MARILYN H. KARFELD: February 18, 2011
With 40 million Egyptians living on about 25 cents a day, abject poverty was the root of the revolution that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last week. Not protests in Tunisia that ousted the dictator there. Not Twitter or Facebook.
So said Mordechai Kedar, an Arabic studies professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, who spoke last week at B’nai Jeshurun Congregation before the Egyptian military announced Mubarak had departed and left them in control of the country.
The media, which focused its attention on the recent 18 days of demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, has gotten the story wrong, said Kedar, also a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.
Rather than limiting its attention to Tahrir Square and protesters, the media should have covered the real face of Egypt during the last four or five decades. Entire families squeeze into a ramshackle wooden packing crate, living by the millions in “unplanned” neighborhoods in Egypt, without access to running water, electricity, phone service, roads or adequate schools, he said. Not surprisingly, the illiteracy rate is very high.
Drinking water stored in small jars outside each family’s crate comes from the Nile River, which also functions as a sewage canal, says Kedar. The bacteria is so rampant in these Egyptians’ bodies that the mufti of Egypt issued a 1987 decree, under pressure from the government, that Muslims are allowed to drink alcohol to quiet the organisms, said Kedar. Alcohol is forbidden in the Koran, but the government encourages whiskey consumption rather than having to treat sick people in hospitals, the Middle East expert maintained.
Forty-five percent of Egyptians live in these intolerable conditions, as drugs and crime flourish because police are afraid to respond to calls for help in these impoverished neighborhoods. By age 12, girls are married off by force, before “boys fool around with them,” Kedar said. The father can then foist off responsibility for feeding his daughter to the new husband.
There is one group improving the lives of Egypt’s huge underclass: The Muslim Brotherhood, noted Kedar. The Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella entity of non-governmental organizations that solicit donations and provide social services, including women’s health clinics. The Islamic group, described by the Anti-Defamation League as primarily a political organization that supports terrorist causes, also employs some of the illiterate population.
With a notoriously corrupt Egyptian government and deplorable living conditions for the masses, it’s not a surprise that Egypt “blew up,” said Kedar. “One never sees on CNN anything about these unfortunate neighborhoods. They’re not nice. They don’t bring advertisers. The media has betrayed the profession.”
Other causes of the Egyptian revolution include Mubarak’s willingness to bequeath the presidency to his son Gamal, said Kedar. “Unrest has been in the air in Egypt for two to three years,” said Kedar. “Egyptians felt it was either now or never (to get rid of Mubarak).”
In addition, the government rigged the November parliamentary elections so that the Muslim Brotherhood only got one seat. “If there were honest elections, the Muslim Brotherhood would take 60% to 80% of the vote,” noted Kedar. The Islamic party’s sole representative quit the parliament in disgust.
The Tunisian uprising was a spark, Kedar admitted, but “Egypt was an explosion waiting to happen.” With the encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood, the men from these destitute neighborhoods took to the streets in protest.
The Muslim Brotherhood sees the world “in two parts – the part that is Islamic and the part that will become Islamic,” Kedar said. “It is a genie let out of the bottle. It will influence the next phase of Egypt. And whatever happens in Egypt will influence the entire Middle East, Europe and the U.S.”
If the Muslim Brotherhood gains control, officials will announce that they “will tear up the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel,” he predicted. That might also affect the treaty between Israel and Jordan, which won’t want to be the only Arab state with peace with Israel.
In the meantime, the world will have to adopt a wait-and-see mode. President Obama needs to “hold his peace” because whatever he says will be held against him, Kedar added. Whoever the U.S. and the West support will become illegitimate.
“It doesn’t matter who is president,” he said. “As long as the Muslim Brotherhood controls the street, they will control the agenda.”
The Egyptian revolt has put the “domino effect” in play, Kedar said, with more Arab states – Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Iraq – on the line. The only Arab countries likely to be immune from uprising are the Gulf states because one tribe makes up each nation. The exception is Bahrain, where a small minority of Sunnis controls the majority Shiites.
Asked if any religious leader now living in exile could return to Egypt and help fill the power vacuum, similar to what happened when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran after the shah’s 1979 ouster, Kedar said it was possible. If the Muslim Brotherhood brought back Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Qatar-based Egyptian grand mufti, al-Qaradawi might bring a religious authority to end the chaos.
The Israeli government daily discusses the ramifications from the Egyptian popular uprising, noted Kedar. “Today the Muslim Brotherhood is not looking for a connection with Iran. But things might change.” Meanwhile, Iranian centrifuges continue to produce enriched uranium. The world shouldn’t let the Egyptian crisis overshadow a nuclear Iran, Kedar added.
Despite all of the explosions erupting in the Arab world, Kedar pronounced himself “a compulsive optimist. I see the chaos (in Arab states) around Israel as reassurance the people of Israel will live forever.”
http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2011/02/18/news/local/doc4d5d5cf5a3923865522702.txt
With 40 million Egyptians living on about 25 cents a day, abject poverty was the root of the revolution that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last week. Not protests in Tunisia that ousted the dictator there. Not Twitter or Facebook.
So said Mordechai Kedar, an Arabic studies professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, who spoke last week at B’nai Jeshurun Congregation before the Egyptian military announced Mubarak had departed and left them in control of the country.
The media, which focused its attention on the recent 18 days of demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, has gotten the story wrong, said Kedar, also a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.
Rather than limiting its attention to Tahrir Square and protesters, the media should have covered the real face of Egypt during the last four or five decades. Entire families squeeze into a ramshackle wooden packing crate, living by the millions in “unplanned” neighborhoods in Egypt, without access to running water, electricity, phone service, roads or adequate schools, he said. Not surprisingly, the illiteracy rate is very high.
Drinking water stored in small jars outside each family’s crate comes from the Nile River, which also functions as a sewage canal, says Kedar. The bacteria is so rampant in these Egyptians’ bodies that the mufti of Egypt issued a 1987 decree, under pressure from the government, that Muslims are allowed to drink alcohol to quiet the organisms, said Kedar. Alcohol is forbidden in the Koran, but the government encourages whiskey consumption rather than having to treat sick people in hospitals, the Middle East expert maintained.
Forty-five percent of Egyptians live in these intolerable conditions, as drugs and crime flourish because police are afraid to respond to calls for help in these impoverished neighborhoods. By age 12, girls are married off by force, before “boys fool around with them,” Kedar said. The father can then foist off responsibility for feeding his daughter to the new husband.
There is one group improving the lives of Egypt’s huge underclass: The Muslim Brotherhood, noted Kedar. The Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella entity of non-governmental organizations that solicit donations and provide social services, including women’s health clinics. The Islamic group, described by the Anti-Defamation League as primarily a political organization that supports terrorist causes, also employs some of the illiterate population.
With a notoriously corrupt Egyptian government and deplorable living conditions for the masses, it’s not a surprise that Egypt “blew up,” said Kedar. “One never sees on CNN anything about these unfortunate neighborhoods. They’re not nice. They don’t bring advertisers. The media has betrayed the profession.”
Other causes of the Egyptian revolution include Mubarak’s willingness to bequeath the presidency to his son Gamal, said Kedar. “Unrest has been in the air in Egypt for two to three years,” said Kedar. “Egyptians felt it was either now or never (to get rid of Mubarak).”
In addition, the government rigged the November parliamentary elections so that the Muslim Brotherhood only got one seat. “If there were honest elections, the Muslim Brotherhood would take 60% to 80% of the vote,” noted Kedar. The Islamic party’s sole representative quit the parliament in disgust.
The Tunisian uprising was a spark, Kedar admitted, but “Egypt was an explosion waiting to happen.” With the encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood, the men from these destitute neighborhoods took to the streets in protest.
The Muslim Brotherhood sees the world “in two parts – the part that is Islamic and the part that will become Islamic,” Kedar said. “It is a genie let out of the bottle. It will influence the next phase of Egypt. And whatever happens in Egypt will influence the entire Middle East, Europe and the U.S.”
If the Muslim Brotherhood gains control, officials will announce that they “will tear up the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel,” he predicted. That might also affect the treaty between Israel and Jordan, which won’t want to be the only Arab state with peace with Israel.
In the meantime, the world will have to adopt a wait-and-see mode. President Obama needs to “hold his peace” because whatever he says will be held against him, Kedar added. Whoever the U.S. and the West support will become illegitimate.
“It doesn’t matter who is president,” he said. “As long as the Muslim Brotherhood controls the street, they will control the agenda.”
The Egyptian revolt has put the “domino effect” in play, Kedar said, with more Arab states – Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Iraq – on the line. The only Arab countries likely to be immune from uprising are the Gulf states because one tribe makes up each nation. The exception is Bahrain, where a small minority of Sunnis controls the majority Shiites.
Asked if any religious leader now living in exile could return to Egypt and help fill the power vacuum, similar to what happened when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran after the shah’s 1979 ouster, Kedar said it was possible. If the Muslim Brotherhood brought back Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Qatar-based Egyptian grand mufti, al-Qaradawi might bring a religious authority to end the chaos.
The Israeli government daily discusses the ramifications from the Egyptian popular uprising, noted Kedar. “Today the Muslim Brotherhood is not looking for a connection with Iran. But things might change.” Meanwhile, Iranian centrifuges continue to produce enriched uranium. The world shouldn’t let the Egyptian crisis overshadow a nuclear Iran, Kedar added.
Despite all of the explosions erupting in the Arab world, Kedar pronounced himself “a compulsive optimist. I see the chaos (in Arab states) around Israel as reassurance the people of Israel will live forever.”
http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2011/02/18/news/local/doc4d5d5cf5a3923865522702.txt
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