Sometimes it is amazing to see how easily people are fooled. Even people who call themselves revolutionaries and fight a tyrant. When on Saturday the Presidential Election Committee (PEC) disqualified 10 of the 23 candidates who had applied to run in the elections for Egypt's presidency, people danced in the streets with joy - for next to the most dreaded Omar Suleiman - ex spy-chief of Mubarak - the just as much detested Khairat El-Shater from the Muslim Brotherhood was rejected by the commission. That was indeed good news. So good in fact, that no one cared to think about why the candidate El-Shater had been refused. The only thing that counted was his being ousted from the run for office - and what better thing could happen to Egypt than that?
Well - justice perhaps? Because justice is nowhere to be found in the decision by the PEC on El-Shater's rejection. Nor, by the way, on the rejection of another candidate - Ayman Nour. Nour too was rejected by the PEC - and startling enough both for the same reason.
Two sides to a coin
Under Mubarak' dictatorship the ikhwan Khairat El-Shater was imprisoned several times for his political views that the regime deemed dangerous. Now that the dreaded Mubarak is gone and the dictatorial regime due to a revolution is supposed to be history, the imprisonment under Mubarak should not speak against El-Shater, on the contrary. He, who defied the dictator should be considered rehabilitated in post revolutionary times since the dictator is gone.
Yet the opposite is true. The PEC rejected El-Shater as candidate for presidency due to his earlier convictions and jail terms. These they are holding against him. And the revolutionaries, who are more than glad that he is ousted from the race, rejoice.
When the liberal Ayman Nour dared to become the first person to contest the dictator Mubarak in the elections 2005 it cost him his freedom right after the elections. Mubarak of course stayed in power and Nour was thrown in jail on charges of "forgery" many considered and consider to this day as trumped up to silence a liberal mind. Now that the dictator is gone, this bravery should speak in his favour and the revolutionaries would surely not hold this against him. Yet the PEC does, for it rejected Nour too with pointing out that he had had an earlier conviction and served jail time. He is therefore not eligible. The revolutionaries are disappointed about this and complain bitterly.
It is interesting and just as much scary to see how so called liberals and leftists, activists and revolutionaries look at the same context twice and show two different reactions - depending on whether they like the person in question or not. However not depending on aspects of justice or democracy.
Reason to rejoice?
Both Shater and Nour received the same verdict from the PEC: Because they were thrown in jail under the dictator Mubarak - they now cannot become president, because a presidential candidate may not have a criminal record. Since both served jail sentences, both - according to the PEC logic - have a criminal past and therefore are not eligible to stand for office.
While this decision in Ayman Nour's case is met with anger and criticism by revolutionary forces - the same decision in El-Shater's case is hailed as a victory for a democratic Egypt. And no one sees how bitterly the PEC is having them on, playing the old cards from the old system and judging according to the old way of thinking - that whoever is (or was) against Mubarak is an enemy to Egypt and must be ousted from political life. Is that the tune of the revolution of January 25? Hardly. Then what is the rejoicing about?
What the revolutionary forces of Egypt - the leftist, the liberals, the activist - don't get is that with this two-sided rejection the old regime is still in full force deciding on who is going to run for president and not. While this as such should not come as a surprise - one thing does: the fact that the revolutionary forces themselves in hailing the ousting of El-Shater now actively support such an unjust, flawed, dictatorial decision - and don't even realize that with this they are being complicit to the injustice of the old regime.
Food for thought
When you hail that El-Shater is not allowed to run for office because he was thrown in jail under Mubarak you are in fact condoning the felool way of thinking, you are supporting the old forces and you show them that they have nothing to fear from the revolution with regard to protesting for a free and just decision on who is going to become president of Egypt.
When you protest against the ousting of Ayman Nour you lack credibility, and the regime knows it. Either you accept that jail term under Mubarak for political reason was not a crime but something brave and a sacrifice of personal lifetime - then you will have to accept this for every candidate, whether you like him or not. If you only accept this for Nour but not for Shater, the only thing you prove to the old regime and yourself is that the demands of the revolution like freedom, democracy and justice were nothing more than empty slogans whose real values and dimensions you have not understood to this day.
If so, you will get the president you deserve. Then don't complain.
-------------------
April 18, 2012
February 25, 2012
In times of sadness, never lose love - Erich Fried
For over a year now we have been confronted with troubling news of people being arrested, beaten, tortured, killed. No doubt, if you want a revolution to happen you have to face up to bitter reality. But the amount of disturbing information coming out of the countries of the Arab spring can be overwhelmingly depressing. The deaths in Syria everyday, the conditions in Bahrain or Yemen, the fatalities in Egypt with no serious sign of holding anyone accountable - all that can sum up to a burden hard to carry, something to make the heart heavy and result in burnout symptoms or even stress disorders.
It is in such times that I almost cling to a poem by Erich Fried, an Austrian born award winning writer, who was one of the finest love poets of contemporary times. Though living in London he wrote all his works in German and was both famous and much hailed there for his wonderful poetry. In addition, his translations of Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas into German rank among the finest today.
I had the great privilege of knowing Erich, working with him, having long conversations with him. He was warmhearted and energetic, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, a bold political activist who often clashed with the political elite, and an undeterred fighter for humanity and peace. He was hated by the conservatives for his leftist views and frowned upon by his leftist friends for constantly trying to see the human in his enemy. When he died in 1988 of cancer it was a sad day. I loved him dearly and I still miss him today.
How wonderful though that his writings remain with us to give us courage and inspiration. One of his most beautiful love poems I translated here. It shows, that even the bravest political activist can have his downs, can tire and feel worn out and yearn for something to soothe the pain: Love and security and peace of mind.
May it be uplifting to all those whose hearts are heavy these days with the sorrowful news we have to bear daily.
----------------------
Words (by Erich Fried, 1921 - 1988)
When my words shed their syllables due to fatigue
and on the typewriter the stupid mistakes begin
when I want to fall asleep
and never wake to the daily sadness
of what happens in the world
and which I cannot prevent
then here and there a word starts to groom itself and hum softly
and a half thought combs itself and looks for another
that perhaps just now was still choking on something
it could not swallow
but now turns around
and takes the half thought by its hand and says to it:
Come
And then some of those tired words
and some typos that laugh about themselves
fly with or without the half and whole thoughts
out from the London misery over sea and plains and mountains
always across to the same spot
And in the morning, when you go down the steps through the garden
and stop and start to take notice and look
you can see them sitting or hear them fluttering
a bit cold and perhaps still a bit lost
and always silly with joy that they are truly with you
----------------------------------------
It is in such times that I almost cling to a poem by Erich Fried, an Austrian born award winning writer, who was one of the finest love poets of contemporary times. Though living in London he wrote all his works in German and was both famous and much hailed there for his wonderful poetry. In addition, his translations of Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas into German rank among the finest today.
I had the great privilege of knowing Erich, working with him, having long conversations with him. He was warmhearted and energetic, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, a bold political activist who often clashed with the political elite, and an undeterred fighter for humanity and peace. He was hated by the conservatives for his leftist views and frowned upon by his leftist friends for constantly trying to see the human in his enemy. When he died in 1988 of cancer it was a sad day. I loved him dearly and I still miss him today.
How wonderful though that his writings remain with us to give us courage and inspiration. One of his most beautiful love poems I translated here. It shows, that even the bravest political activist can have his downs, can tire and feel worn out and yearn for something to soothe the pain: Love and security and peace of mind.
May it be uplifting to all those whose hearts are heavy these days with the sorrowful news we have to bear daily.
----------------------
Words (by Erich Fried, 1921 - 1988)
When my words shed their syllables due to fatigue
and on the typewriter the stupid mistakes begin
when I want to fall asleep
and never wake to the daily sadness
of what happens in the world
and which I cannot prevent
then here and there a word starts to groom itself and hum softly
and a half thought combs itself and looks for another
that perhaps just now was still choking on something
it could not swallow
but now turns around
and takes the half thought by its hand and says to it:
Come
And then some of those tired words
and some typos that laugh about themselves
fly with or without the half and whole thoughts
out from the London misery over sea and plains and mountains
always across to the same spot
And in the morning, when you go down the steps through the garden
and stop and start to take notice and look
you can see them sitting or hear them fluttering
a bit cold and perhaps still a bit lost
and always silly with joy that they are truly with you
----------------------------------------
February 22, 2012
‘Paying the ultimate price’ - R.I.P. Marie Colvin
Today once more is a sad day for journalism. This morning, around 9 a.m., Sunday Times of London correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik were killed in Homs (Syria), when they tried to escape the rockets from the Syrian army. Both died instantly.
Last night, Marie Colvin had still given telephone interviews to the BBC and CNN about the horrors happening in Homs. She spoke of horrific scenes she witnessed, of people dying under unbelievable conditions while the shelling of the starved city was continuing without end.
"I know it's impossible to stay safe but please try" were the last words Anderson Cooper said to Marie Colvin in their phone conversation. - It was not to be. This morning she was dead. There is no 'safe' in Homs anymore.
Not for the 28.000 civilians and not for the handful of journalists that dare to make it across the border. Besides Marie and Rémi being killed, two other colleagues were injured in the attack: Paul Conroy, the Sunday Times photographer assigned to Marie Colvin, and journalist Edith Bouvier from Le Figaro.
As so often after the loss of life the question in journalism arises whether it was worth it, whether the reporting from the war zone justifies the immense danger, journalists and photographers put themselves into. Do we really need the pictures and the reports from the ground? Will it help to end any misery or is it not perhaps just a dangerous folly of overtly adventurous die-hards who have no respect for life and have fallen out of society, unable to make it in a normal world?
From all the reports of friends and colleagues we get, Marie Colvin was anything but reckless or without fear. She knew what sufferings the war zones could produce, she had herself lost colleagues to war reporting and paid tribute to them with their families and friends in St. Bird's Fleet Street in a commemorating service in November 2010.
It is here too that she spoke up and explained the motives behind her willingness to face danger again and again, knowing too well the deadly result it could produce.
Today that result has materialized. Marie Colvin was killed.
While thousands around the globe mourn her passing and many colleagues remember her in numerous moving articles and speeches since this morning, my tribute to her comes in the form of her own words. The words she spoke at St. Bird's on November 10, 2010 - and repeated at other occasions when people kept repeating the question: "Is it worth it?"
To Marie Colvin it was. It was worth it. It was vital. And, as she put it to a friend in a Beirut coffee shop only a week ago: "After all, it's what we do."
Read Marie Colvin's own explanation, why we need war zone reporting, and why there are some journalists and photographers who dare to risk their lives to get the truth out to us: the ignorant world, too often looking away, not showing interest, lacking empathy - but most of all, without knowledge we so desperately need.
I bow in deep respect to Marie, Rémi and the many others who were killed and thank them for every bit of truth they sent out from the horrific war places on this troubled planet.
Our gratitude is yours for ever. May you rest in peace.
Marie Colvin, St. Bird's, Nov 10, 2010
Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen,
I am honoured and humbled to be speaking to you at this service tonight to remember the journalists and their support staff who gave their lives to report from the war zones of the 21st Century. I have been a war correspondent for most of my professional life. It has always been a hard calling. But the need for frontline, objective reporting has never been more compelling.
Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction, and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you.
Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children.
Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?
Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price. Tonight we honour the 49 journalists and support staff who were killed bringing the news to our shores. We also remember journalists around the world who have been wounded, maimed or kidnapped and held hostage for months. It has never been more dangerous to be a war correspondent, because the journalist in the combat zone has become a prime target.
I lost my eye in an ambush in the Sri Lankan civil war. I had gone to the northern Tamil area from which journalists were banned and found an unreported humanitarian disaster. As I was smuggled back across the internal border, a soldier launched a grenade at me and the shrapnel sliced into my face and chest. He knew what he was doing.
Just last week, I had a coffee in Afghanistan with a photographer friend, Joao Silva. We talked about the terror one feels and must contain when patrolling on an embed with the armed forces through fields and villages in Afghanistan...putting one foot in front of the other, steeling yourself each step for the blast. The expectation of that blast is the stuff of nightmares. Two days after our meeting Joao stepped on a mine and lost both legs at the knee.
Many of you here must have asked yourselves, or be asking yourselves now, is it worth the cost in lives, heartbreak, loss? Can we really make a difference?
I faced that question when I was injured. In fact one paper ran a headline saying, has Marie Colvin gone too far this time? My answer then, and now, was that it is worth it.
Today in this church are friends, colleagues and families who know exactly what I am talking about, and bear the cost of those experiences, as do their families and loved ones.
Today we must also remember how important it is that news organisations continue to invest in sending us out at great cost, both financial and emotional, to cover stories.
We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.
The history of our profession is one to be proud of. The first war correspondent in the modern era was William Howard Russell of The Times, who was sent to cover the Crimean conflict when a British-led coalition fought an invading Russian army.
Billy Russell, as the troops called him, created a firestorm of public indignation back home by revealing inadequate equipment, scandalous treatment of the wounded, especially when they were repatriated - does this sound familiar? - and an incompetent high command that led to the folly of the Charge of the Light Brigade. It was a breakthrough in war reporting. Until then, wars were reported by junior officers who sent back dispatches to newspapers. Billy Russell went to war with an open mind, a telescope, a notebook and a bottle of brandy. I first went to war with a typewriter, and learned to tap out a telex tape. It could take days to get from the front to a telephone or telex machine.
War reporting has changed greatly in just the last few years. Now we go to war with a satellite phone, laptop, video camera and a flak jacket. I point my satellite phone to South Southwest in Afghanistan, press a button and I have filed.
In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and twitters, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same - someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can't get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen.
We do have that faith because we believe we do make a difference.
And we could not make that difference - or begin to do our job - without the fixers, drivers, and translators, who face the same risks and die in appalling numbers. Today we honour them as much as the front line journalists who have died in pursuit of the truth. They have kept the faith as we who remain must continue to do.
Marie Colvin, 1956 - 2012
------------------------------------------------
Her last report out of Homs for the Sunday Times shows the horror the city's civilians are facing and proves the outstanding quality of Marie Colvin's work. We shall miss her reports badly. We shall miss her telling us the truth.
‘We live in fear of a massacre' - Sunday Times, Feb 19, 2012
------------------
Last night, Marie Colvin had still given telephone interviews to the BBC and CNN about the horrors happening in Homs. She spoke of horrific scenes she witnessed, of people dying under unbelievable conditions while the shelling of the starved city was continuing without end.
"I know it's impossible to stay safe but please try" were the last words Anderson Cooper said to Marie Colvin in their phone conversation. - It was not to be. This morning she was dead. There is no 'safe' in Homs anymore.
Not for the 28.000 civilians and not for the handful of journalists that dare to make it across the border. Besides Marie and Rémi being killed, two other colleagues were injured in the attack: Paul Conroy, the Sunday Times photographer assigned to Marie Colvin, and journalist Edith Bouvier from Le Figaro.
As so often after the loss of life the question in journalism arises whether it was worth it, whether the reporting from the war zone justifies the immense danger, journalists and photographers put themselves into. Do we really need the pictures and the reports from the ground? Will it help to end any misery or is it not perhaps just a dangerous folly of overtly adventurous die-hards who have no respect for life and have fallen out of society, unable to make it in a normal world?
From all the reports of friends and colleagues we get, Marie Colvin was anything but reckless or without fear. She knew what sufferings the war zones could produce, she had herself lost colleagues to war reporting and paid tribute to them with their families and friends in St. Bird's Fleet Street in a commemorating service in November 2010.
It is here too that she spoke up and explained the motives behind her willingness to face danger again and again, knowing too well the deadly result it could produce.
Today that result has materialized. Marie Colvin was killed.
While thousands around the globe mourn her passing and many colleagues remember her in numerous moving articles and speeches since this morning, my tribute to her comes in the form of her own words. The words she spoke at St. Bird's on November 10, 2010 - and repeated at other occasions when people kept repeating the question: "Is it worth it?"
To Marie Colvin it was. It was worth it. It was vital. And, as she put it to a friend in a Beirut coffee shop only a week ago: "After all, it's what we do."
Read Marie Colvin's own explanation, why we need war zone reporting, and why there are some journalists and photographers who dare to risk their lives to get the truth out to us: the ignorant world, too often looking away, not showing interest, lacking empathy - but most of all, without knowledge we so desperately need.
I bow in deep respect to Marie, Rémi and the many others who were killed and thank them for every bit of truth they sent out from the horrific war places on this troubled planet.
Our gratitude is yours for ever. May you rest in peace.
Marie Colvin, St. Bird's, Nov 10, 2010
Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen,
I am honoured and humbled to be speaking to you at this service tonight to remember the journalists and their support staff who gave their lives to report from the war zones of the 21st Century. I have been a war correspondent for most of my professional life. It has always been a hard calling. But the need for frontline, objective reporting has never been more compelling.
Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction, and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you.
Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children.
Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?
Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price. Tonight we honour the 49 journalists and support staff who were killed bringing the news to our shores. We also remember journalists around the world who have been wounded, maimed or kidnapped and held hostage for months. It has never been more dangerous to be a war correspondent, because the journalist in the combat zone has become a prime target.
I lost my eye in an ambush in the Sri Lankan civil war. I had gone to the northern Tamil area from which journalists were banned and found an unreported humanitarian disaster. As I was smuggled back across the internal border, a soldier launched a grenade at me and the shrapnel sliced into my face and chest. He knew what he was doing.
Just last week, I had a coffee in Afghanistan with a photographer friend, Joao Silva. We talked about the terror one feels and must contain when patrolling on an embed with the armed forces through fields and villages in Afghanistan...putting one foot in front of the other, steeling yourself each step for the blast. The expectation of that blast is the stuff of nightmares. Two days after our meeting Joao stepped on a mine and lost both legs at the knee.
Many of you here must have asked yourselves, or be asking yourselves now, is it worth the cost in lives, heartbreak, loss? Can we really make a difference?
I faced that question when I was injured. In fact one paper ran a headline saying, has Marie Colvin gone too far this time? My answer then, and now, was that it is worth it.
Today in this church are friends, colleagues and families who know exactly what I am talking about, and bear the cost of those experiences, as do their families and loved ones.
Today we must also remember how important it is that news organisations continue to invest in sending us out at great cost, both financial and emotional, to cover stories.
We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.
The history of our profession is one to be proud of. The first war correspondent in the modern era was William Howard Russell of The Times, who was sent to cover the Crimean conflict when a British-led coalition fought an invading Russian army.
Billy Russell, as the troops called him, created a firestorm of public indignation back home by revealing inadequate equipment, scandalous treatment of the wounded, especially when they were repatriated - does this sound familiar? - and an incompetent high command that led to the folly of the Charge of the Light Brigade. It was a breakthrough in war reporting. Until then, wars were reported by junior officers who sent back dispatches to newspapers. Billy Russell went to war with an open mind, a telescope, a notebook and a bottle of brandy. I first went to war with a typewriter, and learned to tap out a telex tape. It could take days to get from the front to a telephone or telex machine.
War reporting has changed greatly in just the last few years. Now we go to war with a satellite phone, laptop, video camera and a flak jacket. I point my satellite phone to South Southwest in Afghanistan, press a button and I have filed.
In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and twitters, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same - someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can't get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen.
We do have that faith because we believe we do make a difference.
And we could not make that difference - or begin to do our job - without the fixers, drivers, and translators, who face the same risks and die in appalling numbers. Today we honour them as much as the front line journalists who have died in pursuit of the truth. They have kept the faith as we who remain must continue to do.
Marie Colvin, 1956 - 2012
------------------------------------------------
Her last report out of Homs for the Sunday Times shows the horror the city's civilians are facing and proves the outstanding quality of Marie Colvin's work. We shall miss her reports badly. We shall miss her telling us the truth.
‘We live in fear of a massacre' - Sunday Times, Feb 19, 2012
------------------
January 19, 2012
In memory of martyr Ziad Bakir - Democracy, democracy, democracy
Is it almost a year already? Is it almost a year that Ziad Bakir left the house in Cairo to join the Egyptian revolution?
When Ziad went out on January 28 to be peacefully part of the quest for a new, free Egypt, he had no idea how murderous the regime was going to react. But when the day came to an end, he never returned.
Now that almost a year has passed, you might think the memory of all this has faded, the sadness of those, who loved him dearly, has passed on to bearability. It hasn‘t. „When you lose someone you love, 20 years are nothing“, a woman in a documentary said the other day who had lost relatives in a plane crash in 1979. - Twenty years is nothing. And a year? - So much less.
Did it really happen, this year? Or did all this happen only yesterday? For the relatives this question comes up again and again with no satisfactory answer.
Ziad Bakir was no revolutionary. He was an artist, a fine artist in his trade, heading the design department an the Cairo Opera House. His posters for performances were stunning in layout and colour, creative in their combination of text, photo and colour schemes, and art in itself. Even if you should have known that the event was going to be of poor quality, Ziad‘s posters were so brilliantly arranged and alive that they compelled you to visit the performance. What better quality could such a poster have? The Cairo Opera House was and could be proud of having him as their chief designer.
When Ziad went out into the streets of Cairo on that January 28 he had no rocks with him, no molotov cocktails, no weapons - just a perception of a dream: that Egypt - his Egypt he loved - would become free of tyrannical rule, would allow freedom of speech and secure democracy. For in his family these were values he and his sister and brother had been taught, with early contacts to other cultures and languages of the world. All this documented itself in his multicoloured, multicultural wonderful designs. And the soft-spoken, kindhearted father of three went out to see for himself if this dream of Egypt could peacefully come true.
The rest is bitter history. One day only, one single day turned everything upside down. When Ziad did not return even late at night, his family started to get worried. His sister, who was studying art in Europe and who had spoken with him again and again on the phone about the revolution of Egypt and what it could mean to the country, was deeply disturbed and immediately interrupted her studies and booked a flight home. When she arrived on January 31, Ziad had still not been found.
For weeks the family searched all possible places in Cairo, and while the revolution went on in Tahrir, where sister Mirette often could be seen with a photo of Ziad and her hopeful look, someone could recognize him and have some information about him, while Mubarak finally stepped down to the cheers of the Egyptian people - the fear grew in the hearts of those that loved him that he might perhaps never return. Yet, no one was willing to give up on him. His brother and cousin tirelessly searched the morgues and hospitals, his sister organized the media, giving interview after interview to the local and foreign press, hoping someone out there seeing it would have some news on Ziad.
Five long weeks
But the only news they kept getting was devastating in itself. Calls from unknown callers stating they knew where Ziad is, or saying they saw him only days ago in a prison in Sinai - or quite bluntly threatening the family that Ziad would never return alive if they did not stop talking to the press about him.
Undoubtedly the crooks of Amn El Dawla, of Mubarak‘s hated riot police or the despised former ruling party NDP thought it appropriate to torture the family even more. As if the desperate search for their son and brother day in and day out was not hard enough to bear.
Five weeks after Ziad had disappeared, a phone call from a trusted source came to say that a body was seen in Zenhom morgue that could be him. The family was in doubt, for his brother and cousin had been in Zenhom morgue many, many times in those five weeks, they had seen unbelievable scenes and unaccounted bodies, yet never a body that resembled him. But when they went to inspect, the hopes of finding Ziad alive, sitting perhaps in some godforsaken military prison in Egypt, was shattered. With all difficulties of identification, it was in the end to be taken that Ziad Bakir had been found. And his bullet wounds clearly showed that he had been killed by snipers from rooftops.
It is not wise to go back to every detail of those horrible days when he was found and finally buried on March 13. Why open all the wounds once more? A huge funeral was held at Omar Makram mosque next to Tahrir square, only a few meters away from the spot where Ziad had last been seen on that fateful January 28. Many had come to pay their respect: family and friends and many of his colleagues from the Cairo Opera House. Grieving, they parted from a man they had held close to their hearts for so many years and had now to let go.
Ziad Bakir died at the age of 37. A father of three wonderful children, a gifted, talented, friendly character who never found pleasure in hurting. Those who killed him from the rooftops of Cairo had no idea what they destroyed. To them he was nothing. To his family and friends he was a world.
A memorial exhibition
Only those who are forgotten, have truly died, a saying goes. And if this is so, then Ziad has never left. A moving eulogy was published by one of his colleagues, many memorials were held both in and out of Cairo Opera House, and now, that almost a year has passed and after seven months of intense preparation by his family and friends, a wonderful exhibition has opened in his memory at Hanager Arts Center on the Cairo Opera House grounds in Zamalek, showing for a fortnight his impressive posters and designs and making it once more possible to be captivated by his spirited, lively yet soft-treading talent. As if he was still with us, as if he was still alive. And when the people pass through the exhibition, marveling at the flow of movements and colours, his almost shy, humble smile will undoubtedly accompany them. Ziad is speaking to them through his art and many might be sorry that the performances, for which he once so compellingly advertised, are long over. Seeing the posters, one might yet be inclined to buy tickets. He artistically tempts us to the day.
The Ziad that left on January 28 might have been empty handed. But the Ziad that is remembered had a heart full of passion, of light and of dreams. It is art‘s privilege after all to see light where others see nothing, and a revolution also relies on dreamers if it wants to succeed. Life is nothing without art. Love is nothing without the belief in light. If all come together, the chances are good something new and valuable for the world is born.
The legacy
When hopes were still held up that Ziad could be alive in some military prison somewhere and would one day return to his family, his father, Mohamed Bakir, in an interview with the BBC was unmistakably clear about what was needed for the future of Egypt: „Democracy, democracy, democracy.“
His words to this day ring in my ear.
No, there is no sense in a killing, and nothing that comes can make it seem justifiable that Ziad Bakir, as so many others, lost his life. But if there is any legacy to be found in his death, let this be it - the ongoing responsibility to allow it to happen in Egypt: Democracy, democracy, democracy.
Only then will there be a chance for the family to come to rest. Only then will Egypt manage to bear the loss of its sons and daughters that were so ruthlessly torn from their lives. Harming nobody, chanting with joy and marching peacefully to their unexpected death, so Egypt could live.
----------------
Exhibition of works by martyr Ziad Bakir
18 January - 31 January
Hanager Art Center exhibition hall at the Cairo Opera House grounds
When Ziad went out on January 28 to be peacefully part of the quest for a new, free Egypt, he had no idea how murderous the regime was going to react. But when the day came to an end, he never returned.
Now that almost a year has passed, you might think the memory of all this has faded, the sadness of those, who loved him dearly, has passed on to bearability. It hasn‘t. „When you lose someone you love, 20 years are nothing“, a woman in a documentary said the other day who had lost relatives in a plane crash in 1979. - Twenty years is nothing. And a year? - So much less.
Did it really happen, this year? Or did all this happen only yesterday? For the relatives this question comes up again and again with no satisfactory answer.
Ziad Bakir was no revolutionary. He was an artist, a fine artist in his trade, heading the design department an the Cairo Opera House. His posters for performances were stunning in layout and colour, creative in their combination of text, photo and colour schemes, and art in itself. Even if you should have known that the event was going to be of poor quality, Ziad‘s posters were so brilliantly arranged and alive that they compelled you to visit the performance. What better quality could such a poster have? The Cairo Opera House was and could be proud of having him as their chief designer.
When Ziad went out into the streets of Cairo on that January 28 he had no rocks with him, no molotov cocktails, no weapons - just a perception of a dream: that Egypt - his Egypt he loved - would become free of tyrannical rule, would allow freedom of speech and secure democracy. For in his family these were values he and his sister and brother had been taught, with early contacts to other cultures and languages of the world. All this documented itself in his multicoloured, multicultural wonderful designs. And the soft-spoken, kindhearted father of three went out to see for himself if this dream of Egypt could peacefully come true.
The rest is bitter history. One day only, one single day turned everything upside down. When Ziad did not return even late at night, his family started to get worried. His sister, who was studying art in Europe and who had spoken with him again and again on the phone about the revolution of Egypt and what it could mean to the country, was deeply disturbed and immediately interrupted her studies and booked a flight home. When she arrived on January 31, Ziad had still not been found.
For weeks the family searched all possible places in Cairo, and while the revolution went on in Tahrir, where sister Mirette often could be seen with a photo of Ziad and her hopeful look, someone could recognize him and have some information about him, while Mubarak finally stepped down to the cheers of the Egyptian people - the fear grew in the hearts of those that loved him that he might perhaps never return. Yet, no one was willing to give up on him. His brother and cousin tirelessly searched the morgues and hospitals, his sister organized the media, giving interview after interview to the local and foreign press, hoping someone out there seeing it would have some news on Ziad.
Five long weeks
But the only news they kept getting was devastating in itself. Calls from unknown callers stating they knew where Ziad is, or saying they saw him only days ago in a prison in Sinai - or quite bluntly threatening the family that Ziad would never return alive if they did not stop talking to the press about him.
Undoubtedly the crooks of Amn El Dawla, of Mubarak‘s hated riot police or the despised former ruling party NDP thought it appropriate to torture the family even more. As if the desperate search for their son and brother day in and day out was not hard enough to bear.
Five weeks after Ziad had disappeared, a phone call from a trusted source came to say that a body was seen in Zenhom morgue that could be him. The family was in doubt, for his brother and cousin had been in Zenhom morgue many, many times in those five weeks, they had seen unbelievable scenes and unaccounted bodies, yet never a body that resembled him. But when they went to inspect, the hopes of finding Ziad alive, sitting perhaps in some godforsaken military prison in Egypt, was shattered. With all difficulties of identification, it was in the end to be taken that Ziad Bakir had been found. And his bullet wounds clearly showed that he had been killed by snipers from rooftops.
It is not wise to go back to every detail of those horrible days when he was found and finally buried on March 13. Why open all the wounds once more? A huge funeral was held at Omar Makram mosque next to Tahrir square, only a few meters away from the spot where Ziad had last been seen on that fateful January 28. Many had come to pay their respect: family and friends and many of his colleagues from the Cairo Opera House. Grieving, they parted from a man they had held close to their hearts for so many years and had now to let go.
Ziad Bakir died at the age of 37. A father of three wonderful children, a gifted, talented, friendly character who never found pleasure in hurting. Those who killed him from the rooftops of Cairo had no idea what they destroyed. To them he was nothing. To his family and friends he was a world.
A memorial exhibition
Only those who are forgotten, have truly died, a saying goes. And if this is so, then Ziad has never left. A moving eulogy was published by one of his colleagues, many memorials were held both in and out of Cairo Opera House, and now, that almost a year has passed and after seven months of intense preparation by his family and friends, a wonderful exhibition has opened in his memory at Hanager Arts Center on the Cairo Opera House grounds in Zamalek, showing for a fortnight his impressive posters and designs and making it once more possible to be captivated by his spirited, lively yet soft-treading talent. As if he was still with us, as if he was still alive. And when the people pass through the exhibition, marveling at the flow of movements and colours, his almost shy, humble smile will undoubtedly accompany them. Ziad is speaking to them through his art and many might be sorry that the performances, for which he once so compellingly advertised, are long over. Seeing the posters, one might yet be inclined to buy tickets. He artistically tempts us to the day.
The Ziad that left on January 28 might have been empty handed. But the Ziad that is remembered had a heart full of passion, of light and of dreams. It is art‘s privilege after all to see light where others see nothing, and a revolution also relies on dreamers if it wants to succeed. Life is nothing without art. Love is nothing without the belief in light. If all come together, the chances are good something new and valuable for the world is born.
The legacy
When hopes were still held up that Ziad could be alive in some military prison somewhere and would one day return to his family, his father, Mohamed Bakir, in an interview with the BBC was unmistakably clear about what was needed for the future of Egypt: „Democracy, democracy, democracy.“
His words to this day ring in my ear.
No, there is no sense in a killing, and nothing that comes can make it seem justifiable that Ziad Bakir, as so many others, lost his life. But if there is any legacy to be found in his death, let this be it - the ongoing responsibility to allow it to happen in Egypt: Democracy, democracy, democracy.
Only then will there be a chance for the family to come to rest. Only then will Egypt manage to bear the loss of its sons and daughters that were so ruthlessly torn from their lives. Harming nobody, chanting with joy and marching peacefully to their unexpected death, so Egypt could live.
----------------
Exhibition of works by martyr Ziad Bakir
18 January - 31 January
Hanager Art Center exhibition hall at the Cairo Opera House grounds
January 14, 2012
MB & SCAF? - Wait for the surprise
Today presidential candidate El Baradei declared the end to his campaign complaining that with SCAF the old regime was still in power. Ayman Nour, another presidential candidate for the liberal side, also declared not to run for office anymore. With two hopefuls resigning from the presidential race the nerves of liberal revolutionaries in Egypt are on edge and conspiracy theories and rumours about a deal struck between the Muslim Brotherhood and SCAF abound on the internet. Quelle surprise, the French would say. But wait - you might be in for a surprise you had not thought of.
The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood held several talks with the Supreme Council of Armed Forces running Egypt under military rule is to many an indication that a deal was made between the two how to divide power amongst them. Fact is - not only the Muslim Brotherhood held talks with the army generals, practically all important parties in Egypt did. Fact is too - the Muslim Brotherhood has secured almost half of the votes for parliament in the elections and both - MB and SCAF - know what kind of power that means.
Declarations from some MB members regarding the army, regarding even giving impunity to the army for killing of protesters, seems to show that the MB is taking sides with SCAF. When clashes killed 43 protesters around Tahrir and Mohamed Mahmoud street in November, the MB was strikingly silent and did not join in the protests defending the peoples rights. This too is taken as a sign that the MB was siding with SCAF. What is overlooked however is that only days prior to that the MB held a huge "Friday anger" rally in Tahrir demonstrating with all might the power it feels it has with half of the population behind it. That was a clear sign send to the generals to beware and to take the MB very seriously. - You do not send signs like this if you take sides.
What the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the clashes clearly did not want, was for the generals to get the impression that the MB was part of the protesting revolution attacking the state. Even more, the MB wanted at no costs that the majority of the population - the so called silent majority - too would think the MB was part of what many (thanks to Maspero and SCAF) called thuggery and chaos spreading. To them the MB was supposed to be the nonviolent strong power in the storm the people could look up to in these times of trouble. Almost 46% of the votes in the past election proved the tactic of the Muslim Brotherhood right. They got what they wanted - almost half of the parliamentary seats - because they stayed away from the uprisings and only spoke up when it was in their favour.
You can call this cowardly, hypocritical, dishonest, unethical, deplorable, disgusting and much more - but to make it short, just use the one term that is commonly associated with this - it's politics.
Yes, what the Muslim Brotherhood did was playing politics to gain power. Quelle surprise.
Regarding the fact that more than 900 brave and mostly young Egyptians lost their lives in and for this revolution, playing politics as coldly as the MB did can be regarded as having a sickening aspect to it. And many activists loudly voice their disgust at this behaviour.
But just for a moment try to change sides and look at it from the point of view of the MB.
They had been banned, threatened, arrested and killed in Egypt for decades under dictatorial rule. Now for the first time thanks to a revolution they at least in part participated in, they were allowed to stand for parliament. Nothing in the world could and would stop them from trying to gain a victory that would make banning them again forever impossible. To ensure their survival, the members of the MB practically had no choice but to play it cool, be utmost tactical in the way they went about and foremost see to it that they would not get into heavy conflict with the military that has basically - no matter what president was on top - ruled this country with an iron fist for so many decades. If MB got into serious clashes with SCAF, they might have gotten even for the many human rights violations they had endured in the past. But it would have endangered their chance to come out of the elections as the strongest force. And only if they could do that would they be able to face up to what has practically been their enemy now for almost 60 years.
It is thinking too short to suddenly invent a big partnership between MB and SCAF ignoring the fact that they are not friends and have no mutual interests at all. True - both want power. But that exactly is what cannot be achieved easily. The MB knows very well what power to the military means. They have lost more than one of their members because of it and they will not trust SCAF one bit. SCAF on the other side knows this too, fears the power the MB has gained now and hopes for any chance to keep their head above water. Had the MB actively taken part in many of the bloody clashes in Tahrir and around it would not have fared so well in the elections, the silent majority of Egypt would not have given them the mandate to be strong in parliamentary politics. Then what? How would the MB then have had a chance to step and speak up to SCAF?
Yes, call it disgusting from your point of view. That is more than understandable. But in politics when it comes to ensuring your survival - and especially in overthrowing a military dictatorship - emotions are just not enough to succeed. It needs careful, cold-blooded calculation and tactical approach to win. And the MB showed perfectly how to play the game. Their win at the elections not only proved them right, it also gave them the power now to stand up to the military in handing over power. And if their political views would not collide with those of many of the revolutionary youths, perhaps revolutionaries would not even be so appalled but silently applaud the coup to achieve a strong position to counter SCAF.
I would be much surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood - after securing parliament and presidency - would not start to play a tune the generals of the SCAF will not like. It might be that part of the tune will also not be to the liking of liberal Egyptians. But if any tune is going to have a chance to put the army back where it belongs, it must be one of strength and power. Only the MB with their overwhelming victory at the polls will be able to play that tune. And they will play it. Because there are a lot of atrocities at the hand of the military in the last bitter decades for them to remember.
Fact is, you don't have to like them for their political views. Hate them even for playing politics to win. But I would not want to be in the shoes of the generals if in the end the MB has the power. It's SCAF more than Egypt at the moment that has to beware. Don't fall for the trap that MB and SCAF are one hand. They never have been and I don't think they ever can be.
---------------
The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood held several talks with the Supreme Council of Armed Forces running Egypt under military rule is to many an indication that a deal was made between the two how to divide power amongst them. Fact is - not only the Muslim Brotherhood held talks with the army generals, practically all important parties in Egypt did. Fact is too - the Muslim Brotherhood has secured almost half of the votes for parliament in the elections and both - MB and SCAF - know what kind of power that means.
Declarations from some MB members regarding the army, regarding even giving impunity to the army for killing of protesters, seems to show that the MB is taking sides with SCAF. When clashes killed 43 protesters around Tahrir and Mohamed Mahmoud street in November, the MB was strikingly silent and did not join in the protests defending the peoples rights. This too is taken as a sign that the MB was siding with SCAF. What is overlooked however is that only days prior to that the MB held a huge "Friday anger" rally in Tahrir demonstrating with all might the power it feels it has with half of the population behind it. That was a clear sign send to the generals to beware and to take the MB very seriously. - You do not send signs like this if you take sides.
What the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the clashes clearly did not want, was for the generals to get the impression that the MB was part of the protesting revolution attacking the state. Even more, the MB wanted at no costs that the majority of the population - the so called silent majority - too would think the MB was part of what many (thanks to Maspero and SCAF) called thuggery and chaos spreading. To them the MB was supposed to be the nonviolent strong power in the storm the people could look up to in these times of trouble. Almost 46% of the votes in the past election proved the tactic of the Muslim Brotherhood right. They got what they wanted - almost half of the parliamentary seats - because they stayed away from the uprisings and only spoke up when it was in their favour.
You can call this cowardly, hypocritical, dishonest, unethical, deplorable, disgusting and much more - but to make it short, just use the one term that is commonly associated with this - it's politics.
Yes, what the Muslim Brotherhood did was playing politics to gain power. Quelle surprise.
Regarding the fact that more than 900 brave and mostly young Egyptians lost their lives in and for this revolution, playing politics as coldly as the MB did can be regarded as having a sickening aspect to it. And many activists loudly voice their disgust at this behaviour.
But just for a moment try to change sides and look at it from the point of view of the MB.
They had been banned, threatened, arrested and killed in Egypt for decades under dictatorial rule. Now for the first time thanks to a revolution they at least in part participated in, they were allowed to stand for parliament. Nothing in the world could and would stop them from trying to gain a victory that would make banning them again forever impossible. To ensure their survival, the members of the MB practically had no choice but to play it cool, be utmost tactical in the way they went about and foremost see to it that they would not get into heavy conflict with the military that has basically - no matter what president was on top - ruled this country with an iron fist for so many decades. If MB got into serious clashes with SCAF, they might have gotten even for the many human rights violations they had endured in the past. But it would have endangered their chance to come out of the elections as the strongest force. And only if they could do that would they be able to face up to what has practically been their enemy now for almost 60 years.
It is thinking too short to suddenly invent a big partnership between MB and SCAF ignoring the fact that they are not friends and have no mutual interests at all. True - both want power. But that exactly is what cannot be achieved easily. The MB knows very well what power to the military means. They have lost more than one of their members because of it and they will not trust SCAF one bit. SCAF on the other side knows this too, fears the power the MB has gained now and hopes for any chance to keep their head above water. Had the MB actively taken part in many of the bloody clashes in Tahrir and around it would not have fared so well in the elections, the silent majority of Egypt would not have given them the mandate to be strong in parliamentary politics. Then what? How would the MB then have had a chance to step and speak up to SCAF?
Yes, call it disgusting from your point of view. That is more than understandable. But in politics when it comes to ensuring your survival - and especially in overthrowing a military dictatorship - emotions are just not enough to succeed. It needs careful, cold-blooded calculation and tactical approach to win. And the MB showed perfectly how to play the game. Their win at the elections not only proved them right, it also gave them the power now to stand up to the military in handing over power. And if their political views would not collide with those of many of the revolutionary youths, perhaps revolutionaries would not even be so appalled but silently applaud the coup to achieve a strong position to counter SCAF.
I would be much surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood - after securing parliament and presidency - would not start to play a tune the generals of the SCAF will not like. It might be that part of the tune will also not be to the liking of liberal Egyptians. But if any tune is going to have a chance to put the army back where it belongs, it must be one of strength and power. Only the MB with their overwhelming victory at the polls will be able to play that tune. And they will play it. Because there are a lot of atrocities at the hand of the military in the last bitter decades for them to remember.
Fact is, you don't have to like them for their political views. Hate them even for playing politics to win. But I would not want to be in the shoes of the generals if in the end the MB has the power. It's SCAF more than Egypt at the moment that has to beware. Don't fall for the trap that MB and SCAF are one hand. They never have been and I don't think they ever can be.
---------------
January 10, 2012
Why Amr El-Beheiry is not yet free
When Amr El-Beheiry was arrested by military forces on February 26, 2011, there were enough witnesses to prove that he had done nothing wrong when participating in a protest in Tahrir square. But when he was tried in military court only days later, no witnesses were heard, no lawyer was present - Amr was sentenced in breach of all international judicial regulations within minutes to five years in prison. And that's where he went. Only afterwards did his brother find out that Amr had been damned by a military court that did not care for his innocence or the truth and willfully had crushed his freedom, destroying Amr's life.
For Egyptian blogger and activist Mona Seif, who with her mother had been present at Tahrir when Amr was arrested, this was the moment that sparked the campaign "No military trials for civilians" that rose quickly to become one of the strongest movements in post-revolutionary Egypt. Not because of the huge number of members but because of the hardheaded determination of those - at first mainly female - activists that supported and fought for the cause, often risking themselves to be arrested by the military.
In August Amr's lawyer finally managed to get an appeal date accepted - May 1st, 2012. That was outrageous, as Amr would have spent 15 months in jail until then without any chance to get his case retried. The date was protested, changed and then finally set on today, January 10.
This afternoon the military court, after hearing the case, accepted Amr El-Beheiry's appeal and lifted the sentence of 5 years, ordering for him to be retried.
A ray of hope that Amr and his family and all those who supported him in the last ten months had been waiting for so eagerly. But - alas - at the moment it is only a ray of hope, not yet more.
For the court ordered the retrial to be - in front of a military court. Just where Amr had been unjustly sentenced to 5 years in jail before.
It is not hard to imagine what this can mean with regard to justice not being served. In the case of the blogger Maikel Nabil, who had been sentenced to 3 years in prison and in his appeal finally got his sentence lifted, it meant no justice. He was retried by a military court and received a new sentence to 2 years in prison. No freedom was given to him, the whole judicial act seemed nothing less but a farce.
For Amr, whose innocence is beyond doubt to anyone who is not blinded by SCAF's ranting against protesters, the acceptance of his appeal and lifting of the initial sentence can mean just the same: another trial in front of military court with a sentence now perhaps 'only' 3 years instead of five. It would mean the continued injustice for a young Egyptian who should never have been in jail in the first place.
As uplifting as today's appeal decision therefore seems to be - Amr is not yet free, and the decision of today will also not automatically guarantee his freedom unless huge pressure is put on the SCAF generals in public to finally let Amr go.
This the military court could of course do either by setting him free and declaring him innocent - a huge step to take for generals who constantly fear to lose their face - or the court could make a ruling, letting Amr go free with a mild sentence that is suspended. The military court has decided like this in numerous cases of arrested Tahrir protesters before. The chances for this happening are not all together slim. It would therefore be vital to push and pressure the case of Amr El-Beheiry and the demand for his ultimate freedom now with all force wherever possible in the hope that the military court will make a positive move in the right direction.
What should be done though even more is reminding the generals of SCAF that they have made a promise in one of their statements last fall that they would stop all military trials of civilians. After all - that is what the brilliant campaign of Mona Seif and her co-activists in Cairo and Alexandria have been demanding for months. And SCAF had said to align itself with this demand and did indeed forward several cases from the military judiciary to civilian courts.
If it could be achieved that Amr's case is transferred from the military to a civilian court his lawyers would have much better chances of introducing witnesses, producing evidence and affidavits and generally speak up in his favour. Then - and perhaps only then - Amr El-Beheiry stands a chance of getting a sentence that is just and fair setting him finally free after an ordeal of 10 gruesome months in jail that were accompanied with lots of hardship.
Many have spoken up for Amr El-Beheiry during his unlawful imprisonment which made it possible for his appeal today to be accepted. But many more voices are needed now in full force to get his case transferred where it belongs - to a civilian court, where his rights will hopefully be respected and his case could be heard without prejudice.
So please raise your voice in the next days and weeks for Amr El-Beheiry and campaign for him as fiercely as you did for Alaa or Maikel or the other thousand of innocently arrested who have been rotting in jail because of military quick-trials, without justice being served. Amr was arrested on February 26 - only 15 days after Mubarak stepped down. What share did he have so far in the revolution he helped to create?
It is about time that Amr El-Beheiry finally gets a chance to enjoy the freedom the revolution fought for. 10 months late - but never too late.
---------------------------
UPDATE:
This is how you can help to get Amr‘s case transferred to a civilian court and hopefully get him free:
1. Got to the official SCAF facebook page - chose the newest statement at the top and type a comment underneath it. If you can, do it in Arabic, as the generals are poor in understanding English. But otherwise you might want to write something like this:
2. Write “Free Amr El-Beheiry“ in Arabic on a big piece of paper or cardboard and paste it from the inside of your car against a window, so everyone can see it when you drive through the city.
Or print one of the pics that you can find on his facebook page.
3. Check with the “No military trials for civilians“ campaign at @nomiltrials on twitter or their homepage to join in further actions coming up.
Join in marches to show SCAF that the fate of Amr El-Beheiry and his demand for freedom is not forgotten.
-----------------------
For Egyptian blogger and activist Mona Seif, who with her mother had been present at Tahrir when Amr was arrested, this was the moment that sparked the campaign "No military trials for civilians" that rose quickly to become one of the strongest movements in post-revolutionary Egypt. Not because of the huge number of members but because of the hardheaded determination of those - at first mainly female - activists that supported and fought for the cause, often risking themselves to be arrested by the military.
In August Amr's lawyer finally managed to get an appeal date accepted - May 1st, 2012. That was outrageous, as Amr would have spent 15 months in jail until then without any chance to get his case retried. The date was protested, changed and then finally set on today, January 10.
This afternoon the military court, after hearing the case, accepted Amr El-Beheiry's appeal and lifted the sentence of 5 years, ordering for him to be retried.
A ray of hope that Amr and his family and all those who supported him in the last ten months had been waiting for so eagerly. But - alas - at the moment it is only a ray of hope, not yet more.
For the court ordered the retrial to be - in front of a military court. Just where Amr had been unjustly sentenced to 5 years in jail before.
It is not hard to imagine what this can mean with regard to justice not being served. In the case of the blogger Maikel Nabil, who had been sentenced to 3 years in prison and in his appeal finally got his sentence lifted, it meant no justice. He was retried by a military court and received a new sentence to 2 years in prison. No freedom was given to him, the whole judicial act seemed nothing less but a farce.
For Amr, whose innocence is beyond doubt to anyone who is not blinded by SCAF's ranting against protesters, the acceptance of his appeal and lifting of the initial sentence can mean just the same: another trial in front of military court with a sentence now perhaps 'only' 3 years instead of five. It would mean the continued injustice for a young Egyptian who should never have been in jail in the first place.
As uplifting as today's appeal decision therefore seems to be - Amr is not yet free, and the decision of today will also not automatically guarantee his freedom unless huge pressure is put on the SCAF generals in public to finally let Amr go.
This the military court could of course do either by setting him free and declaring him innocent - a huge step to take for generals who constantly fear to lose their face - or the court could make a ruling, letting Amr go free with a mild sentence that is suspended. The military court has decided like this in numerous cases of arrested Tahrir protesters before. The chances for this happening are not all together slim. It would therefore be vital to push and pressure the case of Amr El-Beheiry and the demand for his ultimate freedom now with all force wherever possible in the hope that the military court will make a positive move in the right direction.
What should be done though even more is reminding the generals of SCAF that they have made a promise in one of their statements last fall that they would stop all military trials of civilians. After all - that is what the brilliant campaign of Mona Seif and her co-activists in Cairo and Alexandria have been demanding for months. And SCAF had said to align itself with this demand and did indeed forward several cases from the military judiciary to civilian courts.
If it could be achieved that Amr's case is transferred from the military to a civilian court his lawyers would have much better chances of introducing witnesses, producing evidence and affidavits and generally speak up in his favour. Then - and perhaps only then - Amr El-Beheiry stands a chance of getting a sentence that is just and fair setting him finally free after an ordeal of 10 gruesome months in jail that were accompanied with lots of hardship.
Many have spoken up for Amr El-Beheiry during his unlawful imprisonment which made it possible for his appeal today to be accepted. But many more voices are needed now in full force to get his case transferred where it belongs - to a civilian court, where his rights will hopefully be respected and his case could be heard without prejudice.
So please raise your voice in the next days and weeks for Amr El-Beheiry and campaign for him as fiercely as you did for Alaa or Maikel or the other thousand of innocently arrested who have been rotting in jail because of military quick-trials, without justice being served. Amr was arrested on February 26 - only 15 days after Mubarak stepped down. What share did he have so far in the revolution he helped to create?
It is about time that Amr El-Beheiry finally gets a chance to enjoy the freedom the revolution fought for. 10 months late - but never too late.
---------------------------
UPDATE:
This is how you can help to get Amr‘s case transferred to a civilian court and hopefully get him free:
1. Got to the official SCAF facebook page - chose the newest statement at the top and type a comment underneath it. If you can, do it in Arabic, as the generals are poor in understanding English. But otherwise you might want to write something like this:
“Amr El-Beheiry was unjustly sentenced to 5 years imprisonment by military court on March 1, 2011, although he was innocent. On January 10, 2012, his appeal was accepted and the sentence was lifted after 10 long months in jail. He is now to be retried.
Amr El-Beheiry is a civlian who should never be tried in a military court! Please ensure that his retrial will be in front of a civilian court as was promised by SCAF last year! Or set him free for he is not guilty of the charges and there are many witnesses that can testify to his innocence. Amr El-Beheiry should never have had to spend 10 months in jail! It is now the time to give him the freedom he deserves!“
2. Write “Free Amr El-Beheiry“ in Arabic on a big piece of paper or cardboard and paste it from the inside of your car against a window, so everyone can see it when you drive through the city.
Or print one of the pics that you can find on his facebook page.
3. Check with the “No military trials for civilians“ campaign at @nomiltrials on twitter or their homepage to join in further actions coming up.
Join in marches to show SCAF that the fate of Amr El-Beheiry and his demand for freedom is not forgotten.
-----------------------
November 18, 2011
Egypt: The nude, the male, art and crime
The discussions both on twitter and facebook were of an unusual emotional force and often no insult was spared to make sure the blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy got the message that she had done the worst thing anyone could do - show the naked woman body to the world. The Coalition of Islamic law graduates even went so far as to file charges against her with the General Prosecutor accusing her of everything in the book - first of all insulting Islam, for - take note - the naked body exposed is - in their eyes - an insult to Islam. Besides that the charges were "inciting indecency", "violating morals" and even corruption, with the Islamic Coalition arguing that the indecent exposure of the nude woman body was corrupting the country. From the point of law a quite new angel at defining the crime of corruption that so far had been more associated with monetary gains. But who cares about the subtleness of languages. Corruption then, so be it.
While it seems that everything has been said on the topic both in the negative as the positive - as there were a few positive comments at least hailing Aliaa for her bravery - not all has indeed been touched upon.
The male nude in Egypt goes unnoticed
For one it is beyond me that the blogpost - which has now seen more than 2.7 million page views - has ignited a firestorm about the showing of a naked female body - while just underneath it is the photo of a naked man (full frontal) sitting on a chair holding a guitar. No one however lashed out at him or even made it a topic that a man was showing of his naked body including genitals. Is that nothing to be frowned upon in a traditionally orientated conservative society? Amazing. Fact is that the Coalition of Islamic law graduates accused Aliaa of all sorts of terrible things for exposing herself and even went so far as to file criminal charges against her - but never mentioned the naked man on the chair with one word. - What am I missing?
Either, dear Egypt, the exposure of the naked body is shameful, indecent, corrupt, insulting (please add ad lib) - or it is not. But it surely can't be all that in the case of a woman and not worth talking about in the case of a man? Is nudity of men in Egypt then in proper order with culture and tradition and not disturbing you at all? One should have thought the critics would have found that just as irritating if not even more. For depicting the male nude must be an insult to all heroic, brave, upright standing men that would never dare to wear shorts let it alone pull them down.
Then why is the naked man underneath Aliaa's photo totally ignored while all comments lashing out at her argue as if her naked body was the only one to be seen on the blog? - Think about how ridiculous and hypocritical that is. Either you accept the exposure of both bodies - or of none. But you do have to make up your mind.
May art be ugly?
What I found just as irritating was the fact that people in their comments reacted as if the nude female body was an invention of decadence born in November 2011. While many argued that the photo was "shitty", had "bad light", was "not even artistic" - the many discussions showed that these arguments only covered up the greater problem of not being able to deal with the exposure of the blogger's body. Aliaa had clearly argued that she was showing her body to retain her freedom in a male dominated society that harasses and fences women in. In taking off her clothes she was protesting against any form of interference and restriction of her freedom. Doing this with a seemingly black-and-white photo in which only her shoes and a flower in her hair were brightly coloured, she clearly showed an artistic expression that should have been both noticed and respected. But every argument was good enough for those protesting to say that her photo was "ugly" - and therefore not art. - Interesting. Since when was art defined by whether we find it ugly or not?
Think about her photo as you will. Define it for yourself to accommodate your uneasiness with what she did. But you will have to accept the fact that art is in the eye of the beholder and nothing that can be defined by whether we like the picture or not. Art's sole job is to express the artist and evoke in the viewer the urge to contemplate, discuss, be provoked or stimulated, captured or turned off. Art's job is not to please you. And in fact great famous art often hasn't been anything you would call beautiful and pleasing. But it was always expressive and alive, controversial - even revolutionary in the true sense of the word - and innovative and experimental. It never fitted in with mainstream society, it never wanted to please and pleasure. For this in the past centuries people had wallpaper. For something alive and worth discussing people had art.
Kirchner did it before
It is not without irony after the storm that went through Egypt these last days and almost with a twinkle in the eye of Apollo, the god of arts, that today the German Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on the world famous Frankfurter Städel Museum. The museum has just seen a considerable reconstruction, is currently boasting impressive exhibitions of modern art and with no little pride shows off it's own treasures of art of the 20th century.
One of these famous paintings the museum owns was depicted in the paper, with a young woman standing in front and looking at it with interest. It was the famous "Standing nude with hat" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The artist from Germany at the beginning of the last century was one of the founding members of the art school "Brücke" that had set out to radically alter the perception of colour and perspective in art. The results were stunning, irritating to society - and are today considered great art.
The "Standing nude with hat" was painted by Kirchner in 1911 - exactly 100 years before blogger Aliaa decided to depict herself as the "Standing nude without hat". The similarities of these two pictures - the famous painting by Kirchner 1911 and the photo by Aliaa 2011 - are stunning. In both cases the nude woman body is shown plainly, without any exaggeration or eroticism. And in both cases the nude woman wears bright read shoes and is using a chair as a prop.
I do not know if blogger Aliaa ever saw this painting and felt inspired by it. But I know that if Kirchner's "Standing nude with hat" is and was art - despite the irritation it must have caused the very conservative society at that time - you will have great pains in explaining to me why the "Standing nude without hat" by Aliaa is not art - but ugly, shitty, indecent, insulting - yes even a crime.
100 years behind
The only crime that can be seen in all this is that for far too long Egypt has been tyrannized into thinking that women are evil and their naked body as such a tempting crime. It is art's job to confront society with this mistake that in the essence of the reactions is demeaning, hurtful and disrespectful to the woman of Egypt and the world. If Aliaa managed to ignite this with her photo you can call her not only a blogger and revolutionary but an artist in the true sense of the word. For if society cries foul in the eye of controversial art it is only proving one thing - that it was high time for some artist to pull the plug.
Aliaa did this and is now facing dangers that might even touch on her life. But she wanted to do what she did and she knew what she did when she did it. Just like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in 1911. Only that he in the 20th century never had to face death threats as she has to in Egypt in the 21st century now.
Egypt, you are trailing 100 years behind. But worse - with death threats you behave as if it were 500. Let go of the medieval and embrace what is commonly known to be modern times. That then indeed would be a revolution worth talking about.
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