The War on Humanity

 A collection of tweets on Gaza

I one asked a German friend to imagine that Gaza was inhabited by Jews and that those placing their city under a blockade were something else, bombing their civilians. Her answer was that she couldn’t, and that to me epitomizes the problem we have today. The idea that you are not even able to do the mental exercise of imagination speaks volumes of where we are now. I think that is the current problem with those supporting the genocide in Gaza.

Peace is not possible if the oppressor continues to oppress, no matter how much everyone in power convinces us that the status quo is fair.

The Ukrainians and Belarusians supporting the ethnic cleansing to be carried out by Israel in Gaza are the most baffling to me.The people in Ukraine have every right to fight for their freedom against those trying to take away their land and agency. Now replace Ukraine with Palestine.Western governments are Ukranian when it comes to Ukraine but are Russians when it comes to Palestine. There are people who support Ukraine because they are principled, there are people who support Ukraine because they are racist. Palestine helps us understand who is which.

Mainstream western punditry will pretend that Israel hasn't been an occupier, hasn't been attacking Palestinians, hasn't been committing injustices and will just condemn Palestinians, but what's new, they offer the same story no matter what actually happens on the ground. So many people support Palestine in western countries but their governments and media make it impossible to voice their support to influence the mainstream. People in the west can lose their jobs and likelihood if they support Palestine. Many live in fear.

My solidarity with Palestine grew not because they're Arabs and not because of any other mainstream narrative but because Israel has occupied their land, deprived them of basic rights and continuously oppress Palestinians. My solidarity is against injustice. Always.

The EU stands with Israel. The EU strongly condemns Palestinians breaking out of their cage and refusing to suffer and die in silence.

Bernie condemns Palestinians for breaking out of their cage. I suppose he just thinks that everyone should stand up against those depriving them of dignity and a better life but with the exception of Palestinians.

The dividing line in the Israel - Palestine conflict is this. Do you accept all people in this region to have equal rights no matter their ethnicity, race or religion?

Of course the west supports apartheid, they always have. Germany has kind of outlawed BDS, a form of peaceful resistance against Israel's continued abuses against Palestine and Palestinians.

Israel retaliates disproportionately, kill civilians, commit war crimes and the international community will continue to support Israel and never lift a finger to hold them accountable. But that happens anyway whether Palestinians attacked them or not.

Collective punishment, carnage, indiscriminate killings, targeting civilians, cutting off electricity, cutting off water. The west cheers on.

I guess the world is now getting ready to sanction a final solution regarding Palestinians.So much for the 'Never Again' motto.

Funny thing, when Israel retaliates and commits the most heinous crimes, the trope "has a right to defend itself" continues to echo. When Palestinians respond to decades of oppression, international law is invoked. The fact that people say Israel has a right to defend itself but Palestine does not, is one of the most racist bigoted tropes of our time.

Logic won't win an argument but the least we can do is have a sound moral position. This means that we can't ignore things at will. Occupation factors into every analysis. Ignoring it will turn Palestinians into aggressors, including it will turn them to freedom fighters.

Many are citing international law to condemn the attack on Israel, but the greater majority ignore international law when it applies to Israel. They don't recognize the right of Palestinians to fight for freedom and turn a blind eye to Israel targeting children and journalists.

We live in a world that legitimizes some types of murder and criminalizes others. What a petty fight to determine what is the moral way of taking a life.

There are two main reasons why people support Israel's apartheid practices and settler colonialism. Ignorance or racism or a combination of both. In Germany they can be combined with guilt.

People are describing the events of last Saturday as an attack, but in reality it's best described as a prison break. Now the wardens are bombing up the open air prison they created, like they would a riot, except with no obligation to keep the prisoners alive.

I think the people who understand the plight of Palestinians most are Jews, when the world had turned their back on them and masses cheered for their eradication. I hope one day it will be recognized how wrong it is now as it was back then to cheer for their oppression and death.

EU aid to Palestine is conditioned on them being slaughtered in silence.

I agree with everyone about not targeting civilians, but what I find baffling is shifting the focus to it only when it happens to Israelis and completely ignore it when it's happening to Palestinians. Israel does this a lot more and consistently gets away with it.


First Europe went after the Jews, now they go after the Palestinians. Many today wonder how people in the past could support genocide. Those who support the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians can find the answer within themselves.

Funny to see people trusting the same journalists and outlets that claimed Iraq was building a nuclear bomb.

The people who condemned the entirety of Gaza to death because of false reports of beheaded babies, do nothing to condemn the targeting of children and paramedics by Israel's strikes. It's as if they're only looking for excuses to justify the murder of Palestinians.

Berlin police violently put a child in cuffs yesterday on behalf of Israel. These people are capable of becoming monsters in an instant and they raise a flag of righteousness while they do this. It should be sickening to the world but the world is thirsty for blood these days.

The license for genocide is when those who are seen to uphold any kind of morality stop caring about any of it. Do not be complicit in the genocide planned for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

After all the years of fighting, the real demand that can end this is equal rights for all. It seems like not a lot to ask, but in reality it's asking for the impossible.

If this was a different topic, some people would have asked for Joe Biden to be impeached for his brazen lies.

The British Foreign Minister James Cleverly stood by while his counterpart dehumanized Palestinian civilians. What a horrible racist.

We are witnessing ethnic cleansing in the making, I hope it is averted as people realize they are repeating the ugliest history of the world.

Western powers are lying, censoring, arresting, oppressing anyone who offers a balanced perspective about Palestine and with all the war mongering and support of ethnic cleansing, terrorizing people who have a different view point and yet they dare call others terrorists.

Amnesty's Crisis Evidence Lab has verified that Israeli military units striking Gaza are equipped with white phosphorus artillery rounds. We are investigating what appears to be the use of white phosphorus in Gaza, including in a strike near a hotel on the beach in Gaza City.

Europe had the blood of Jews on their hand. Now they have the blood of Palestinians on their hand.

You think that permitting Israel to killing Palestinians in mass will undo the mass murder of Jews that's embedded in Europe's history? It won't and it will just add to the list of atrocities perpetrated by Europeans.

A shit ton of corrections from news outlets and the Whitehouse about spreading the lies about beheaded babies, yet none of them are calling for Israel to cancel their ethnic cleansing plan. Racism goes on, don't let facts get in the way.

Israelis should be ashamed that the same rhetoric used to annihilate Jews is being used by Israel against Palestinians.

Western leaders are probably thinking, let's support ethnic cleansing now and then throw money at academic programs that study our atrocious history later.

End the occupation. End apartheid. Free all prisoners on all sides. Equal rights for all.

On Civil Disobedience - Tolstoy

From Leo Tolstoy:

This year, 1896, a young man by the name of Van-der-Veer was summoned in Holland to enter the National Guard.

To the summons of the commander, Van-der-Veer replied in the following letter:

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Mr. Herman Snijders
Commander of the National Guard of the Middelburg Circuit

Dear Sir:
Last week I received a document in which I was commanded to appear in the magistracy in order to be enlisted according to the law in the National Guard. As you, no doubt, have noticed, I did not appear. The purpose of this letter is to inform you frankly, and without any ambiguities, that I have no intention of appearing before the commission. I know full well that I subject myself to a heavy responsibility, that you can punish me, and that you will not fail to make use of that right. But that does not frighten me. The reasons that compel me to manifest this passive resistance present to me a sufficiently important counterbalance to this responsibility.

I, who am not a Christian, understand the commandment that is standing at the head of this letter better than the majority of Christians. It is a commandment inherent in human nature and in reason. When I was still a child, I permitted myself to be instructed in the soldier’s trade — the art of killing — but now I refuse.

More than anything else, I do not wish to kill on command without any personal impulse or foundation. This appears to my conscience as murder. Can you name to me anything more degrading for a human being than the commission of similar murders or slaughter? I cannot kill an animal, or see it killed, and therefore I became a vegetarian. In the present case I may be commanded to shoot men who have never done me any harm. Soldiers certainly do not study the military field manual in order to shoot at leaves on the branches of trees.

But you will perhaps tell me that the National Guard must also and above everything else cooperate in the maintenance of internal order.

Mr. Commander, if there really existed any order in our society, if the social organism were indeed sound, if there did not exist such crying misuses in our social relations, if it were not permitted that one man should starve to death while another enjoys all the lusts of luxury, then you would see me in the first ranks of the defenders of this order. But I unconditionally refuse to cooperate in the maintenance of the present so-called order. What is the use, Mr. Commander, of pulling the wool over each other’s eyes? Both of us know full well what is meant by the maintenance of this order. It is the support of the rich against the poor workers who are beginning to become conscious of their right. Did you not see the part that your National Guard played during the last strike in Rotterdam?

Without any reason, this guard was compelled for hours to protect the property of the business firms that were threatened. Can you for a moment suppose that I will surrender myself to take part in the defense of men who, according to my sincere conviction, are supporting the war between capital and labor, or that I will shoot at the working men who are acting entirely within the limits of their rights?

You cannot be so blind as that! Why complicate matters? Indeed, I cannot have myself cut out into an obedient National Guardsman such as you wish to have and as you need!

On the basis of all these reasons, but especially because I despise murder on command, I refuse to serve in the capacity of a member of the National Guard, and ask you to send me neither uniform nor weapons, since I have the steadfast intention of not using them.

I greet you, Mr. Commander,

I. K. Van-der-Veer

Surviving Corona

It's late at night and there's news of coronavirus all over the world. It's the starting sequence of a sci-fi movie, these are just the few seconds. What will come next is probably going to be uglier, because those who control where the world is heading are ugly. There will be no humbling experience except for the humble. This is what we've toiled for all those years. So that on this rainy day, the rich and the powerful can protect themselves and get even richer and more powerful. They control the little tax payments you make to their private interest. Now that it's time for you to collect what you're owed, you'll be thrown under the bus. This tax money was for their rainy day not yours. Money and resources will go to those who already have money and resources. You will continue to pay for their well being with your blood and sweat.

At a time when the world needs true leadership, those at the helm are anti-Science corporate bigots for the most part and those next in line are ancient relics whose only hope is to take us back 10 years ago when things were horrible but not disastrous. There is no collective hope to come out stronger as a society, but perhaps individual salvation is possible. We can recognize how fragile this world is, how meaningless businesses are in absence of life and health. We can recognize that race is a construct not respected by disease. We can recognize that we live in the disease of racism and xenophobia even though it's not biological. 

Perhaps all these things are possible, but I lost hope in human's ability to learn from what they see. The reality is that emotions are stronger than rationale, and as sad as it is to realize it, if you keep pounding a message for decades, it becomes the truth, even if debunked by simple logic. Most of what we know is 'on authority', yet it surprises me how much people fight for something that's not their own, for a view that was force fed to them. 

What happens next in our world. A worthy question. We realize we don't need to travel that much, we don't need to have that many conferences even though they are fun. We don't need to go out every day, even though that's fun. We recognize that we share a lot more than we thought. We share transport, we share the roads and we share supermarkets. Yes, that place where there is no escape from disease. The person at the cash register touches all your items, and touches your money. Anything there will be transferred.

I have thought of a way to get through this time, but I think I need a bit of science to formulate a plan. If only covid19 doesn't mutate or doesn't visit you twice, I would have had a perfect plan. For now there is nothing left to do but wait and hope, and now everything is a game of chance. Life is a game of chance. More so for the elderly than the young. 

There's a moment when I realized we can all be potential killers. If we pass this to the vulnerable we can kill. I think that's true of many things. Our decisions, our votes. It was always so remote, but now it's closer. Your carelessness can cost lives. It won't be easy living with that, being the victim and the perpetrator, all at the same time.   

But isn't that how we always are? We're gentrifiers, we're privileged. Even the privileged are victims of their own privilege and their blindness which they're born with. It's not their fault. To be born with privilege is to be born blind to injustices that should really not happen. Privilege is an exceptional normal state. It ought to be normal not to face injustice based on your skin color, it ought to be normal not to face discrimination based on your gender. It isn't though. It's only normal for the privileged. 

The privileged are born blind with the duty to see. Some don't fulfill their duty, and end up moderates in an extreme world, guilty of perpetrating the status quo. Others are worse, they seek to entrench their privilege and utilize the status quo, altering it to dig us deeper into that abyss of injustice. 

Nothing can even the odds at this point. The powerful don't need to normalize lying for everyone, they just need it for a big minority that are able to suppress the majority. They need the blind, they need the privileged, they need those who cannot see how entrenched we are in an extreme status quo. They need not be supporters, they need only be moderates, they need only be ineffective, obsessed with law and order at the expense of justice. 

The movie's opening seconds are apocalyptic. It's just a disease with a mortality rate of 2% some say. Certainly true, but there is a kindness in the nature of covid19 that we are yet to appreciate. It's a warning sign nevertheless. It targets, very clearly, the vulnerable. In some ways it is asking us to protect the vulnerable. But we will fail even this simple test. We have not had adequate training protecting the vulnerable. We have a neoliberal world order that exploits them.

Is it reasonable to think that all of a sudden a new found care for the vulnerable will be born? It will not happen. The vulnerable are expendable. That's disaster capitalism, that's what it has practiced for years, but without the same attention as the virus, because the killers had to be out of the news. Condemn the greed, but not the greedy, condemn the system, but not the actual people responsible for it. That's the way of the world.

There is a small difference now though. The capitalists don't get to choose who they kill. The virus chooses and that's why they must rush to protect themselves, even at the cost of protecting the needy. Make no mistake, protecting the needy is a huge price for the rich and powerful to pay. Ordinarily they would not pay it. But in order to protect themselves, perhaps they must pay that ultimate price. Why not appear compassionate too while they're at it. They will find ways of profiteering from the disease anyway and the from the constraints that will be placed on the masses working for them.

We're going to work to pay this debt in the future. How dare we be helped by the powerful. It doesn't matter, our taxes will mostly go to them. They will be bailed out when they fail to steal from us properly. They will be bailed out when they 'erroneously 'declare war because they 'learn' and 'grow', and their followers find that commendable. 

This is a crisis that offers an opportunity for us to grow and see the world for what it is. Just like I was exposed to the nature of power when I saw the streets of Egypt full of men with guns who wanted to enforce their rule and infiltrated all media to repeat their same old lies. I see the media around me full of these lies, they're a bit more clever, still not logical, but who cares. What really matters is that people don't care for logic and rational. They have their establishment 'intellectuals' feeding their egos, and filling their brains with status quo excuses. 

Whether it's 1984 or a brave new world, it doesn't matter. It all looks the same after a while of observation. The brave new world is far superior of course. It's more fulfilling, it provides the illusion of freedom. But a moderate in 1984 and a moderate in a brave new world are the same. Nothing but fuel to feed the machines of control. 

After the first few seconds of this movie, I don't know what happens. Maybe there will be heroes and villains that shape the world, but in these type of movies it doesn't matter. What really matters are the individuals that survive these events. What do they take with them from the old world is up to them.

To be honest, there's little to take from the old world except resistance to it. Maybe we can resist the inhumanity and injustices as we move forward. Maybe we can still fight against control and oppressive structures. That's still going to be worth something as we transition. I know that this is what I will try to take with me.

Twitter's Censorhsip

This month I was busy documenting Twitter's censorship of Arab voices. With the help of other researchers we documented a mass suspension aimed at activists who spoke about Egypt. During the course of our investigation in order to verify our findings, we stumbled upon another pattern of Twitter falsely flagging responses to tweets as hateful conduct.

This forced Twitter to apologize for the mass suspensions but not for their misapplication of the hateful conduct policy.

I wrote an article in Arabic and in English to document this and it was covered by Buzzfeed. I also dumped the images I collected in a Facebook album.

Dear Lydia

This is one of the worst periods of Egypt's history. The next generation will ask us, how could you allow this. I wrote this letter addressing Lydia, one of my fascist friend's daughters some time back, envisioning what I would tell the next generation. My simple answer is that we tried.

Dear Lydia,

It is with great sorrow that I write this letter to you knowing full well that you may not trust or comprehend it, or even believe me. You may have grown up believing a narrative that runs contrary to the truth, in which case, this letter shall not have an effect on you, and you will feel bitter and angry at this letter and at me for writing it. But there's a strong chance, that unlike your parents, you will have come to understand the true history of what happened in the time before, a time of events, both I and your parents have witnessed up close and each of us took their route.

This letter will only make sense if you've ever come across the truth of the history that took place starting from 2011 and the repulsive turn into oppression in 2013 where injustice prevailed and massacres took place. It is only with the realizing of the ugliness of this history and trying to reconcile it with what people did that would give meaning to this letter.

Your mother was one of the staunchest supporters of the Sisi regime, because your uncle was a policeman, she was a vehemently opposed to anyone who pointed to police corruption. She supported the police as they killed thousands of people, and even though many have presented her with evidence that they were unjustified, she shrugged them off. She continued her support for police brutality in the face of logic and evidence of a declining sense of justice and a declining economy. She was happy to label anyone who opposed the crimes of these irresponsible tyrants as traitors, while the real treason was committed by those she supported.

Your father and I were closer, he was also more moderate, yet he showed great weakness, never engaged in trying to call out the criminals even though he may have seen their crimes. He was looking out for your future as any father would, but the cost was the future of many other generations and the history you have inherited. So many have been killed with the blessing of apologists and your parents were those apologists.

In answer to your questions as to whether our generation was aware of these atrocities that you learn about in school, the answer is yes, there was plenty of information. It is just that many did not want to believe or want to be confronted with the sad reality that their country was run by criminals, that their children's future was going to be determined by criminals. They would rather believe that those trying to rectify the situation were spies, rather than people who loved their country and valued its future enough to oppose the oppressors.

Torture was widespread, and to get a sense of how people reacted, they didn't care, as long as their own people were not affected, yet as we've come to learn it was only a matter of time before someone close to someone got hurt in some way or another. The country descended into lawlessness on account of police brutality, yet your parents and people like them were steadfast in blaming the victims of this brutality rather than the perpetrators.

There was a strong narrative that the country was fighting terrorism, but as we've come to see, the policies put in place by the oppressive regime did nothing but create more extremists who were fighting because of a growing extremist ideology or to attain some sort of justice against a regime that offered no civil way of attaining it.

I want you to believe me when I tell you I have tried hard to speak to your parents and convince them to take a different moral route, but they shunned me and chose to continue in their ways. I asked them to stand by their integrity for your sake, so that you will not view them as weak or immoral for allowing such atrocities, but to no avail. They were determined.

I do not know if there was anything more I could have done, I want you to believe that I have tried my best that you and many like you not inherit the country and the history that you did, not to inherit the parents that you did. We had many opportunities, if only people had learned to look beyond their selfish needs, we would have all been better off.

History cannot be changed now, you have seen what has happened, and the only thing I urge you to do dear Lydia is not to follow the same path taken by your parents, of apathy and justification for tyrants. Remember that all this is transient, all that remains is how much of your integrity you have maintained.

Lovingly,

W.

Fuck Their Palaces

This is about the spaces they take from us to give themselves.

Here I am with spaces all around me. In a city in Europe whose rich history covers its streets with darkness and brightness. I’m here in this space, with everyone enjoying the music and their freedom. But back home, there are few such spaces. They are building palaces at our expense. The cost of their space is ours. They have set out to take our spaces to make them their own. The cost of their freedom to steal is the freedom from our own, the very youth that would ever build our future.

Thousands in jail, the spaces they should be inhabiting stolen from them, and for what? For luxury palaces, gardens and special interests. For spaces that may end up abandoned but guarded. Empty spaces, as empty as their dreams for a future.
The present I’m experiencing in those foreign spaces abroad is what we deserve back home. It’s what those thrown in prison deserve.

We live in a transmogrified past and the only way to reach the present is to travel. I never thought time travel was possible, but it is. You just have to leave the borders of this time warp, where its inhabitants are stuck in slavery. It’s not easy to leave. The wardens are not just our jailers but those very same foreign countries who arm the oppressors with weapons and technology to keep us locked in. The condescending view of us in their embassies as they forget about the riches they’ve stolen. That sense of entitlement for a better life even though its price is paid by our enslavement.

My friends are in jail so that some General’s wife can have her customized palaces. These palaces are not just built with the money they steal from us, but with our lives. Their fortress is not just the walls they put up, but the network of greedy interests that produce humans that stand in the way of justice to maintain the corruption that keeps them thriving.

We never asked for this, we would have been happy to dance. But what choice were we given? To dance away while trampling the rights and lives of others underfoot. To dance while trampling their dignity and ours. It’s not much of a choice. Both are a form of death. One of them closer to the literal sense of the word, our lives being destroyed if we speak, the other a literary death, the death of our conscience and humanity.

Fuck their palaces. We will dance when we can to counter their greed. We will speak when we can to counter our death.

Hillary or Bust

Early polling showed Bernie Sanders beating Donald Trump. In those early polls Hillary Clinton lost to Trump. I don't personally believe polls are accurate in general, but many do. What that means for believers, is that they chose a risky route. They wanted Hillary to win the primaries even though the DNC would have come to power more assuredly if Bernie was it's nominee. In fact those voters were Hillary or bust.  They turned down the candidate who was closer to democrats on the issues because they gambled on Hillary changing her popularity. I'm not generalizing or judging motivations, maybe they thought she was a better candidate, maybe they didn't like Bernie, I'm talking about the practical implications.  

When push came to shove Bernie rallied for Hillary because he realized the Trump danger early on. The DNC on the other hand, wanted to destroy Bernie. It was not because he wasn't aligned with them on issues, but because they had special interests. Maybe they thought Hillary was a better leader, maybe they thought Bernie wasn't capable of delivering, but still, they too gambled on liberal resources rather than weighed out what's more aligned with their platform.

One thing I respect about Bernie is that he stuck to the issues. Following her triumph over Bernie, Hillary shifted her focus to one thing, how she isn't Trump. Hillary was silent on most issues, she did not want to gamble her connections with big businesses once in the white house so that her words won't be used against her. In effect, she wasn't able to win over a bigger base.

People did their part and she won the popular vote, mostly out of fear of Trump. However, the question that that needs to be asked is: what did she do to try and win over those who wanted a better economy for themselves and who know for certain that the status quo wasn't good enough? Did she promise a better economy for them like Trump's empty promises? Not so much, and it's because Hillary knows the value of words and chose hers wisely. That is something we can respect Hillary for, she tried not to lie about her positions on issues so that they do not haunt her while in office, but that came at a cost. In effect, Hillary became silent about most issues that weren't instigated by Trump, she never called him out, she just responded to his silly ludicrous claims. She missed most opportunities outside the 'glad I'm not Trump' zone, and failed to comment meaningfully on something as obvious as the Dakota pipeline.

Hillary sat on the fence and hoped that Trump's stupidity would be enough. It wasn't. Mocking Trump and avoiding the issues gave his poor supporters no alternative but to challenge the status quo. The politics of fear were employed and even though fear of Trump did not deter voters, the politics of fear won. The real fear here for the working class was the continuation of the status quo. Hillary Clinton did not alleviate any of that fear.

Those who support Hillary are probably happy with the status quo to a great extent. There is currently a president from a discriminated group. I do not deny that a woman president would be progress, but to those whose lives will not be bettered it's cosmetic. Obama bailed out banks, lead drone wars, came after whistle blowers and under his presidency big businesses thrived and continued to make colossal profits. This simply isn't good enough for most. 

I'm certain there are many who chose Trump for his racism, but what about winning over those who just wanted a shift in the status quo? What has been offered to them beyond cosmetic check boxes of progress? 

There is something wrong with a country that would vote for a vile character like Trump simply because they are unhappy with the status quo. While people should be accountable for their bigotry, there are many reasons why they ended up that way. Media was sensationalist, catering to their base, on both sides. The liberal media focused on Trump and his crazy supporters. It may have been better to identify what is really wrong with the country rather than what is wrong with Trump and his supporters.

Egypt Digs Itself Back To 1977

Ahmed Kamal, a medical student, was arrested by police and delivered to his family the following day via the mortuary. Ahmed had been sentenced to two years in absentia and only recently arrested and killed by Egyptian police, possibly tortured to death. Sometime in the past this may have been breaking news, causing outrage in Egyptian society, and perhaps even internationally. But in today’s Egypt, this is a repeated story, predictable in every way.

The state will cover up for its security apparatus, and as its ridiculous story is exposed, details may shift slightly until the whole ordeal is forgotten. If Giulio Regeni’s murder did not bring about any accountability for the Egyptian regime or its security bodies, it is highly unlikely that Ahmed Kamal’s murder will result in any better.

Security bodies will deny wrongdoing; forensics may end up fabricating a report like they did in the case of Khaled Said. Regime apologists at best will ask people to wait for meaningless investigations by the state. Even if the forensics report doesn’t appease state institutions and the evidence is found to be compelling, then arrests may be made, but only to silence public pressure. These arrests will not result in a condemning verdict, and if they do it will be repealed quickly.

The murder of Ahmed Kamal and the story that follows is not an isolated incident; it reflects the workings of a brutal regime whose institutions are complicit in crimes against Egyptians and works in perfect harmony to provide impunity to its members. This state of complicity and criminality is hard to digest even when witnessing it. Yet time and time again the regime has consistently proven that this systemic injustice is its modus operandi.

Police brutality is the government’s chosen means of looking out for its interests and enforcing policy. While political protests bore the brunt of re-establishing these means, the same will be applied to enforce harsh economic policies advocated for by Egypt’s ‘allies’.

An implicit agreement between the Egyptian government and the people was negotiated over the past six years, following the murder of Khaled Said whereby police brutality and government impunity became more or less accepted. Yet, even with the carte blanche provided by the regime’s supporters to use excessive violence, dire economic conditions may breech that agreement. Egyptians are angered by their struggle with the prices of basic goods, medicine, and cost of living.

Despite this anger, the people do not have the power, or perhaps the will, to attempt to change the regime or depose President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. Any such attempt may start a new wave of harsher economic conditions that the people are not ready to handle. The people have willfully given up their right to protest this regime. Many feel compelled to live with the consequences having deprived themselves of influence. But can we call the inability to remove Al-Sisi or influence his regime’s policies ‘stability’?

Egypt needs reforms in order to address its ailing economy, but these reforms need to be political rather than strictly by the numbers. It’s disingenuous and far removed from reality to claim that a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an answer to Egypt’s ailing economy. The incessant advocacy to impose IMF conditions, such as the value-added tax or lifting of subsidies, is far too reminiscent of the 1977 bread riots. Likewise, back then, subsidies were lifted causing a large wave of protests that left 79 dead and 566 injured. These austerity measures were taken without regard for the political backlash or the context which made these measures back-breaking to the average Egyptian.

Besides, the government is underperforming in most sectors, exhibiting even more incompetence than under Hosni Mubarak. No matter what the plan is, it is unlikely it can be executed efficiently, with the farfetched assumption these are the reforms Egypt needs.

What hope is there for a country whose economy is systemically worsened by pouring state money into a military economy that neither pays taxes nor contributes back to the state budget? How can any tax reforms be sustainable while the military continues to take money out of the economic cycle? What mechanisms or possible oversight could there be for a regime that has ignored its own laws as well as international treaties to further its own political and economic agenda?

Can any loan or condition stop the military from manipulating the market and muscling out competition to push forward its own products and services? What is there to address policies that favour the army’s air conditioning units, bottled water, and food products that cripple civilian competition? Can any condition be imposed to change the contracts that are being delivered directly to the army and revenue not being pumped back into the economy through taxes and parliamentary oversight?

For many in the Egyptian government, corruption is a way of life they’re not willing to give up. Economists advocating loan conditions fail to address these pressing issues that are key to Egypt’s structural economic problems. The present debate sidesteps some of the most important factors that are negatively influencing the economy. Some of these factors include political repression, lack of judiciary reforms, the police state, and military economic interests driving policy.

Ahmed Kamal is a recurring story, symptomatic of a security state that has turned criminal, motivated by narrow economic interests that favour an economic elite over the Egyptian populace. Ahmed won’t show up in the numbers punched up by experts, nor will the nonsensical story provided by the government be questioned.

The present regime has alienated numerous factions of society: doctors, lawyers, journalists, students, youth, businessmen, and even some civil servants. Meanwhile, Egypt holds its own future hostage. Youth are threatened constantly and barred from decision-making circles. Many are detained in jail, tortured or placed under solitary confinement without fair judicial process, and some, like Ahmed, are killed in police custody.

Egypt’s problems will not be solved by applying cosmetic reforms, they will only entrench Egypt deeper down an abyss, like a car stuck in the sand digging itself deeper when the accelerator is pushed hard. Further austerity, which comes hand in hand with state violence and repression, may cause the eruption of an already simmering street. What’s more, even if understated, Egypt cannot move forward as long as stories like Giulio Regeni and Ahmed Kamal and countless others persist. It will take real change and the unchaining of Egypt’s youth—its future—to dig it out of this hole that’s growing deeper by the minute.

First published in DNE on 3 Sept 2016.

Where Hope Lies in Egypt

This article was published in DNE on 2 November 2016.

As calls for protests garner more attention from the media and citizens who have long ignored them, many serious questions about Egypt's trajectory arise. This is perhaps Egypt's most disheartening moment in recent history. Besides the unprecedented scale of human rights abuses, it is obvious to dwellers and onlookers that Egypt's economy is swiftly spiraling towards collapse. The leadership is struggling to keep its head above water, as the long sought after hope of political stability turns frail.

What makes the moment more tragic is not the absence of hope but its fleeting presence. Egypt's path to recovery has long been clear. Yet, the economic interests of the policy makers have stalled any political will to execute them. Economic figures aside, future prospects are primarily based on trust. As conditions worsen and the interests of the political elite become clearer to the average citizen, trust in Egypt's present leadership withers.

Egypt's economic ills are but symptoms of its political ailments, and they require urgent redress. Egypt needs direct political reforms to establish a system capable of executing long-term plans beneficial to the country's future.

At the moment, the majority of decisions are taken by non-elected officials belonging to one security apparatus or another. They have three major motivations: narrow individual interests, securing the present regime, and a revenge agenda against Islamist or secular opposition. Their decisions are not subject to oversight. The parliament's handpicked members are more a representation of security agencies than of the people.

Similarly, the entire political system lacks cheques and balances. There is no manner to challenge decision makers without paying a heavy price. Egypt's top auditor, Hesham Geneina, was removed from his post after releasing statements about his report's findings that indicated mass corruption. In theory, that ought to have triggered an investigation into the government bodies accused of financial violations, but the opposite happened and Geneina was referred to trial.

The absence of balances has also corrupted the market in Egypt. While the army's role in the economy has long been established, the army is now, more than ever, directly involved in policy. This means that generals control the army's share of contracts and the shares of non-military owned companies in the market. Hence, it is not just the army's economic empire that affects the market, but rather the complete hegemony over economic and business policies.

Many civilian companies are subcontracted by the army, but they have no means to litigate against the army if they are extorted in some way or another or their payments delayed. When the army does business, it does not pay taxes; it utilises poorly paid conscripts, and its budget is not subject to parliamentary oversight. Even if the army produces goods or delivers construction projects at a lower cost, there's no way to ensure that profits made are pumped back into the economy. Money is taken out of the monetary cycle.

Private businesses have to compete with military industries that do not have to pay labour, taxes, customs, and transportation, and have no difficulty finding foreign currency to conclude their deals with partners abroad. This arrangement certainly doesn't consider long-term, economic growth.

Egypt's hope lies in the ability to challenge political, economic, and social policies. Egypt must prioritise the country's interests rather than a few individuals who enjoy impunity or corrupt rewards.

To find hope, trust in the process and leadership must be restored. Opportunities must be afforded to clever, competent decision makers. In actionable, concrete terms, hope lies in a parliament comprised of fairly elected representatives of the people willing to challenge the government, in the immediate release of all political prisoners (estimated to be in the tens of thousands), in repealing the flawed Protest Law, in ending the targeting of civil society so that it is vibrant and able to call out abuse of power, and in abiding by the Constitution to call into account all extrajudicial decisions and actions taken by state officials.

These steps are where hope lies in the short term to instill trust, and in order to stand a chance, there's more. The army must gradually distance itself from its hegemonic role in the economy and allow for businesses to operate within a fair and healthy market. There must also be a commitment from the government to end brutal police practices and devise an organisational restructure with meaningful oversight. The judiciary must end punitive rulings that serve the regime.

Egypt's youth, its most important resource and symbol for its future, are targeted instead of embraced. Many are defamed, imprisoned, disappeared, and sidelined. Instead of engaging with youth, the regime opted for a flashy youth conference held in Sharm El-Sheikh. The conference was insulting to many as it attempts to window dress systematic abuses against Egyptian youth each day. A more realistic youth conference would have been held in jails where many politically enlightened youth are being held. At this more legitimate youth conference, we would have witnessed Egypt's forcibly disappeared youth reappear and go home with their families.

Empty rhetoric and obstinacy is the regime's alternative to meaningful change. False promises for a better future only entrench Egypt deeper into its failing trajectory. Egypt's hope lies in investing in youth and accountability; hopes that Egypt's trajectory miraculously changes without real reforms are lies.

The Dutch Ambassador to Egypt and I - How I got blocked by a diplomat

Below is a screenshot of a series of tweets and interactions with the Dutch ambassador to Egypt in which he claimed Egypt has made progress on the path towards democracy. Having checked the speech and seeing these responses, I called out the Dutch ambassador on what he described as democratic progress. 

He implied that I did not have the gift of close and contextual reading. 

All this is okay but what is note worthy is that the ambassador used to follow me on twitter, and furthermore extended an invite to discuss the topic further at his office. That is why it is all the more perplexing that at some point following this conversation I was blocked on twitter by this ambassador.

That's not very diplomatic is it?

Here is a link to the original tweet: https://twitter.com/RenaNetjes/status/725626112303321088

Why Some Egyptians Believe Islamists Killed Giulio Regeni

In a recent speech, Sisi finally confessed that taking down the Russian plane was a breech in Egyptian security and an act perpetrated by extremists. In the same breath he alluded to the murder of Giulio Regeni as a similar act, hence fortifying whatever predisposition loyal Egyptians had that he was killed by Islamists to frame the Egyptian regime.

The first murder of a Morsi supporter following the July 3 military takeover was caught on tape outside the Republican Guard headquarters on 5 July when the army shot and killed three pro Morsi protesters. I did not want to believe we had so quickly descended into the same violence and brutality we had fought so vehemently against under Mubarak, SCAF and Mohamed Morsi. That first kill meant a complete return to SCAF days where the military was rampant, vicious and as always, unaccountable. In utter disbelief and in the hopes of averting reality, I rushed to examine the evidence, I saw a few videos showing the shooting, from different angles, along with photos of the poor man's head which had been shot.

No sooner had the young man been shot and media circulated social media, conspiracy theories started to appear to salvage the narrative that things have not descended into the same old crimes and impunity. I remember being dragged into these theories in the remote hopes that they would pan out and we would not have to once again confront the military's crimes. Please let it be something else, please let it be something else I thought to myself.

Duly like an apologist, I began to examine the pictures, the videos and the testimonies. I looked at theories that postulated that it they were Muslim Brotherhood supporters who shot themselves in order to frame the military. It seems so silly now, but I had to treat it seriously, maybe it would offer salvation. The evidence pointed to a black car in the background passing at the exact same moment he was shot. There were also photos of his head with a small wound entering, and the back of the head blown off, indicating, by those theorists, that he had been shot from the back.

I entertained all these ideas and posted them and got into discussions. I may have even ignored Jeremy Bowen's testimony regarding that incident which he witnessed in order to give these conspiracies the benefit of the doubt. While some people responded to me by saying, “How could you?”others were very objective and dispelled all these lunacies. Exit wounds were larger than entry wounds, both angles show that the soldier shot him, there was no evidence that the black car fired any shots and more than that, the military was armed, accustomed to killing and it made no sense for protesters to kill their own instead of military personnel.

From that day onwards I toyed around with theories to explore them but was never able to dedicate that much attention or give them credence as much as I did the first time. The rest of the kills were about sometimes entertaining ideas of how justified they could have been, but never buying into it.

The Rabaa massacre was the price paid by Egyptians who entertained conspiracy theories and found justifications for the regime as they continued to kill innocent people with impunity. Many are not even aware of how monumental that price is till today and continue to argue there was no other way.

Five years into the revolution, a wider base of opposition was created thanks to the uprising in 2011, but that sheer number lead to more brutality against the growing number of dissidents. Crimes against humanity are as widespread as never before, forced disappearances, torture,.. With every escalating brutality comes its own set of conspiracies and justifications. The simple harsh reality of brutal criminal security forces in itself too brutal to handle in the minds of many.

This brings us to the brutal killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni who was kidnapped on January 25 and tortured to death with cigarette burns, stab wounds, broken ribs and signs of electrocution all over his body. The act is seemingly unprecedented, although a Frenchman was killed by the police in September 2013. Yet the disappearance the brutality and the manner with which it happened has only been customary with Egyptians, never with a foreigner.

The fact that it is seemingly unprecedented was enough for many who cannot deal with this as an escalation in brutality as another conspiracy theory. It must have been the Islamists that kidnapped young Giulio, tortured him exactly like the Egyptian police and dumped his body to implicate the police, who would, sure, do this to an Egyptian, but never in a hundred years would they do this to a foreigner. That is the rhetoric and the main reasoning, despite the army killing eight Mexican tourists, which they would claim is different because it was an accident.

It wasn't the media campaign and pressure from the Italian government that caused authorities to dump the body, no it was a perfectly timed plan by Islamists. To feed into this convenient conspiracy theory, a security affiliated newspaper, Youm 7, purposefully mistranslated security forces to Muslim Brotherhood from an Italian paper that postulated that Regeni could have been killed by a rival security agency to undermine Sisi. In another strange twist, another Italian paper reported on the mistranslated Youm 7 article that claimed it was the Muslim Brotherhood who killed Regeni. To make matters worse, an Italian paper noted that eyewitnesses in the NY Times piece who described how Giulio Regeni was taken by plain clothed policemen were not consistent in terms of timing with what they had found on Giulio Regeni's messages which indicated he was able to text 2 hours after the alleged arrest by authorities.

This to them seems like a golden opportunity to discount not just the eyewitnesses but the three security sources cited in the NYT piece indicating that Giulio was in police custody before his death.

The most enlightened of them would say that we still do not know what has happened and that investigations are underway, so we should not point fingers, and yet in the same moment, the mere mention of the Muslim Brotherhood in an Italian piece, has caused some on occasion to jump to the conclusion that investigators suspect the Muslim Brotherhood. Having examined the said paragraph it only commented that trade unions were monitored by the regime and garnered the interest of the Muslim Brotherhood who sought to create unrest. That unrest was all too quickly concluded by the apologists to be the murder of Giulio Regeni.

There are many benefits and motivations of having Islamists kill Regeni instead of the regime. It would confirm the bias that Islamists are an absolute evil, it would offer hope that while Egyptian police do this to Egyptians, there is still hope they are responsible enough not to do this to foreigners. But in reality, many also understand that the police would never own up if they had done this and the international implications if they did would be huge, and would mean that this is indeed a criminal regime that is far too brutal and ugly to carry the country forward.

It is fear of confronting such a reality that drives some to believe that it isn't the police, although I'm very certain many know deep down inside, just like I did when I examined the first murder, that Egyptian security forces the most likely culprits of this heinous crime. It doesn't even matter that the Ministry of Interior sent out instructions in a periodic secret memo, shortly after Giulio's murder, not to take action against foreigners without informing state security and the ministry of interior.

Denial is an endless river in Egypt, and it is surprising what you can find if you're looking for it and how easy it is to ignore reality.  

Egyptians disappear, Egypt disintegrates

Nabil Elboustany was on his way to Sinai on 6 October to meet his brother Tarek for vacation. At a checkpoint just outside Sharm El-Sheikh, the police performed a background check on Nabil and found him on their system due to an old case that included trumped up charges of which he had been acquitted. Tarek arrived to the checkpoint only to find the police adamant, even after Nabil had presented a copy of his acquittal which he carried with him. Tarek’s friend, who was also present at the time, attempted to win the officer’s favour, but while talks were underway, the military stepped in to take Nabil to a nearby camp in Sinai.

Tarek went with his brother in the army jeep to the camp. Upon their arrival, he was told he was not allowed into the camp, and so he decided to wait outside for his brother’s release. By nightfall, the military issued Tarek a stern warning that he may himself arrested or worse if he didn’t leave. Reluctantly, Tarek left the camp, returning the next day only to find what he had feared the most had happened, the army had disappeared his brother Nabil.

Nabil’s story is of a state gone renegade beyond its traditional framework of oppression.  Tarek proceeded to look for his brother in numerous army camps in Suez and Ismailia. He was keen to pursue every legal means to find his brother so as not to upset authorities who seem to take offense to any public calls for justice. Yet all of Tarek’s attempts have failed. He found out through some back channels that his brother is in Ismailiya, while some other sources indicated he was in Suez. But the official military story remains that they don’t have him. He is not sure if Nabil is being kept until after elections, or if his brother will be slapped with trumped up charges related to some random terror case as we’ve seen happen before.

The entire legal system in Egypt, along with rights defenders and diplomats seem helpless in the face of a military that has decided to disappear a young man on a whim and deny his family even the right to know why this has happened to him. In fact, the current order has deemed citizens searching for their rights, impotent and incapable of addressing injustices inflicted upon them or their loved ones.

There have been 215 cases of forced disappearances documented in August and September alone by the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom (ECRF), according to its director Mohamed Lotfy. Earlier, there have been 163 cases documented by the campaign Freedom for the Brave from April to June.

The forced disappearances, the impunity, the lawlessness by which the current regime operates are signs of a disintegrating state. The most dangerous indication of the forced disappearances is that the state’s own oppressive mechanisms enforced by the law don’t seem enough, and so the state is forced to enter into extrajudicial immoral measures in order to handle perceived threats. It’s not just forced disappearances, but several incidents of assassinations or extrajudicial killings have taken place over the course of the last few months.

When there is no order, people’s beliefs about what the state does changes, and instead of respect for the body that purportedly upholds justice, it turns into resentment and every act of money collection is viewed as extortion.

Similarly, in a shocking yet not so surprising move that reeks of fear or resentment, (both of which should not be the basis of governing), a scientific lecture about the planet Mars by scientist Essam Heggy was cancelled due to security reasons. It is known that Heggy was critical of the AIDS cure announced by the army in February 2014.

Faith in the current regime and its promised reforms is already fading, with an extremely low turnout, doctored yet again by the elections apparatus to reach over 26% instead of the 6% announced by the head of the judges club. It is unclear who believes the presently announced number.

As Egypt turns more towards its old stable oligarchy through a new legitimately stillborn parliament full of notoriously corrupt figures, western powers remain content with the trajectory, as long as their own economy is thriving.

Nabil and hundreds like him languish in prisons without charge. His family and many others are living a nightmare unable to find a son or daughter forcibly disappeared. What’s worse, the regime’s actions are sponsored by the international community’s indifference or complicit silence.

The silence is justified by a desire for a ‘stable Egypt’ under Al-Sisi, yet that doesn’t seem to be the case. Workers are becoming disgruntled as the country moves towards an economic abyss. The pound is losing worth and there is a marked increase in the intensity of strikes such as the recent Mahalla strikewhich started 19 October.

Al-Sisi prepares to visit the UK to obtain even more international support, and all of the Nabils out there will not matter inside rooms where the most sinister deals are drawn up at the expense of individuals. The most we’d ever get is a complacent question, shrugged off by the visiting oppressor and accepted by a sinister politician enabling the disappearance of Nabil and many others like them.

To the populace, Nabil is just another name. People disappearing or ending up in prisons tend to seem like numbers in “the war against terror”. But those people are real, and so are their families and their sufferings. Individuals who support this regime’s actions are real as well. The deals they strike at the expense of others are also very real. As the state resorts to extrajudicial measures to punish its citizens, it starts to disintegrate, and so does our humanity with our continued silence.

First published in DNE, on 1 Nov 2015.