DOCSLIB.ORG

Sternfeld-Dissertation-2014

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sternfeld-Dissertation-2014 Copyright by Rachel Anne Sternfeld 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Rachel Anne Sternfeld Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Political Coalitions and Media Policy: A Study of Egyptian Newspapers Committee: Jason Brownlee, Supervisor Zachary Elkins Robert Moser Daniel Brinks Esther Raizen Political Coalitions and Media Policy: A Study of Egyptian Newspapers by Rachel Anne Sternfeld, B.A.; M.S.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2014 Dedication For Robert, who challenged us to contemplate difficult questions. Acknowledgements My dissertation would not be possible without the financial, intellectual and emotional support from myriad groups and individuals. The following are simply the highlights and not an exhaustive list of the thanks that are due. I am indebted to various entities at the University of Texas for providing the funding necessary for my graduate work. The Department of Government provided support for my coursework, awarded me a McDonald Fellowship that supported six months of fieldwork, and trusted me to instruct undergraduates as I wrote the dissertation. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies awarded me FLAS grants that covered two years of coursework and sent me to Damascus in the summers of 2008 and 2010. Beyond the University of Texas, the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) enabled me to spend a full calendar year in Cairo advancing my Arabic skills so I could conduct research without a translator. Professor Clement Henry, Chair of the Political Science Department at the American University in Cairo, ensured my access to the AUC campus and library during my fieldwork. Many many Egyptians aided me as I navigated life in Cairo. I appreciate them all. A few of my linguistic and cultural interlocutors deserve special mention. Ahmed Serag was a voice of reason. Mohammad Elewa let me argue; one time he even let me pontificate on an internet radio broadcast. Ahmed Farag is always ready with support, in the face of everything from tough passages in Arabic to housing crises. Hoda continues to guide me through moments of cultural misunderstanding, as well as providing inspiration and friendship. Mohsen was my window into Egyptian newspapers and my v first Egyptian friend in Cairo, thanks in large part to our shared enjoyment of evening walks and bouza. I also owe considerable debts of gratitude to the Americans who helped me stave off bouts of homesickness and kept me on track, academically. Zina (and Lara) filled our home with a love of life and cupcakes. My academic uncles were always available to talk about political science and the challenges of fieldwork. Jon and Ian made sure we ate well, drank well, and, most importantly, that we laughed. Meir & Suzie rounded out my academic community in Cairo; they opened their home and made all feel welcome. Back in Austin there were many people who made life and school more enjoyable. Matt carved the way for the JB disciples and Steven joined me on my first foray into tear gas and other adventures. The BT writing group kept me on task and reminded me to enjoy life beyond Batts. In Kate we found a deeply compassionate taskmaster. Abby told us why our research is important and why we as people are important, too. Ilana is the glue that made it possible. The faculty and staff of the Government Department are incredibly supportive. Everyone who guided me through the degree was unfailingly generous with their time and encouraging of my academic pursuits. Special mention must be made of Robert Moser who as Graduate Advisor, Department Chair and committee member was always prepared to go above and beyond to help me when I stumbled. I am immensely grateful to Jason Brownlee, my advisor, for his support and encouragement through the ups and downs of these past seven years. Of course, none of my successes would be possible without the unending love, encouragement and aid of my family, especially my parents Nancy and John Sternfeld. vi Political Coalitions and Media Policy: A Study of Egyptian Newspapers Rachel Anne Sternfeld, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Jason Brownlee Abstract: This dissertation asks: Why do autocrats expand the freedoms enjoyed by their domestic media outlets when it would seem to be against their interests to do so? Some research suggests that private capital investments and other non-state sources of revenue are crucial to expanding the bounds of media discourse. I argue that private money alone cannot produce such developments, instead, increased press freedom can be observed when the economic reforms create the opportunity for a new class of entrepreneurs, interested in funding media ventures, to enter government. From this position they may push for opportunities to expand the media environment. Hosni Mubarak’s presidency in Egypt provides a useful lens to study changes in press freedom under autocracy. The introduction of private capital into the Egyptian newspaper industry in two recent decades resulted in different levels of press freedom. In the 1990s press freedom was unaffected by the influx of private money into this sector, but there was a marked increase in press freedom in the 2000s when a wave of new privately-owned dailies joined their state-owned counterparts on Egyptian newsstands. The introduction of economic reforms, especially privatization of state industries, created vii the opportunities for the expanded class of entrepreneurs to enter politics and the economic incentives to increase the freedom of the press. The dissertation expands our existing understandings of the political and economic context under which economic liberalizations can lead to political liberalizations. It suggests that political science can improve its understanding of these dynamics by considering individual political liberalizations, rather than just democratization, when seeking to understand the impact of economic reforms. viii Table of Contents List of Tables ......................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xii List of Illustrations ............................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1: Introduction and Argument ...................................................................1 Description of Cases .......................................................................................5 Literature Review..........................................................................................10 Lack of nuance in study of press & regime type .................................11 Drawing insights from the literature on elections in autocracies .........12 Drawing insights from the literature on economic liberalization ........15 Theory ...........................................................................................................18 Conclusion ....................................................................................................21 Chapter 2: Historical Context ...............................................................................25 History of the Egyptian Press .......................................................................26 The Free Officers' Revolution: A Critical Juncture ......................................27 Nasser and the economy ......................................................................28 Nasser and the press .............................................................................30 Infitah and Pluralism: Sadat's Path to Power ................................................31 Infitah: an economic opening...............................................................32 Pluralism: parties and politics ..............................................................34 Sadat's Legacy ...............................................................................................38 Conclusion ....................................................................................................41 Chapter 3: The Failed Experiment: Newspaper privatization and state push back, the 1990s .............................................................................................................43 War, Foreign Aid & Structural Adjustment ..................................................44 Economic struggles ..............................................................................45 Adopting economic reform ..................................................................47 ix The Cyprus Loophole: Foreign Licenses, Free-Economic Zones and Private Newspapers ..........................................................................................49 Crackdown on Press Freedom and Civil Society ..........................................54 Tightening legal constraints on the press .............................................57 Chapter 4: Expansion of Press Freedom: Businessmen and their Newspapers , the 2000s .............................................................................................................63 Politicization of the "Businessman" Class ....................................................64 Early economic and political gains, 1989-1998 ...................................65 The return and
Load more

Recommended publications
  • What Inflamed the Iraq War?
    Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Fellowship Paper, University of Oxford What Inflamed The Iraq War? The Perspectives of American Cartoonists By Rania M.R. Saleh Hilary Term 2008 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deepest appreciation to the Heikal Foundation for Arab Journalism, particularly to its founder, Mr. Mohamed Hassanein Heikal. His support and encouragement made this study come true. Also, special thanks go to Hani Shukrallah, executive director, and Nora Koloyan, for their time and patience. I would like also to give my sincere thanks to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, particularly to its director Dr Sarmila Bose. My warm gratitude goes to Trevor Mostyn, senior advisor, for his time and for his generous help and encouragement, and to Reuter's administrators, Kate and Tori. Special acknowledgement goes to my academic supervisor, Dr. Eduardo Posada Carbo for his general guidance and helpful suggestions and to my specialist supervisor, Dr. Walter Armbrust, for his valuable advice and information. I would like also to thank Professor Avi Shlaim, for his articles on the Middle East and for his concern. Special thanks go to the staff members of the Middle East Center for hosting our (Heikal fellows) final presentation and for their fruitful feedback. My sincere appreciation and gratitude go to my mother for her continuous support, understanding and encouragement, and to all my friends, particularly, Amina Zaghloul and Amr Okasha for telling me about this fellowship program and for their support. Many thanks are to John Kelley for sharing with me information and thoughts on American newspapers with more focus on the Washington Post .
    [Show full text]
  • Egypt Is an Ally- It Must Act Like One, NFFS Nov
    NAPLES FLORIDA FEDERATION STAR November 2001 "Egypt is an Ally- It Must Act Like One" By Kenneth W. Stein The war against terrorism will not end if we neutralize savage killers, their training facilities and handlers, elusively clandestine bank accounts, and regimes that support them. This is also a battle of definitions, words, and marketing; it is about the contents of malice poured out against the U.S. by Arab newspapers and other Arab media outlets. With dozens of Arab writers and commentators spewing out venom toward the U.S., we need our Arab coalition partners and those who seek our support to reduce their hateful attacks on the U.S. Credit the Jordanian government for reducing anti-American media attacks. Origins for anti-American feeling can be found more or less regularly in the Palestinian, Saudi, Syrian, Iraqi, and London Arab press. But the U.S. has a special and necessary relationship with Egypt; it is in Cairo where the first effort to tone down anti-American anger must start. No, I do not suggest telling others what to write or what to think. But from allies, more should be expected and demanded. Twenty years after President Sadat's assassination, sustaining American foreign aid to Egypt remains central to our national interest. It should not stop. However, if we do not lean on Egypt, a long-time friend and leader of public Arab opinion, no remote chances exist for anti-American feeling to subside in the Middle East. Egypt's influence on Palestinian attitudes is greater than any other Arab state.
    [Show full text]
  • Horizons of the World : Imagining Coexistence in Language Through Understanding and Refiguring of Reality Ayman A
    The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Doctoral Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects 2008 Horizons of the world : imagining coexistence in language through understanding and refiguring of reality Ayman A. Moussa Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.usfca.edu/diss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Moussa, Ayman A., "Horizons of the world : imagining coexistence in language through understanding and refiguring of reality" (2008). Doctoral Dissertations. 188. https://repository.usfca.edu/diss/188 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects at USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of San Francisco HORIZONS OF THE WORLD: IMAGINING COEXISTENCE IN LANGUAGE THROUGH UNDERSTANDING AND REFIGURING OF REALITY A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the School of Education Department of Leadership Studies Organization and Leadership Program In partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education by Ayman A. Moussa San Francisco May 2008 This dissertation, written under the direction of the candidate’s dissertation committee and approved by the members of the committee, has been presented to and accepted by the Faculty of the School of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. The content and research methodologies presented in this work represent the work of the candidate alone.
    [Show full text]
  • This Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation Has Been Downloaded from the King’S Research Portal At
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Contentious politics and the making of Egyptian public spaces El-Kouedi, Mona Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 This electronic theses or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Contentious politics and the making of Egyptian public spaces Title: Author: Mona El-Kouedi The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement.
    [Show full text]
  • The AUC Press September 2011 E-Newsletter
    September 2011 In This Issue Dear Reader, » Over fifty new titles in the AUC Press Fall 2011 Kull sana wintu tayyibin! catalog Welcome back to Cairo for » Winner of the AUC Press those who were away on summer book contest holiday. We hope you enjoyed » University press association your summer and look forward rates Arab World atlas to seeing you at the numerous “outstanding” events the AUC Press has lined up for this fall. This month, the AUC Press is holding, in collaboration with Adam Bookshop, a Neighborhood Book Fair in the Cairo suburb of Maadi. Next month, as we begin to observe the one-hundred-years milestone of Egypt‟s greatest writer Naguib Mahfouz, and approach the centennial of his birth, the AUC Press is hosting various exhibitions and receptions that will include a lecture on the 1988 Nobel laureate by a member of the Swedish Academy, the Nobel institution that awards the prize in literature. As a special tribute to Naguib Mahfouz‟s seventy-year career, the AUC Press is publishing in October The Naguib Mahfouz Centennial Library, a definitive collection of a 20-volume set of hardbound editions that includes all thirty-five of his novels, three collections of his short stories, a series of his short fiction, and the collection of his weekly newspaper columns. The fall calendar promises to be particularly busy and memorable with a series of book and author receptions, including for the forthcoming Grand Hotels of Egypt (AUC Press), and the second Tahrir Book Fair, successfully launched earlier this year. The AUC Press is also very pleased to announce the publication of some exciting 50 new books in its fall catalog, including a wide selection on politics, economic, and social issues, addressing topics 1 of 6 AUC Press Events ranging from Egyptian feminism and American foreign policy in the Middle East, to al-Qaida fundamentalism and the changing Arab FALL 2011 world.
    [Show full text]
  • Egypt – Homosexuals
    Country Advice Egypt Egypt – EGY36002 – Homosexuals – Legal provisions 22 January 2010 1 Please advise whether there have been any significant legal or societal developments in Egypt relating to male homosexuals since mid-2007? If so, please provide a brief overview. Research Response EGY158721, DIMIA Issues Brief: Homosexuals and Transsexuals in Egypt (September 2005)2 and DIAC Issues Brief: Sexual Minorities – Egypt: An Update and Addendum to the 2005 Paper ‘Homosexuals and Transsexuals in Egypt’ (July 2009)3 provide a comprehensive overview of the situation of homosexuals in Egypt. This response will provide a detailed update and analysis of relevant events since 2007. Recent Events from 2007 to present Homosexuality is not explicitly prohibited under Egyptian Law; however, the local authorities have used existing legal provisions on “prostitution”, “debauchery”, “contempt of religion” and “public morality” to prosecute homosexuals. The most common charge is that of “habitual debauchery” under Article 9(c) of Law 10/1961 which states that “Anyone who habitually engages in debauchery or prostitution is liable to a penalty of three months to three years imprisonment and/or a fine of LE 25-300”.4 A number of media sources and human rights organisations reported that from October 2007 to early 2008 there had been a new wave of arrests by Egyptian police of homosexual males suspected of having HIV. By early 2008 a total of twelve men had been detained in Cairo with the same number of men detained in Alexandria. All those detained were allegedly subjected to HIV tests without their consent and forensic anal examinations designed to prove that they had engaged in homosexual conduct.
    [Show full text]
  • Abd Alaziz Final Report
    To be submitted to: NATO Academic Affairs Balance of Threat perception And the prospects of NATO Mediterranean Dialogue Final Report For the institutional research fellowship programme 2001-2003 By Alaa A. H. Abd Alaziz University of Helsinki June 2003 Table of contents Acknowledgment 3 Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 The origins of NATO’s Mediterranean initiative 4 1.2 Historical roadmap of the NATO-Mediterranean dialogue 5 1.3 The structural adjustment of the NATO-Mediterranean relation after September 11th 2001 7 Chapter Two: Theoretical framework 2.1 Liberalism and NATO- Mediterranean dialogue 11 2.2 Constructivism and NATO- Mediterranean dialogue 13 2.3 Realism and NATO- Mediterranean dialogue 15 2.4 Balance of Threat and NATO- Mediterranean dialogue 17 2.5 “Hegemony” as a crucial analytical concept 20 Chapter Three: The Mediterranean threat to NATO (Alliance’s perception) 22 3.1 Proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery 23 3.2 Terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism 25 3.3 Threatening of vital resources supplies 27 3.4 Migration 29 3.5 Soft threats 30 Chapter Four: NATO’s threat to the Mediterranean (perceptions from the dialogue countries) 31 4.1 Western hegemony or American imperialism 32 4.2 The Israeli occupation of the Arab lands 35 4.3 Economic disparities 37 Chapter Five: What prospects ahead? 39 5.1 The changing NATO 39 5.2 The changing forces in the Mediterranean countries 41 5.3 The future of NATO-Mediterranean relation 42 - Table 45 - Bibliography 46 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest thanks to H.E. Ambassador/ Fatma Hussein deputy assistant minister for security and strategic organizations (MFA-Egypt) for her encouragement, support and valuable assistance to conclude this research paper.
    [Show full text]
  • The American University in Cairo Press the American University in Cairo Press
    The American University in Cairo Press, recognized “The American University in Cairo Press is the Arab DISTRIBUTION AND SALES CONTACTS as the leading English-language publisher in the world’s top foreign-language publishing house. It EGYPT AND MIDDLE EAST THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO PRESS region, currently offers a backlist of more than 1000 has transformed itself into one of the leading play- AUC Press Distribution Center 113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, P.O. Box 2511 publications and publishes annually up to 100 wide- ers in the dialog between East and West, and has AUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74 Cairo, Egypt ranging academic texts and general interest books on produced a canon of Arabic literature in translation New Cairo 11835, Egypt Website: www.aucpress.com ancient and modern Egypt and the Middle East, as unmatched in depth and quality by any publishing Tel: +202 2615 4711/14/16 well as Arabic literature in translation, most notably house in the world.” Fax: +202 2615 6005 Trevor Naylor the works of Egypt’s Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. —Egypt Today Associate Director, Sales & Marketing NORTH AMERICA Tel: +202 2797 5759 Oxford University Press [email protected] Customer Service Department New Publications 3 Mahfouz The Naguib Mahfouz 2001 Evans Road Tahany El Shammaa 23 Abdel-Gawad Veiling Architecture Centennial Library Cary , NC 27513, USA General Sales Manager 11 Abu-Duhou Giving Voice to the Voiceless 27 Manley Women Travelers in Egypt 1-800-445-9714 Tel: +202 2797 6895 18 al Ameer Judgment Day 6 Mehrez Translating Egypt’s Revolution E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] 10 Arenfeldt Mapping Arab Women’s Movements 17 Mosbahi A Tunisian Tale 14 Al Aswany Friendly Fire 15 Nasrallah Time of White Horses UK / EUROPE Cherif Samaan 5 Al Aswany On the State of Egypt 28 O’Kane The Illustrated Guide to the Museum Eurospan (EDS) Distribution Center Manager 7 Assaf et al.
    [Show full text]
  • The Formal Birth of the Human Rights Movement in Egypt
    Research+Papers, 4th August 2017 The Formal Birth of the Human Rights Movement in Egypt → Yasmine Shash Human rights defenders accused of working for unlicensed NGOs and receiving illegal foreign funds, stand in a cage during the opening of their trial in Cairo, Egypt, February 2012 © Mohamed Omar / EPA The Birth of the EOHR Though a human rights discourse has evolved in Egypt much earlier, serious attempts to institutionalize, professionalize and popularize the struggle to improve human rights in Egypt started in 1983 with the establishment of the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR). The AOHR wanted to “explicitly […] protest the erosion of civil and political freedoms in the Arab states.”1 The group of leading intellectuals and activists founding the AOHR attributed the multiple failures of Arab states to the authoritarian nature of the regimes and the general suppression of political participation in the decision making process.2 Later in April 1985, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) was established as a branch of the AOHR to focus on Egypt with the deteriorating human rights situation and the political impasse in the aftermath of President Sadat’s assassination by an Islamist armed group. Violent confrontations erupted between security agencies and armed Islamist groups; a general crackdown on Islamists widened; torture became systematic and an “officially condoned practice”; there were increasing restrictions on freedom of thought and belief; and the government declared a state of emergency in 1981, which lasted for the following 30 years. Such conditions gradually engendered a culture of impunity among security agencies with respect to mass detentions, arbitrary practices and collective punishment.
    [Show full text]
  • Prophets and Priests of the Nation: Naguib Mahfouz's
    Int. J. Middle East Stud. 41 (2009), 653–669. Printed in the United States of America doi:10.1017/S0020743809990110 Benjamin Geer PROPHETS AND PRIESTS OF THE NATION: NAGUIB MAHFOUZ’S KARNAK CAFE´ AND THE 1967 CRISIS IN EGYPT Our entire world had gone through the trauma of the June war; now it was emerging from the initial daze of defeat. I found the entire social arena abuzz with phantoms, tales, stories, rumors, and jokes. The general consensus was that we had been living through the biggest lie in our entire lives. ...My beliefs in everything were completely shattered. I had the feeling that I’d lost everything.1 This quote from a character in the 1974 novel Al-Karnak (Karnak Cafe´2) by Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) sums up the reaction of millions of people in Egypt and the Arab world to the June 1967 Arab–Israeli war.3 Why did this war shatter their worldviews? A military defeat may occur for purely military reasons, in this case the better preparation of Israeli troops.4 Why should it cast doubt on a whole way of life? The answer to this question lies in the social and cognitive structure of nationalism, which I examine in a moment of crisis, after the 1967 war, when it became necessary for nationalist intellectuals to debate issues that had previously been taken for granted. Al-Karnak, which was made into a highly profitable and controversial film, provides a good starting point for studying these debates. However, it is important to understand them as products of the nationalist project of which Mahfouz was a part.
    [Show full text]
  • Economic Liberalization and Changes in Fundamentalism: the Case of Egypt
    ATES: ECONOMY AND FUNDAMENTALISM IN EGYPT ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION AND CHANGES IN FUNDAMENTALISM: THE CASE OF EGYPT Davut Ates Dr. Ates is an official in the Department of Foreign Trade in Ankara, Turkey. he relationship between groups as a result of compromise between economic liberalization and the regimes and former members of these radical politics has been a key groups who have benefited from economic Tissue in Muslim countries since development. Middle-class members of the 1970s. Economic liberalization policies the fundamentalist groups would lose their have two important aspects: the retreat of organizing role within society, while lower- the state from the economy and the encour- class members would be transformed into agement of the inflow of foreign capital. As marginal groups that are seen as terrorists a result of such policies, there have in most cases.1 emerged serious changes in so-called Within this framework, I will examine fundamentalist movements in Muslim the Egyptian case, in which the most countries. Because new job opportunities significant socially-based fundamentalist reduce the degree of resentment toward the group, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), regime and restrict the membership base of established in 1928, has been transformed fundamentalist groups, regimes in Muslim in accordance with the expected results of countries began to have new opportunities economic-liberalization policies, beginning to manipulate radical politics. Moreover, the with the infitah policies at the beginning of leadership cadres of such fundamentalist 1970s. From the colonial era to the end of groups have tried to benefit from the fruits World War II, the organization was against of economic development.
    [Show full text]
  • Minority Question in Egypt’ and the Bounds of Nationalism: Testing The
    Arab Research Support Programme II October 2017 The ‘Minority Question in Egypt’ and the Bounds of Nationalism: Testing the Limits of the Nation Karim Malak Introduction The events of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 are perhaps one of the few moments in contemporary Egyptian history where there was such an effort to break with the past and perform a rupture of time. Gone were the days of ‘authoritarianism’; syndicates, newspapers and other spaces of the public were relatively opened up, access to streets and protests – though of course contested – became significantly easier.1 Though these few measures were not linked to this rupture of time, they were often used as an embryonic idea, if bastions of ‘authoritarianism’ could be opened up – universities could now have department heads and deans elected, opposition members could appear on TV – then why couldn’t this ‘gain’ be extended? Indeed, there was an unspoken understanding that these relative gains could be historicized by each member of society who approved of the revolution. These ‘lists’ of gains were wide topics of discussions; even inside Churches. If every member of society in his/her community could do this, then they could perform this ‘rupture’ and convince people to embrace the revolution and each do their part if so to speak. Indeed after a very uneasy 18 days from January 25th- February the 11th, Copts at the Coptic Orthodox Church of mari murqus (St Marcos) in Heliopolis gathered on February 11th for an extended meeting for servants, these were young individuals of the mari murqus community who chose to ‘serve’ by a host of activities including being Sunday School teachers, helping the needy running support activities for the Church’s wide range of Sunday School classes by being part of the illustrative media team or the newly founded and exciting ‘Sports Team’.
    [Show full text]