosecutor noted that: 

[t]he government has pumped about 200,000 litres of diesel each day to help the company's operations over the last 10 years, that alone is worth $800 million.

Golden no more

Even taking the unlikely assumption that the fuel inputs were offered free of consideration, that would implausibly price government procured diesel at over $4 per gallon. Other high-profile decisions have ordered re-nationalizations of publicly-traded companies, voided billion dollar investments stretching over the course of a decade in a cement plant employing 3,000 people, plus taking various actions against property developers based on a repricing of once barren and undeveloped lands at current market, post-development values.  And these are just the headline cases.  Dozens upon dozens of other dossiers are in the dockets, with the overwhelming presumption of guilt driving away precious capital and even more precious brainpower.    

Fall in Chicago

Morsi's First 10,000 Days

Forever

CAIRO — November 10, 2039 (Associated Bress) — Jubilant crowds greeted President Mohamed Morsi on occasion of his 10,000th day in office as the beloved leader of Egypt.  Beating back chronic fuel shortages, Egyptians of all ages abandoned their cars, coming by foot and climbing up artificial mountains created by accumulated piles of garbage on Sharaa Mohamed Morsi to catch a glimpse of the President.  In a rousing speech, Morsi vowed to rule Egypt until the last beating of his heart and to uphold the democratic aspirations of the country.  

 

Free (Trade) Gaza!

There's a more practical way

The idea of setting up a free trade zone between Gaza and Egypt seems almost too sensible to ever happen in the contorted logic of the Middle East. Development in the Gaza Strip is hampered most immediately by political restrictions, but also from being pegged to the macro economy of Israel, influencing everything from currency valuation to utility, commodity and consumer product prices that are measured against an industrialized market instead of a developing one. Still, Gaza receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually in funds from international donors, and increasingly from Gulf countries, fueling a mini-boom in an area with a well-educated and young population.

Meanwhile, bordering Gaza is northern Sinai, Egypt’s most restless and most neglected region, encumbered by tribalism, a lack of investment and prioritizing of security over economics.  Yet it has massive potential, attributable to its location and the country’s relatively low cost structure. Common sense would suggest the flow of goods and services would adjust for this imbalance, and partly it has, with more than half a billion dollars said to transfer between Egypt and Gaza annually, but only through illegal, underground tunnels. 

Trojans and Hooters: Morsi's America

The U.S. press are suckers for foreigners that can say something remotely familiar about American culture.  In this case, a flabby interview by the New York Times with Morsi on the occasion of his upcoming trip to New York, offers the following on his insights into America:

He was also eager to reminisce about his taste of American culture as a graduate student at the University of Southern California. “Go, Trojans!” he said, and he remembered learning about the world from Barbara Walters in the morning and Walter Cronkite at night. “And that’s the way it is!” Mr. Morsi said with a smile.

But he also displayed some ambivalence. He effused about his admiration for American work habits, punctuality and time management. But when an interpreter said that Mr. Morsi had “learned a lot” in the United States, he quickly interjected a qualifier in English: “Scientifically!” 

He was troubled by the gangs and street of violence of Los Angeles, he said, and dismayed by the West’s looser sexual mores, mentioning couples living together out of wedlock and what he called “naked restaurants,” like Hooters. 

I don’t admire that,” he said. “But that is the society. They are living their way.”

Morsi's support for a USC team shamed by the NCAA for its serial cheating shows his appreciation of college football is considerably less refined, and less principled, than it is of domestic football in Egypt.  The President of Egypt learning about the world through Barbara Walters also is unsettling. But most troubling is his lack of esteem for Hooters, that beacon of American culture heavily frequented by every man, woman and child in the United States.

Premiership, Bundesliga, UAE Pro League and the Dawry: It's All Relative

You're missing out ya Shika!

Last week, Egyptian football stars abroad put on a pretty good showing, with decisive assists and goals by Shikabala, Zidan, El Mohamady and Ibrahim Salah.  Unfortunately, this was against Ittihad Kalba (Bitch United?), Al-Dharfa, Leeds and FC Amriswil, and not against Parma (against whom Shika would have been playing had he transferred to Napoli), Bayern Munich (had Zidan not thrown away his Bundesliga career to cash in at the tad less competitive UAE Pro League) or Liverpool (had Elmo played to potential with Sunderland in the Premier League).  Ibrahim Saleh's adventure to Basel gets a pass, for now, given it is the beginning of what can be a very promising experience abroad.  

Get Egypt Off the Headlines!

There should be a KPI imposed on Egyptian leaders that measures the prominence of press on the country. The mandate should be that less is more. Egypt is in need of normality. It needs to have kids attending properly functioning schools. It needs gas stations that pump gas. It needs water taps through which liquid comes out in the non-orange variety. It needs to have a sustainable trash collection system. It needs manageable urbanization. It needs a football league with a fixed start date. It needs a bureaucracy empowered to issue permits, grant licenses and generally to get things done. It needs public prosecutors and judges who are guardians of the law and not corrupt populists. It needs a constitution that can provide even a modicum of certainty of individual and social protections to all of its citizens.

Less of that...

Christians, Muslims and Soccer in Egypt

It is difficult for the majority of Egypt's Muslim majority, let alone outsiders (including the team Obama pinheads), to understand the depth of discrimination against Christians in Egypt.  The tendency is to only consider the issue when there is a violent outburst, which is quickly explained away as an isolated act by social deviants, a family feud or part of a conspiracy not involving Egyptians.  A more revealing reflection on the true status of the country's religious disharmony is seen in football, the country's national sporting pastime and passion.

Based on an unscientific review of the rosters of the nineteen or twenty teams of Egypt's still-dormant premier league for the 2012-13 season (even knowing the number of teams that will play in the league with an unknown start date is too much to ask for the comically disorganized football federation), there is not a single Egyptian Christian player, coach or trainer. If you stretch back over the past three or four decades, virtually no Copts are to be found (Hany Ramzy being the most notable exception, another the adequate but not super Mohsen Abdel Masih of Ismaily). The same holds true at the junior ranks and throughout the sporting clubs across the country.

Mafeesh Fayda

Revolution or not, fans or not, on-time start or not, it's the same old, same old.  Dubious penalty, red card, Ahly wins.

Egyptian Monopoly

Show me the money

Global financial crisis depressing lending and investment opportunities?  Not here.  Whether it is announcements of Qatari grants, or Chinese joint ventures, or U.S. debt relief, or concessionary EU loans, or the IMF begging to offer credit at five times below market rates, everyone wants to get a piece of the action with Egypt's new ruling regime.  It is time to set the rules of the game to be graced with our attention.

Tenders will be generally awarded to the highest bid following a competitive process, the rules of which will not be disclosed and are subject to change at our sole and absolute discretion, but the general idea is to show me the money.  Conditions on funding are acceptable, provided they do not make us look bad in the immediate term.  Any questions on the specific destination of the funds once received will not be answered.

Prices are quoted on a per annum basis.

Let the bidding begin!

• Peace treaty with Israel:  Boardwalk.  $5 billion  Even if we could never actually cause much military damage, peace of mind comes at a price, and this is what it is.
  
  

• Suez Canal navigation:  Park Place.  $3.5 billion.  It does not rank in first only because there is an immediate own-goal effect if Egypt gets crazy with canal management, as ships take the longer route around Africa.  Somali pirates might become surprising more active, however, should this become a trend.
  
  

• Anti-Iran alliance:  Pennsylvania Avenue.  $1.5 billion, with a red hotel.  Egypt to share 10% of proceeds with Iran to keep everyone fretting.
  
  

Community chest

• Dialogue with the “Islamic world”:  Get out of Jail Free.  $1.0 billion.  Makes pin-headed geo-strategist Obama feel good to reduce the world into false blocks, where touchy-feely dialogue substitutes for actual engagement.
  
  
• Belly-dancers:  Community Chest.  $1.0 billion.  Gulf Arab lust satisfied, while Egyptian culture and traditions trampled upon.
  
  

Ahly Lost in the Heart of Darkness

Egypt, Iran and the Gillette Solution

With all of the consternation about Egyptian foreign policy drifting into an diabolical alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran, maybe a solution to this...

Beards united

Egyptians: From Another Planet

The first color photo from NASA's Curiosity rover mission to Mars looks strikingly familiar to the eastern outskirts of Cairo.

Mamma Mia - Che Gol!

Dream on

Coptic Irons and Scientific Research

Not the only thing bent in Dahshur

This week in the harmonious land of Egypt, we learned that Christians are not to be trusted with ironing one's linens.  Dozens of Christian families were reportedly evicted from their homes in Dahshur (near the pyramid where some Pharaonic engineers made the most glaring of geometric errors), apparently because of a Coptic makwagi who left the iron a little too long on a customer's shirt.