...n anew. Referring to the newly elected president’s inauguration speech, the head of the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights said that Morsi “wanted to show that he is not head of any specific faction, but a president for all Egyptians. But there must be actions to follow, on the ground.” And, to this end, the “Morsi-meter” has been activated by a number of Egyptian activists to keep track of Morsi’s accountability. But criticism of Morsi is unfo...
...tes: Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and Ahmed Shafiq, former Minister of Aviation, running as an independent. This first-past-the-post system will ensure a two-party system in Egypt. Egyptians should eliminate the first-past-the-post system to move away from an era of thinking between Mubarak cronies and the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood, and to make way for cooperation that transcends this binary. Give...
...ued to prop up the Mubarak regime, they seemingly validated Mubarak’s claims of an all-powerful American government capable of directing and molding Egyptian politics however it saw fit. Therefore, even once Mubarak was gone, Egyptians had long grown accustomed to looking for and expecting “foreign interference” as a possible explanation for their political problems. Given the legacy of conspiracy theories under Mubarak, the effect of an alleged...
...ks ago, when armed terrorists killed sixteen Egyptian soldiers and attempted to continue on into Israel to incite further violence. Since 1967, the Sinai has been a point of contention between every generation of Israelis and Egyptians, and the events of this month seemed even more strenuous given the new and, as of yet, untested Egyptian leadership. At first, the Israelis, who are suspicious of the Islamist leadership to the point of paranoia, a...
...en two polarizing options. Those dissatisfied with the results are increasingly pointing to irregularities in the electoral process or flaws in the electoral system created by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. For example, Egyptians are selecting their president before creating the very constitution that specifies the obligations and powers that their elected officials are to assume. How might this be problematic if Shafiq or Morsi are to assu...
...lars to maintain the peace. During her visit to Egypt and Israel, Clinton discussed Egyptian-Israeli relations and US efforts to maintain cordial relations. Clinton stated that “we have a clear message of support for what the Egyptians decide is in their own best interest.” But what if a public opinion poll were to show that Egyptians believe a treaty with Israel is not in their best interest? After all, for years the Mubarak regime had been tran...
...nerally, politicians in the West plan campaigns strategically, deciding how to use their resources to divide and conquer America’s politically diverse map. Despite the fact that on December 15th and 22nd 2012, the majority of Egyptians who voted said “yes” to constitutional amendments, the governorate and capital city of Cairo voted “no.” Are these conversations on the geography of politics moving to the Middle-East? To call contemporary Egypt a...
Part I of Two Part Series With Egypt’s constitutional assembly beginning the following day, Saturday’s Egypt Symposium, hosted by Turath, the Arab Students Association, could not have been hosted at a better time. The conference, which focused on the Egypt’s post-revolution phase, drew a large crowd of Egyptians, Arabs, and interested non-Arabs from around the Tri-State area to hear from some of Egypt’s biggest political, activist, and artisti...
...more sensitive to underlying tensions. On closer observation, the atmosphere began to feel like New York in the months following the attacks of September 11, 2001—a volatile mix of misguided pride and fear. It seems that many Egyptians were not caught up in a tide of nationalism but were merely struggling to carry on with daily life. During the revolution, the stone tiles that had once made up the sidewalks of Tahrir Square had been violently tor...
...sident. From where did he suddenly get all this power? Egypt has not yet written a constitution to reflect the demands of the revolution, and what is or isn’t politically permissible has, so far, been arbitrarily established. Egyptians have applauded Morsi’s decision as a move in the right direction in that it has ended the direct political involvement of the ever finicky SCAF. But who’s to say what he’s done is constitutional and within his allo...
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