Sarah Carr on the election trail
Sarah Carr | Egypt elections I am delighted to offer this guest post by the wonderful Sarah Carr, who blogs at Inanities.
I am a journalist, so my fate for the past two days was to drag myself between schools in Cairo looking at people, a bit like a paedophile.
We started out in Shubra, where long queues of people patiently stood in muddied streets waiting to attack the ballot box. It became clear early on who was dominating the whole affair. Outside virtually every polling station stood a small group of men with laptops providing information (voter number, which polling station they should go to) to confused voters. A useful service, but one whose legality is clouded by the fact that they information they provided was written on slips of paper bearing the insignia of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).
Even in Christian-majority Shubra liberal and leftist parties were strikingly absent, leaving last-minute rallying outside polling stations to the FJP and their confreres in Islam the Nour party. The same pattern was repeated in Sayeda Zeinaba, Ain Shams and Abdeen.
This was the FJP’s moment, and they knew it. Their members were positively buoyant. It reminded me of first-time winners at Wimbledon who go on about how all the sacrifice and hardship was worth it for this moment. Outside one polling station in Sayeda Zeinab, former stomping ground of the peanut-eating People’s Assembly speaker, Fathy Sorour, two smiling men, one of them holding a camera descended on me and another journalist.
We had just emerged from the polling station, and the man not holding a camera enquired as to whether we had noticed any irregularities inside. I embarked on a long description of how one FJP member had stood at the door of one room and controlled access to the room, guiding voters to the correct polling station room. I suggested that while this is a useful service, it is one better carried out by a government employee. For good measure I added that most of the violations I had seen over the two days were carried out by the FJP (but then what other parties were visible to commit violations). I stopped and asked the man who he was.
“A member of the FJP,” he said, grinning.
He listened to the accusations in good humour and then launched into a strange defence of the FJP’s motivations in these elections. I pointed out that ultimately they are in it to win it, and the man responded with a detailed description of how yesterday an FJP member had assisted a traffic cop in guiding snarled traffic outside the polling station. “It’s not all about politics!” he insisted.
My friend Sherif “Sharshar” Azer agrees. He described the election as “moulid el sandooq”, “the ballot box moulid”, a spirit reflected in the festive and self-congratulationary tone of radio coverage (not only can Egyptians queue for democracy in an orderly fashion, they can do so in rain-soaked streets!) and one report I heard that SCAF had wheeled out a military band to entertain voters while they waited. On state TV last night a correspondent, overcome with emotion, burst into tears as ballot boxes were being sealed prompting an unplanned return to an uncomfortable-looking studio anchor.
This isn’t sour grapes talking (I’m a boycotter) but the elections were, as usual, fucking boring to cover.
Sharshar, who works in an NGO, was initially enthusiastic about telling leaflet-distributing candidates that they were in breach of the law (campaigning must stop 48 hours before the vote) but soon flagged when we realised that everyone was at it, at every polling station. Also, it’s difficult to make your voice heard when a man with a huge microphone erected on a car is calling on voters to elect such an such a candidate in between snatches of an Om Kalsoum disco remix.
In fact the only events of note and excitement on both days was firstly, when Sharshar’s hub cap was half ripped off in a minor brush with a taxi and, secondly, when we saw three youths on the back of a mini pick up truck stacked with huge speakers playing rousing Shaaby pop music as one of the youths again encouraged people to vote for Fulan El-Fulany.
“Shagga3 el democratateya” (“Support democratety”) a weary Sharshar mocked.
ASIDE: I also had an interesting insight into the Egyptian education system in one polling station on the second day of elections.
It being a slow day the bored judge overseeing voting allowed us to lurk about at the entrance to the school room where civil servants sat amongst half filled ballot boxes imbibing refreshments and twiddling thumbs. I read the posters on the walls and saw a handwritten one reading thusly, in English:
Circle the longest words in the following paragraph.
The butcher was cutting meat when he saw the lion. While he was sitting in the café. The photographer was drinking tea.
The subliminal association of lions with photographers might explain several facets of the treatment of the press during the Mubarak regime and beyond.
The voters I spoke to voted either FJP, Nour or Wafd. Some were not voting at all, like a man in Shubra who said that you have to know “candidates’ CVs” in order to be able to vote and all he knows about them is what they look like, “not like the old days when you knew everyone” he said, somewhat wistfully.
A journalist colleague said that she voted for the list, but not the individual candidate because she was confronted with 136 names and didn’t know any of them.
Another woman I know, Samia, said that she and her daughter deliberately ruined their vote for the same reason, and that they only voted to avoid the possibility of being fined LE 500. Samia seemed disgusted by the imposters who stared out at her from the voting paper, one of whom she described as a stocky-looking woman called “Om Mohamed”.
“Who are all these people?? I have no idea who they are,” she said despairingly, adding that a polling station employee had watched her daughter ruin her vote (by drawing a big X through it) and praised her.
Reader Comments (7)
The Muslim Brotherhood has tried to portray itself as moderate and democratic. But at its core it is anything but. The MB is a wolf in sheep`s clothing. If you are not very sure about who the MB is, then you must read this article.
Who Is The Muslim Brotherhood?
The Muslim Brotherhood logo fits its motto:
"Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur`an is our law.
Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!"
The Brotherhood`s goal is to turn the world into an Islamist empire. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is a revolutionary fundamentalist movement to restore the caliphate and strict shariah (Islamist) law in Muslim lands and, ultimately, the world. Today, it has chapters in 80 countries. "It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet." -Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna
The Brotherhood wants America to fall. It tells followers to be "patient" because America "is heading towards its demise." The U.S. is an infidel that "does not champion moral and human values and cannot lead humanity."-Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi, Sept. 2010
The Brotherhood claims western democracy is "corrupt,""unrealistic" and "false." -Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef
The Brotherhood calls for jihad against "the Muslim`s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded." -Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi, Sept. 2010
The Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981 for making peace with the hated "Zionist entity." It also assassinated Egypt`s prime minister in 1948 and attempted to assassinate President Nasser in 1954.
Hamas is a "wing of the Muslim Brotherhood,"according to the Hamas Charter, Chapter 2. The Charter calls for the murder of Jews, the "obliteration" of Israel and its replacement with an Islamist theocracy.
The Brotherhood supports Hezbollah`s war against the Jews. Brotherhood leader Mahdi Akef declared he was "prepared to send 10,000 jihad fighters immediately to fight at the side of Hezbollah" during Hezbollah`s war against Israel in 2006.
The Brotherhood glorified Osama bin Laden and mourned his death. Osama is "in all certainty, a mujahid (heroic fighter), and I have no doubt in his sincerity in resisting the occupation, close to Allah on high." -Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, Nov. 2007
The Brotherhood "sanctioned martyrdom operations in Palestine....They do not have bombs, so they turn themselves into bombs. This is a necessity." -Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Dec. 17, 2010
The Brotherhood advocates violent jihad: The "change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life," said Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi in a September 2010 sermon.11 Major terrorists came out of the Muslim Brotherhood, including bin Laden`s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (mastermind of the 9/11 attacks).
The Brotherhood advocates a deceptive strategy in democracies: appear moderate and use existing institutions to gain power. "The civilizational-jihadist process...is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and `sabotaging` its miserable house...so that it is eliminated and God`s religion is made victorious overall other religions," reads a US Muslim Brotherhood 1991 document. It believes it can conquer Europe peacefully: "After having been expelled twice, Islam will be victorious and reconquer Europe....I am certain that this time, victory will be won not by the sword but by preaching and [Islamic] ideology." -Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, "Fatwa," 2003
The Brotherhood uses democracy, but once in power it will replace democracy with fundamentalist shariah law because it is the "true democracy." "The final, absolute message from heaven contains all the values which the secular world claims to have invented....Islam and its values antedated the West by founding true democracy." -Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, Nov. 2007
The Brotherhood`s view of women`s rights is to subjugate and segregate women: The ideal society would include "a campaign against ostentation in dress and loose behaviour...segregation of male and female students; private meetings between men and women, unless within the permitted degrees of relationship, to be counted as a crime for which both will be censured...prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes." -Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, "Five Tracts"
The Brotherhood supports Female Genital Mutilation: "[the Americans] wage war on Muslim leaders, the traditions of its faith and its ideas. They even wage war against female circumcision, a practice current in 36 countries, which has been prevalent since the time of the Pharaohs." -Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, 2007
The Brotherhood will not treat non-Muslim minorities, such as Coptic Christians, as equals. "Allah`s word will reign supreme and the infidels` word will be inferior." -Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi, Sept. 2010
The Brotherhood refuses to commit to continuing the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Muslim Brotherhood leaders have said that "as far as the movement is concerned, Israel is a Zionist entity occupying holy Arab and Islamic lands...and we will get rid of it no matter how long it takes." -Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, 2005 and 2007
The Brotherhood has anti-Semitic roots. It supported the Nazis, organized mass demonstrations against the Jews with slogans promoting ethnic cleansing like "Down with the Jews!"and "Jews get out of Egypt and Palestine!" in 1936; carried out a violent pogrom against Egypt`s Jews in November 1945; and made sure that Nazi collaborator and Palestinian Mufti al- Husseini was granted asylum in Egypt in 1946.
The Brotherhood remains virulently anti-Semitic."Today the Jews are not the Israelites praised by Allah, but the descendants of the Israelites who defied His word. Allah was angry with them and turned them into monkeys and pigs....There is no doubt that the battle in which the Muslims overcome the Jews [will come]....In that battle the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them." -Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Why thank you StandWithUs and the Voice of the Settlers Arutz Sheva for providing us with such insightful commentary. However, in the future, it may be easier to reach your target audience by copying this garbage and pasting it at FrontPageMag and other fine news outlets
How did this wonderful ironic ethnography evoke such lame comments? I very much enjoyed the skeptic's view of the voting streets. And like the second commenter, I also encourage the Israeli regime's propaganda wing to go sodomize itself.
"Wonderful ironic ethnography"? Man, our experiences sure are diverse.
I had a vehemently negative reaction to this piece; stronger than any negative reaction I've had to anything I've read online in a good while. I'm actually interested in exploring that reaction, not for the sake of spewing bile at anyone but because there must be something to be found underneath that intense response.
To me, this particular piece (I've read, and enjoyed, other things by Sarah Carr) felt smug, and superior, and sneering. It conveyed a strong sensibility in the author of a "them" and an implicit "us", and that "us" feels very narrow to me. I feel like she would probably think she is too cool for me too, too cool for most of the people I love, too cool for almost anything really, probably too cool to really enjoy her own life. She certainly enjoyed very little about the experience she describes here, and the few things she did enjoy were opportunities to mock and deride others. The sense of alienation is just overwhelming.
That said, I don't live in Cairo. I am ideologically and spiritually comfortable here in my chosen home of San Francisco. I'd love to be in Cairo right now; I think it would be fascinating; I actually proposed to my brother that we both move there at New Year's, because he's an expert in social media and I'm a student of politics. He declined of course, but to me being in Cairo sounds like a great way to be really alive. But, if I actually were there, and had been there a year or so, maybe I would feel really different. Maybe I would feel really alienated. Maybe I would feel extremely disconnected, like there were only a tiny band of "us" who had nothing in common, and wanted nothing in common, with an ignorant mass of "them."
Or, maybe this is just personality, and Sarah Carr had this mindset before she came to Egypt (I'm presuming she wasn't born there), and I wouldn't have acquired it if I'd been in Cairo all year. I don't know. I think it's an interesting question.
I think personality and experience are in a pretty tight feedback loop. Our personality leads us to interpret our experience in ways that tend to reinforce, rather than disrupt, our deeply held beliefs and behaviors. Sometimes experience manages to disrupt our settled ways of being, and then we talk of those rare experiences in our life that "changed us." Good people being struck by tragedy; a direct experience of poverty or violence; moments of profound grace or beauty. Certainly being in Cairo all year is the kind of experience that could "change you." Maspero in particular, with it's State-TV-incited mob, sounded searing.
I don't like the feeling that I get from this particular piece of writing. At all. But I can imagine experiences that could take me to that place. A year in Cairo would probably take me someplace different than where x years in Cairo took Sarah Carr, just because we are different people with different starting conditions. But thinking about how different experiences might "change you" in different, unpredictable ways is what's really interesting. We choose paths, not knowing how those paths will change us -- but sometimes knowing that those paths will change us. We can choose paths that we know are likely to change us, without knowing what kind of change they'll stimulate. Choosing to become something different, without knowing what that difference will be -- it's somewhere between adventure and self-immolation.
Anyway. I enjoyed this. I'm afraid that being kinda-sorta-attacked by a fluffy liberal in SF for being an alienated liberal in Cairo might make that alienated liberal in Cairo feel even more alienated. I hope not. Ultimately, we are all in this together, figuring out how to live. That's why I think Egypt is interesting right now -- the "figuring out" is more intense than in normal times. I hope that Sarah Carr and anyone else reading can recognize a fellow traveller and feel more connected, rather than being off-put by surface differences (and perhaps the crudeness of my writing) and feeling less connected. I hate feeling disconnected... and I still assume, btw, that no one else really enjoys it either. ;-)
-- Paul
EGYPT IS FUCKED
Paul - are you sure you are a "political science student in America" and not an Egyptian government/military employee? You sure sound like someone...
What is intriguing though is that none of this interesting information on how the Brotherhood violated the rules of elections, I have not seen in any of the local papers - not even in Daily News where Sarah Carr works...
Paul, that was a huge, but enjoyable digression. Sarah is a nice bloke (well, not a bloke exactly, but she does have something to do with Croydon, as well as having more Egyptian aunts than you can shake a stick at). I think her problem is she is too white. In a city like Cairo, a white face equals money, and money equals a chance of getting married, and therefore, a chance of getting laid. So no one, no matter how good arabic they speak, is going to be able to escape the destiny of the khawaga, to be harassed, conned, lied to and ripped off, pretty much whenever you go somewhere people don't know you. Everyone has some kind of defence mechanism for this. Journalists are supposed to be good listeners and all, but some days, all it takes is a bad taxi driver, and you're looking for the bad side of everyone.
I think another problem is that the brotherhood is a broad church, with it's fair share of both saints and sinners, getting a handle on the "real" organisation is like trying to catch a snake in a vat of olive oil. The article was amusing, anyway.