Category Archives: Egypt

Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Humor, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

The Case for Splitting the Arab States: Wahhabistan and Huthistan and Rafidhistan……….

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Much has been written and said in the past ten years about the potential for splitting Iraq. The argument is mainly that the sects and ethnic groups cannot reach a deal to remain together peacefully within the British-created borders of Iraq. The Kurds want to split away, they are just waiting for when the moment is right (to quote the famous TV ad). The Sunni southwest region is in many ways more like northern Saudi Arabia than Iraq, at least in a tribal sense. There has also been talk of a split of Syria into Alawi, Sunni, and Wahhabi parts (perhaps a Kurdish one as well). We can extend that to some other Arab states; why only Syria and Iraq and Sudan (as happened a couple of years ago) or Somalia (which is bound to happen)? Let us explore a few other cases:

  • Saudi Arabia: King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud invaded and annexed several regions to his own Nejdi kingdom in the 20th century. His kingdom can now be divided into three states. The Nejd area will form a Wahhabistan which will keep the current name of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (if they don’t like Wahhabistan). The Hijaz will form another state where they all speak the same dialect of Arabic and say things like ‘ya shaikh’ and ‘ikhtishi’ and ‘koweyiss’ (meaning ‘good’). The smallest state will be along the coast of the Persian-American Gulf, where most of the Shi’as live. The southern part will join the next state on my list in northern Yemen.
  • Yemen: the northern most part of Yemen will annex the southern regions that had been usurped by Saudi King Abdulaziz in 1930s. It will be renamed Huthistan. The central part, the rest of the old Yemen will become “Yemen”. Southern Yemen which lost its independence in 1990 to become part of Yemen will regain its freedom and will be renamed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen Southern Arabia.
  • Bahrain: Shi’as and some others have been in protest mode for more than three years, seeking equality in politics and economics. The Al Khalifa rulers and their tribal and Salafi allies are determined to deny them that right. So why not divide Bahrain into two mini parts: Manama and Muharraq to become one country (perhaps forming one new Saudi province), and the rest, including the neglected villages and townships could become another state of its own. This Shi’a part could be called the Rafidhi State and join the GCC as such. Or maybe it can join the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the eighth emirate. Okay, maybe I will send a text message to the shaikh, sorry king, suggesting it (with a copy forwarded to the Saudi king since it will be his decision to make).
  • Libya: is already divided into at least two parts: let us keep it that way.
  • Morocco: no change, except that the king will have to give up the Sahrawi region.
  • Egypt: Egypt has had nearly the same borders for thousands of years, the only Arab country to have this distinction. There are no major tribes or tribal divisions, although there are now deep religious divisions. So Egypt will probably remain the same: bored to death under a boring military ruler presiding over the same old bureaucracy, but united. The Sinai will remain a wild violent outpost and the south a place of violent clashes among the clans over women and cattle and religion.
  • UAE: the Abu Dhabi shaikhs have got the rest of them by the balls. Only Dubai is rich enough to draw the line.
  • Qatar: maybe it will join Turkey as a new Ottoman outpost.

(The Arab League will them change from a league or 20 some despots to a League of Forty Thieves. And I am almost serious about this, almost).

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Economics, Egypt, GCC

Will Tony Blair get The Prize for Advising Sisi on the Economics of Counter-Revolution?……..

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“Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge “business opportunities” to those involved, the Guardian has learned. The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt’s elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on “economic reform” in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo – a decision criticised by one former ally. The UAE taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract investment into Egypt’s crisis-ridden economy at a forthcoming Egypt donors’ conference sponsored by the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia…………..”

Mr. Blair, the Old New Labor Neoconservative leader, has a knack for attracting dictatorial and oligarchy talent. Not only does he find them, but he can also press the right buttons on them. You can say if you were rude and crude, which I am not, that he knows how to find their G-spot. From the Persian Gulf to Central Asia and North Africa, he has been advising them and lobbying on their behalf. Remember his famous squashing of British Serious Frauds Office (SFO) investigation into the $2 billion bribe paid by BAE Systems to Saudi Prince Bandar for a weapons deal? Remember his dealings with the Lat Colonel Gaddafi on behalf of J P Morgan? All these and more were IOUs that he collected from the potentates.

All that and his saying the right words, his incessant warmongering in the Middle East, from Syria through to Iran and beyond. The kind of talk that makes the Wahhabi princes and their Salafi allies salivate at the prospect of American boys and girls going to war on their behalf.

Well, like yet another bad dream he is back in the Middle East, after years of pretending to be looking into the Palestinian-Israeli issue but achieving nothing. He has been selected by the Saudi and Emirati and other Gulf overlords of Egypt to advise the newest strongman of Egypt on the ‘economy’. Who knows, maybe Tony will get a Nobel Prize in Economics: anyone who can solve or reduce or ease Egypt’s economic problems would deserve the prize. And if he doesn’t, there is always the King Whatishisface and Shaikh Whatishisass prize as consolation.

And you know what I think? I think we will see riots back on the streets of Cairo, once the people realize that they have been robbed of ll what they thought they had gained in 2011. That they have been led by their political leaders and opinion-makers on a circle back to where they started in January 2011. That what they experienced has not been a revolution but a cruel hoax.

(FYI: Here is what I tweeted when I read about it last night: ” Oh sh-t, oh sh-t, oh sh-t…………. hired to advise Generalisimo Al on economic matters. Poor Egypt………” )

 

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Cairo, Egypt, Qatar, Science

Is Medical Pilgrimage in Egypt’s Future? the Army Says So about their Acne Cure……….

 

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Qatari daily Al-Quds Alarabi, published from London, and other Arab media have interesting medical news from Egypt. The Medical Services Authority of the Egyptian Army has announced an update on its magical machines that can cure HIV and Hepatitis-C. It announced at a press conference Saturday that it is postponing receiving any patients who are seeking to be cured from HIV (AIDS) and/or Hepatitis-C through the new machines the Egyptian Army had invented. The Army said the postponement will last six months, allowing for further experiments on a larger sample of those infected.

The Egyptian army had announced the new inventions with fanfare a few months ago, at a public event attended by the county’s leadership including Field Marshal Al Sisi. A General Dr. Al –Sairafy said they are looking into the best ways to apply the cures for the Hepatitis-C and HIV (AIDS)N viruses, using what he called the C-Fact and Complete-Cure machines invented by the Egyptian Armed Forces.

A medical professor of gastronomy and liver diseases at Ain Shams University at Cairo said the tow breakthrough inventions were developed over a period of 22 years. He added that “the cure starts with a patient taking one daily tablet for ten days, after which he sits on a machine that drwas out his blood the returns a pure form of the blood back into his body. This blood re-infusion is done one hour per day over 16 days………”

With these great inventions, courtesy of the brains of the glorious armed forces of Egypt, the economy should quickly recover as millions from around the world make the pilgrimage to Cairo to get cured of their diseases.

(I must add here that this Complete-Cure sounds like a skin cream for zits, a.k.a. acne, rather than HIV (AIDS). The Fast-C sounds like a method of injecting a huge dosage of vitamin C into someone’s blood).

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Egypt, Salafi

Egypt Salafi Leader Bans World Cup, Urges ‘Funner’ Diversions…….

      

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“Vice-Chief of the Salafi Dawa Yasser Borhamy has issued a religious edict, saying that Muslims are forbidden from watching football matches in the World Cup as it could be seen as admiring disbelievers. In his edict posted on Ana Salafi, the official website of the Salafi Dawa, Borhamy said, “the World Cup matches distract Muslims from performing their [religioius] duties. They include forbidden things that could break the fast in Ramadan as well as others fobidden in Islam like intolerance and wasting time. Football lovers like disbelievers of foreign teams’ players and others, which is rejected.” Borhamy also called on football lovers to focus on their religion and stay away from such forbidden things……………”
FYI: he was kidding when he said that intolerance is forbidden (it is, but not for Salafis).

The shaggy Salafi leader was asked: “In that case what can we do in the evenings for fun instead?“.
He is reported by my eccentric reporter to have winked, cracked a lascivious smile, and replied: “If you need me to tell you about fun, then you are as hopeless as a Shi’a in Mosul“.

Then he added: “There is at least one other thing that is ‘funner’ than watching a bunch of other guys kicking a FIFA ball around“.
Cheers
mhg

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Culture and Sports, Egypt, Salafi, Sports

Egypt Salafi Leader Bans World Cup, Urges ‘Funner’ Diversions…….

      

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“Vice-Chief of the Salafi Dawa Yasser Borhamy has issued a religious edict, saying that Muslims are forbidden from watching football matches in the World Cup as it could be seen as admiring disbelievers. In his edict posted on Ana Salafi, the official website of the Salafi Dawa, Borhamy said, “the World Cup matches distract Muslims from performing their [religioius] duties. They include forbidden things that could break the fast in Ramadan as well as others fobidden in Islam like intolerance and wasting time. Football lovers like disbelievers of foreign teams’ players and others, which is rejected.” Borhamy also called on football lovers to focus on their religion and stay away from such forbidden things……………”
FYI: he was kidding when he said that intolerance is forbidden (it is, but not for Salafis).

The shaggy Salafi leader was asked: “In that case what can we do in the evenings for fun instead?“.
He is reported by my eccentric reporter to have winked, cracked a lascivious smile, and replied: “If you need me to tell you about fun, then you are as hopeless as a Shi’a in Mosul“.

Then he added: “There is at least one other thing that is ‘funner’ than watching a bunch of other guys kicking a FIFA ball around“.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Elections, Arab Revolutions, Egypt

La Vache Qui Rit 2.0: Egypt Leaps Forward to the Past………

      

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                                          Les Vaches Qui Rient


Even before Hosni Mubarak took over in 1981, many Arabs had started calling him “La Vache Qui Rit”, the Laughing Cow, after a popular French cheese spread that advertised a lot on Arab television.
The idea was that when he was vice president under Anwar Sadat, all he did was grin during cabinet meetings. Grin and nod approval at whatever Sadat said. That was the plausible claim.
Enter Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi. Now Al Sisi also grins and nods a lot, but mainly in the presence of Saudi princes and Gulf potentates. I fully expect him to be considered the newest version of the old one. La Vache Qui Rit 2.0.


As for military-appointed interim president Adly Mansour Al Zombie, it is back to the cellars for him. Back to the dusty judicial bureaucracy from whence he was plucked to play pretend president.


Cheers
mhg

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Arab Elections, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, U.S. Foreign Policy

America on the Nile, Whining on the Nile: Time to Grow Up on the Nile?……..

      

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“These discredited Egyptian liberals made their bed with the generals, now they are being forced to sleep in it. So just relax and enjoy it for the next thirty years: you’ve earned it……………” Me

Here is my broad-brush take on political developments in Egypt since 2011:

  • In February 2011 during the uprising against the regime of Hosni Mubarak, many of his Egyptian opponents claimed that the Obama administration was trying to shore up his position, to keep him in power.
  • On the other hand, many of his supporters complained that the United States was trying to overthrow him, by not helping him. Saudi King Abdullah, who famously claimed the protesters at Tahrir were foreign agents, is still pissed upset at Obama for not helping Mubarak crush his people.
  • After Mubarak fell, almost everybody in Egypt who was not an army general claimed the Obama administration was keeping the SCAF military junta in power. Some among the military probably suspected that Obama was ready to throw them under one of those crowded Cairo buses.
  • In the summer of 2012, Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidency in free and fair close elections. His domestic and Arab opponents mostly acted as if the Obama administration had somehow helped him win the election. The Islamists claimed that he won in spite of American plots against him. Persian Gulf princes and potentates who could not tell an election from the proverbial ‘hole in the ground’ apparently suspected foul play. Egypt’s liberals joined forces with the oligarchs and the Mubarakistas and the Wahhabis to call for ‘restoration’ of the feloul.
  • In July of 2013 General Al Sisi, whom Morsi had promoted to minister of defense, stabbed him in the back by staging a military coup that overthrew the elected president. Al Sisi was urged to act by three factions: Egypt’s deluded liberals, the feloul, and the Gulf princes and potentates. The Muslim Brotherhood -MB- claimed the Americans were in cahoots with the military. Admittedly that was a very tempting suspicion, given the history.
  • At the time U.S. congressional delegations to Cairo had divergent opinions: McCain/Graham said correctly that July 3 of 2013 was a military coup; Bachmann/Gohmert (the idiot delegation) praised the military coup even as they told Egyptians of the joys of American electoral democracy.
  • The other side in Egypt, the liberals and oligarchs and feloul, claimed the Americans had made a deal with the MB and had wanted them in power. Egypt’s ‘liberals’, most of whom had urged the military to stage a coup and supported it, now proceeded to whine that the military had made plans with Washington to take power (after a coup that these same liberals pushed for and supported).

Continue reading America on the Nile, Whining on the Nile: Time to Grow Up on the Nile?…….. →

Arab Elections, Egypt, European Union, Syria

Impartial Foreign Monitors of Syrian and Egyptian Elections Are Happy with Great Big Zeros……

      

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Syrian media reported that an ecstatic Bashar Al Assad met with an uncharacteristically cheerful Iranian parliamentary delegation that had monitored the Syrian election. The Iranians insisted they did not care who won as long as the election went smoothly and everybody from Al Raqqah through, er, Beirut got to vote. They declared themselves satisfied with the election process. They claimed the elections were as free and fair as they had wished them to be, and the results (Assad won with 88%) were fantastic. “Could not be better”, said one bearded Iranian who insisted they were in Damascus as just impartial observers “to keep the honest, honest”.………


Egyptian media is quoted by my Cairo source claiming that General Al Sisi met with a gaggle of Gulf princes and potentates who had monitored the Egyptian election from the GCC democracy-monitoring headquarters in Riyadh. They declared the voting to have been free, fair, and very democratic, “almost as good as anything we have never seen back home”. One worthy grumbled that it was actually too democratic “if you ask me“, even if not tribal enough. When asked about the results (Sisi won with 97%), they said it was obviously fantastic and ordained by Allah and “why haggle over a lousy 3% discrepancy?”………
One smirking shaikh added his own version of a Parthian parting shot: “unlike that Great Big Zero election held in Syria“…….


Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt

The Sad Grim Future of Khaled Said……


      

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Young opponents of the old Mubarak regime in Egypt used (and some still use) the motto: “We are all Khaled Said” online. That was to commemorate a young activist who was beaten to death by old regime security agents in Alexandria in 2010. 

  • Now the old regime security is the new regime security, the old goons are the new goons. 
  • Just as the new regime bureaucrats are the old regime bureaucrats, just as the old regime courts are the new regime courts. 
  • Come to think of it: the new regime is the old regime. 
  • The one difference may be that the new regime probably has collected more political prisoners than the old regime, and in a much shorter time. And it is killing off more opponents than the old regime did, either on the streets or through kangaroo courts passing mass death sentences.
  • Just this weekend another Egyptian kangaroo court sentenced ten more young people to hanging, adding them to the more than a thousand others already on death raw for political reasons.
  • Also this weekend an Egyptian appeals court freed a police officer who was charged with killing 37 political detainees.
  • So, you know where all this is heading in the coming months and years.



Expect many more Khaled Saids in the future of Egypt. Some of them will no doubt be called ‘terrorists’, but in many cases that will not be true. They will simply be new versions of the Khaled Said who was beaten to death months before the Tahrir Uprising. But they will be facing the same old enemy that he faced in 2010……..

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Elections, Egypt, Syria

Tale of Two Funny Elections: European Union Congratulates Al Sisi but not Al Assad……..


      


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“Declaration on behalf of the European Union
on the presidential elections in Egypt
The holding of the presidential elections marks an important step in the imp
lementation of
the constitutional roadmap towards the transition to democracy in Egypt. The Europe
an
Union expresses its willingness to work closely with the new authorities in Eg
ypt in a
constructive partnership with a view to strengthening our bilateral r
elations.
The EU congratulates Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, as the new President of Egypt
, and trusts that
he will tackle the serious challenges faced by the country and the new governm
ent, among
them the dire economic situation, the deep divisions within society, the security sit
uation,
and the respect of the human rights of all Egyptian citizens in line with inter
national
obligations and guaranteed by the new Constitution adopted last January.
On the basis of the preliminary statement of the EU Election Observat
ion Mission the EU
takes good note of the overall peaceful and orderly conduct of the elections……………….”
Yadda, yadda, yadda in European bureaucratese.

The EU congratulated Generalissimo Field Marshal Al Sisi for winning his rigged Egyptian election with 97% of the vote. Effectively they congratulated him for overthrowing the elected president of Egypt, Morsi and taking over the state. They did not congratulate Bashar Al Assad for winning the other funny Arab election, the Syrian election. Perhaps because Bashar won only 88% of the vote and did not reach the required Arab majority of 90%. 
They did, however congratulate the latest chubby oligarch to become president of Ukraine.
Cheers
mhg

[email protected]