Not A Lynch Mob

 A recent report of rural justice has seized the imaginations of news organisations all over the world, most of whom are carrying on about "vigilantes in Egypt" and lynch mobs. This is rubbish to be quite short about it, and I really wish that people who write articles about us would bother to find out something about the situation as it really is.

The hard fact of the matter is that the "rural" areas of Egypt are full of so-called "villages" of anywhere from 5 to 100 thousand or more inhabitants and these "villages" have no legal municipal governments, no local authorities, no services from the central government...basically little or no support from the central government, who generally knows about as much about them as do the idiotic writers of these ill-informed articles. Most urban Egyptians harbour a secret fear of the rural Egyptians and are hesitant to venture out into the wilds of the countryside. As I have found living in this amazingly misunderstood environment, the facts of life out here are simply different from city life but no less civilised...in fact, I believe they are in many respects more so.

The incident in Samanod, a "village" in the Delta about 90 km north of Cairo that has so captured the imagination of the world press and led (naturally) to a vivid portrayal of Egypt as collapsing into gang warfare and vigilantes was that a couple of men were preying on tuktuk (motorised rickshaws) drivers, stealing the tuktuks, abducting school girls and so on. These men from a neighbouring village (as is generally the case since one doesn't foul one's own nest) were captured by the villagers where the actions were taking place, were beaten severely and then hung by their feet. They subsequently died from the beatings.

To speak from my own experience, when a thief is caught in one of the villages here it is in fact customary to hang him by his feet at his front door to allow his neighbours to witness his shame and identification as a thief. If a beating accompanies this punishment, it is rarely sufficient even to cause a doctor's attention. The punishment is the public shaming and it tends to be quite efficient, especially as it alerts everyone to who the thieves among them is. I haven't heard of women being punished in this fashion. In the city, if a theft occurs the victim is lucky to get a response of any kind from the police (who aren't even present in the first place in rural areas) and if the thief is caught and can't buy his way out of trouble, he will likely be beaten, spend some time in jail awaiting trial, and if found guilty spend more time in jail afterwards. Egyptian jails being what they are, I would think that an hour or so spent hanging upside down being embarrassed in front of one's neighbours is the far more attractive option.

My area is between the edge of Giza at Nazlit Semman, that unsavoury neighbourhood next to the Sphinx, and the next so-called "village" of Abu Sir that houses roughly 40 thousand souls. Our local authority is a highly respected older man who is one of my neighbours, a gentleman in his 60's with white hair and bright blue eyes, who in a Harris tweed could pass for an Irish farmer. Haj Abdou is quite a character. When I had an issue with a housekeeper who decided to liberate some money from me, I consulted with him and he called a meeting with me, the housekeeper and her mother which resulted in the prompt return of my funds.  1000% better service than any of the urban police and no one was beaten or hung upside down.  Shortly after the revolution a gang from Abu Sir was stealing electronics from shops on Pyramids Road in Giza, sending in one member to case the place, another to steal a jeep from somewhere and they would hit the store at night loading the jeep with their goodies and heading back to Abu Sir through the desert from the area at the end of the Moneeb. One night the army was moving tanks through the desert so they dodged out onto the asphalt road just north of us only to be stopped by one of the security patrols watching traffic by a campfire at night, as was the custom during those confusing days.  As they were unknown and unwilling to identify themselves or their reason for being in the area, the car was searched, the loot discovered and they spent the day tied up next to the wall of the omda's home next to their stolen jeep waiting for someone from the army to come to pick them up. Compared to the treatment of my saddlemaker who found himself in a military prison for asking for a death certificate for his brother than included the gunshot wound (courtesy of the military/CSF) that he actually died of rather than the accidental death listed, this was a pretty good deal.

Last night a visitor and I were driving home from a neighbour's place after dinner about 9 pm and I noticed that the areas of the roads that were not immediately lit and inhabited were completely empty. This was not the case a few years ago. Rural settlements are in small clumps in many parts and the people are used to visiting after dark, since they are working in fields during the day, but not any more. They will walk to the homes of friends or family or use a tuktuk if the distance is very far.  My staff tell me of gangs who are abducting women from tuktuks (the usual mode of transport in the countryside being cheap and plentiful), of tuktuk drivers being beaten or murdered for possession of their vehicle (current value new about LE 20 thou), and other problems in the darkened isolated areas away from the main villages.  Many don't venture out after dark at all and they all resent this enormously. When I announced that I was going out  to my neighbours for a 6  pm dinner to arrive home about 9 pm, they wanted me to bring my Great Dane to protect me on the road. Since the neighbours are cat people and Mindy isn't the best with cats, I pointed out that it wasn't a great idea and that it wasn't so far, but they were not pleased.

While in an optimal world incidents such as that in Samanod wouldn't happen at all, the fact that the villagers took their justice themselves isn't that remarkable. The fact that they would have to is sad...but that has been the way in rural Egypt for millenia. Most issues are decided by the elders and omdas, and the solutions are generally just registered with the police for public record. Perhaps when the rural areas of Egypt are really considered part of the country and not a foreign environment things will change a bit.





copyright 2013 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Shaken Not Stirred

 What's it like living in a country that is still in the middle of a revolution? It's actually a lot like living in a lot of countries these days, just a bit more dramatic. Almost everywhere I look I see change occurring at a phenomenal rate, partly brought along by the changes in communication that this blog exemplifies. When I began blogging in 2003, people were much more reliant on the main stream media for information about events whether at home or abroad. In the almost ten years since then, events have taken on an immediacy never anticipated through media such as Twitter, Facebook and Storify. Where once I felt I was happy to be able to go online to read commentary on events from a wide-ranging collection of news sources via the internet, now I go online and check the comment on Twitter from their correspondents in our ever-boiling part of the world to see what happened overnight before it even appears in the media.  One of the results of this increase in media availability has been an increased sense in the instability of our world. I'm not sure how more unstable it is, but I am sure that we are more aware of it. I also am very aware of the fact that I am one small cog in this huge global information machine.

When the Egyptian revolution started in January 2011, my children in the US contacted me to see if I wanted to go visit them for the duration...but they weren't terribly surprised to hear that it wasn't in my plans. I chose the location of my farm with care, knowing my neighbours and the social structure into which I wanted to fit. It is probably as safe for an older woman who lives alone with an unholy amount of dogs as anywhere can be. Once they'd assured themselves that I was still the stubborn old lady that they knew and loved, they did lay down some ground rules. With the outcome of the revolution very much in the air, I was NOT to post anything at all on my blogs. The few times I did, I was the recipient of immediate angry feedback from my offspring. But it's really hard for someone who naturally resorts to writing not to write, especially when the country around her is almost literally boiling. So we came to a compromise. I was allowed to post other people's articles about events in Egypt on my Facebook page which became a defacto news service. Writing by proxy saved my sanity. I've tried to keep a fairly balanced viewpoint about events, although clearly my feelings could not be denied. Over the past couple of years, my Facebook page has become less a personal account of my activities and more a forum for my friends all over the world to read news, blogs, and snippets from Twitter and to comment on or argue over them among themselves. I've likened it to the old fashioned literary salons of the 19th century at times. I love watching the discussions although often I don't take part in them if a couple of people are really into a topic. When life gets REALLY interesting in our neighbourhood, like it is now, I find that I really have to make the time to sit and write my own words because there is so much out there that others are saying.  So far worries about retribution for what ideas we are putting out on the internet are relatively small, since to worry about a little old lady on a farm in Giza who never shows up on TV or at a protest would appear to be a waste of time when half of Egypt is online complaining about one thing or another.

So, what is Egypt like in the middle of a revolution? Because that is where we are, in the middle, in a process that no one knows the ending of. I think everyone in Egypt has been anxious in the past few weeks with many people going down to Tahrir and gathering in other squares in other cities to protest the actions of our fairly recently elected president and with the knowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood and the supporters of said president were planning to have their own protest in support of the president. One of the main, not always unspoken, fears was that somehow the two groups would simply explode if put in contact, like a match to a stick of dynamite. A while back the Ikhwan bussed in supporters from outside of Cairo to come to Cairo University to support Morsi as he prepared to announce the acceptance of a draft constitution for a public referendum. The fact that the committee drafting the constitution did not contain any constitutional experts in any general sense was extremely worrying to many people. After all, a constitution of a nation isn't exactly a set of rules for a children's backyard club. It is supposed to protect the rights of all the members of the nation and with limited representation by minority groups and women, there has been an enormous amount of concern with what the output would be. On Thursday an Arabic version of the draft was released, which has been the topic of enormous amounts of discussion. I've printed up copies of it for my staff to read and think about. An English translation of it was published by Egypt Independent which I have been reading as well. Late in the evening yesterday, Morsi announced that this would be either approved or disapproved in a referendum on December 15, giving voters only two weeks to consider the issues.  I'm not sure that more time would necessarily lead to more clarity of thought on the subject, but it's fairly sure that only having two weeks to find, read, and discuss the draft does make it harder for people to object to it. Most referendums in Egypt have ended in a "yes" vote out of inertia. And in the end, this referendum was no different.

Does this signal the end of the process? By no means, and not the least of the reasons is Morsi himself. He's put people who even many Muslims and revolutionary types can't approve of on the Shura Council (the upper house of parliament) like generals and members of the Islamic Jihad. There is such a thing as appropriate, really Dr. Morsi. Virtually everything he has done, while he may have words to say that it has been expedient or for the good of the country, simply screams authoritarian Islam. And this is wildly offensive to Egyptians of all varieties who were thrilled to get rid of Mubarak. We are nowhere near the end of the tunnel and no one is sure what those dancing lights are. They could be Salafi cigarettes (soon to be taxed at much higher rates!), the steam engine of economic collapse, fireflies, fairies, or, heaven forbid, the end of the tunnel. My personal bet at this time is not the last, but the fairies or fireflies sound good to me.

So am I packing up for what might be the stability of the US or Canada? Not at all. First, I'm not all that sure of the stability of either state, to be honest. Both are awash in political and religious conservatism themselves, albeit both Canada and the US are so much larger than Egypt physically that the effect is diluted, and both are facing serious domestic political issues. Gun control in the US is vital, although many people are extremely vocal against it. My personal cynical view of the gun issue is that given the US is the world's largest manufacturer and seller of weapons and ammunition, the gun enthusiasm has been created in the same way that other consumer appetites have been and that no one is going to try to control the selling of guns for fear of damaging an important part of the economy, just like all the calls for cutting back on the "aid" for Egypt is going to lead to nothing because that "aid" is actually a government subsidy for the arms industry in the US and the money goes directly to the companies producing weapons and ammunition and to those servicing such weapons. What happens to them later is irrelevant to the US government or those industries, but the sooner they are used or blown up the better because that simply creates a new demand.

Canada, aside from the environmentally wasteful behaviour of the current government, is facing a deeper and perhaps more dangerous domestic issue that could easily splash over the border to the south. Both countries were created by wave after wave of immigrants primarily from Europe over the past three hundred years or so...a brief second compared to the history of Egypt. These immigrants, having now the positions of power in a land that they essentially invaded and confiscated (no wonder that both their governments are fairly staunch supporters of Israel, the most modern European colonial power) are crying now about how new waves of immigration are threatening their life style. Oddly enough, the indigenous peoples of North America, who for the most part live in poverty and on marginal properties to which they were pushed by the immigrants of their times, are getting rather fed up. A movement that started in Canada with a tribal chief Therese Spence, who is on a hunger strike for assistance for her people, Idle No More, is gaining support from other indigenous people's groups worldwide. At some point, the urge for justice that seems so keen in many semi-European countries in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa is going to have to thrust itself inwards to examine the morality of how those countries came to be in the first place. This is going to be intensely painful for many people. On the other hand, they could try to ignore it like they have in the past, but with the character of communication in our societies these days, that simply isn't so easy.

All things considered, I'll stick with my Egyptian revolution which for the most part is relatively straightforward even if we haven't the foggiest where the path is taking us tomorrow. I see shudders of change running through countries all over the globe and I don't think that anywhere is going to be immune. All the patterns I see forming are indicating that with information becoming so much more readily available and so much more easily placed in the public eye, many profound changes in human society will be seen in the relatively near future. My analysis is, of course, done very much by eyeballing events and getting a vague sense of movement. There is nothing scientific about it and I'm sure that some of the things I suspect will happen will not come to pass, but of this I am sure: Change is inevitable and will be faster than expected. It will likely make many people unhappy.

copyright 2012 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

A Hard Lesson

Living in a country during a revolution changes you whether you like or expect it or not. One of the changes that I've seen in myself is the extent to which I am interested in social and political trends in Egypt and other parts of the world. Sure, I was interested in them before to a certain extent but that interest has been honed and given new tools since the revolution. Before revolution I prided myself on the fact that I read the news from a wide variety of sources, having come to the conclusion fairly early in my life, around the time of the Viet Nam war, that no one source could be trusted implicitly. During January and February, I promised my kids to stay safe on the farm so I picked up a Twitter account that I'd opened in curiosity a year or so earlier and decided to see how it worked.

And did it ever work! From a few friends that I knew through blogging I gradually expanded my circle of informants to most of the activists tweeting in English, and from there to the frontline journalists who actually went out into the field to report on events in Egypt. Gradually the list expanded to include journalists and activists throughout the Middle East, North Africa, other parts of Africa and lately into Europe. Activists talk about what they want to do, plan to do, hope to do, and about what went wrong or right with what they've already done. It's quite enlightening and humanising to listen to their worries, fears, and dreams. The journalists tend to post a link to an article as it's published so I get a jump start on reading rather than waiting for a wire service or newspaper to pick up the article. They also post links to many of the more obscure but incredibly interesting and useful blogs, reviews, and online papers. Additionally, once you collect a reasonable amount of journalists on your Twitter feed, you get to eavesdrop on their debates, discussions and jokes that never, ever make it to a written page. This is both enlightening and highly entertaining.

On Friday evening I opened Twitter to find references to Norway's catastrophe and immediately turned on Al Jazeera English. This is my first choice for the news, again a change since the revolution when we saw here the amount of time and investment of interest and personnel that they put into their coverage of events in Egypt. Additionally, their lack of advertising is a huge comfort. This time, however, I was appalled to see them interviewing one Justin Crump, apparently some kind of security analyst from the UK, about his ideas about the bombing in Oslo. The horrific details of the shooting on the island had not come out on the news yet. Despite the interviewer's insertion of "but, but", Mr Crump quite comfortably declared that this was likely an Al Qaeda action or the action of some other Muslim terrorist, and proceeded to list all the reasons that this might be so. Disgusted to see this yet again (the broadcasts of 9/11 will live in my memory forever with their seamless condemnation of the Arab perpretrators...something that totally astonished me at the time), I turned to Twitter. There was discussion as to who might have been involved in the action and, as journalists contacted friends in Norway, suggestions of people to follow on Twitter who were in place as witnesses or who had immediate access to the ongoing investigations. I followed the breaking news and discussions avidly through the evening.

At one point, a security analyst who specialises in following the jihadist bulletin boards online tweeted that someone on one board had claimed the bombing for the Friends of the Islamic Jihad, a group that no one had ever heard of. Subsequent tweets mentioned that the claimant was not the best of sources and suggested caution, but caution was not on the agenda of the New York Times and later the BBC, who quoted the New York Times as a source. They came out with the news that it was the work of Arab terrorists and many people followed their stories as the gospel...I mean, after all, the BBC AND the New York Times couldn't be wrong? Could they ever be! Yesterday there was a day long discussion on Twitter as to whether Will McCant, the source for the bulletin board tweet was irresponsible in tweeting his information if idiots were going to pick up the information and run with it as the Word of the Almighty. I don't know that anyone ever came to any conclusions in the discussion other than the fact that no one liked what had happened and everyone was uncomfortable with the fact that once again, the ubiquitous "Arab terrorist" was going to be blamed for something, causing innumerable problems for any of us connected with the Middle East. My personal opinion is that the problem was caused by the general assumption that something seen on Twitter, or the internet in general, is by definition true, an assumption that is utterly wrong. Twitter posts and internet posts are not necessarily fact-checked or verified. They are opinion, information that could be either right or wrong, that is passed on, and they must, as such, be subject to fact-checking and verification. This did not happen on Friday night.

When the Norwegian police announced that the gunman who had been massacring young people at a political summer camp on an island near Oslo and who appeared to be responsible for the car bombing of the building in downtown Oslo was most definitely Norwegian, some of the speculation by news papers online changed to whether or not he had been trained by Muslim terrorists, not much of an improvement by my standards, and on Saturday morning many news sites still had not changed their stances in the face of the facts. The reaction by the mainstream media (often abreviated to MSM on Twitter) to the events of Friday was, on the whole, fairly ghastly. An article in The Atlantic has a very good discussion of the sudden about face that the media had to make in the light of the fact that this was in fact the act of a homegrown right wing Christian xenophobic Norwegian terrorist.

Interestingly enough, the fact that he was a Christian Norwegian suddenly seemed to change the man from a terrorist (something that is foreign, fearful and incomprehensible) to a madman (which somehow is understandable). I don't find it understandable at all myself. There is some level of derangement in anyone who can comfortably contemplate the destruction of other people to "enlighten" others or to change history. But then the natural progression of my logic is that the sanity of most military organisations is called into question and I'm sure that many people really don't want to go there. But I would most certainly state that this individual is definitely a terrorist and, in terrorism terms, a very successful one at that. Considering the difference in population between the US and Norway, he managed to kill a larger percentage of Norway's people in his bombing and shooting than the percentage killed in the attacks of 9/11. And he seems to hold the record for the most number of people killed single handedly in a single incident.

I'm hoping (ever the optimist!) that there is a lesson learned from the past two days. One would imagine that the Oklahoma City bombing would have clued in the US that they have to watch their local non-Muslim terrorists, although the main change seemed to have been a toughening of policy against foreigners. Europe has definite issues with governments banning the wearing of niqab and taking action against halal and kosher slaughter. A Dutch friend of mine told me that this was initiated as an animal welfare bill that called for the anaesthetising of animals before slaughter so that they wouldn't be in any pain. My understanding of anaesthetics and euthanasia of animals is that drugs are prohibited in animals used for food for a very good reason, the fact that the residues are harmful to humans, so I have to first question the logic of the initial push and then wonder why it became ethnic/religious.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families in Norway who were devastated by the past few days, but I also pray to see some understanding in the world that xenophobia and extremism breed terrorists, and that terrorists come from any and every background.










2011 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani