America everywhere

What is the connection between George Bush, Madeleine Albright and Ayman Nour? The Egyptian press, as Fatemah Farag discovers

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A week kicked off by President George Bush's State of the Union address was bound to be one filled with trepidation in the Egyptian press. The US president was taken head-on by the front page article of Al-Wafd on 4 February. "We would have liked to thank President Bush on his so- called stance for freedom and support of democratic movements in the Middle East," said the paper, pointing out, however, that the American president would have to wait a long time for people in the region to put their faith in him. The reasons are many and Al-Wafd advised president Bush that it would be in everyone's best interest if he "stopped wasting American tax payers' money on failed military adventures in which the most abominable racist crimes, annihilation and torture take place." To drive the point home, the article was accompanied by two large photos of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

The press was permeated with a sense of unease: Madeleine Albright's visit to Cairo last week, Bush's address, Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour's arrest, the arrest of "Enough" movement activists as well as the Inter-Party Dialogue, were all reported as separate events, yet the implicit suggestion is that the US is set on playing a role -- in most cases unwanted -- in local reform.

In Al-Osbou on 7 February Mustafa Bakri dedicated one page to a report allegedly presented by Albright on her return to the US. Bakri claimed the report indicated that Albright's message to Egypt was in effect that the Americans were willing to support a Turkish scenario (moderate- Islamic government) in the country, and that she had reported that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was pragmatic and willing to cooperate with the American administration. Hazem Hashem in Al-Wafd on 4 February lamented that the details and content of Albright's visit "were all kept secret from the public... All we know is that it [these meetings] was all about us [the Egyptians] and that we have become a pawn to be manipulated by everyone."

Even the arrest of Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party chairman Ayman Nour, who is currently remanded in custody without bail, seems to have been interpreted as a clampdown against perceived American pressure. Sawt Al-Umma dedicated a three-page spread under the banner "Ayman Nour's plan to take over power in Egypt". Adel Hammouda, the paper's editor, alleged that Nour's choice of an orange banner to wear to court was no fashion statement but a clear sign that he sees himself as Egypt's Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukraine's recently democratically elected president.

Hence the importance of defining the inter- party dialogue that took place this week between the ruling party and some 15 legal parties in Egypt. In the words of Al-Ahram Editor-in- Chief Ibrahim Nafie in his daily column on 7 February, the dialogue is "an important beginning to the continuation of change on the one hand and the achievement of comprehensive reform on the other." Nafie went on to emphasise "the participants in the dialogue had agreed that [reform] is an internal affair... not a foreign vision which does not take into account the specificity and circumstances of this society. And this is a clear message to many parties."

Notwithstanding the ambivalence over its "foreign" component, the reform debate continued to dominate the Egyptian press.

Commenting on ruling NDP Secretary- General Safwat El-Sherif's statements -- made during this week's Inter-Party Dialogue -- to the effect that the constitution should at some point be "reviewed", writer Osama Anwar Okasha in Al-Wafd of 6 February said, "Egypt awaits a clear victory for democracy and a direct road to follow in changing all that needs to be changed." He did not, however, rule out the importance of the ruling party in effecting reform. "This [reform] would be a victory for all those who participate in it and we hope the NDP will be at the top of the list."

It would take Karam Gabr in Rose El-Youssef (5--11 February) to make the argument that no reform can take place when "it is argued that we must start from point zero and achieve freedom, democracy and justice, transparency and free, honest elections."

Gabr does make a point, however, when he scathingly highlights the inadequacy of many of the parties involved. "We do not want to deceive ourselves... many of these heads of unknown parties who call for reform are in themselves incapable of making a connection with the public and run their parties like private estates; without transparency or honesty." He goes on to ask, "why misinform the public about the importance of dialogue when most parties are weak and no one knows anything about them?"

Back to Al-Wafd again, Sayed Abdel-Aati on 6 February points out that what we need to do in the direction of reform is "bring down authoritarian administration and rebuild a democratic Egypt". As far as Abdel-Aati is concerned, an "administrative clean-up" tops the list of priorities.

He has a point when you consider Editor-in- Chief of Al-Akhbar Ibrahim Seada's editorial on 7 February where he reveals a secret deal between the government and the foreign solid waste management company working in Alexandria in which a controversial garbage dumping site is moved only temporarily in order to appease public opinion. (Last summer everyone was up in arms at the fact that the site was close to both residential areas and summer resorts). "All I could do was laugh and laugh at this masquerade and I asked in innocence: what of the statements made by former Prime Minister Atef Ebeid and his ministers in which they announced that a final solution had been found for the dump?"

Or what of the accountability of Minister of Housing Ibrahim Suleiman regarding both water cuts suffered by residents for two weeks in Nasr City and for pushing a plan to landfill a good section of the Nile in Cairo to expand a highway, both of which were brought up by this week's Sawt Al-Umma.