Burning Bush

Gamal Nkrumah and Mohamed El-Sayed skipped all the razzmatazz in Sharm El-Sheikh, but read all about it in the news

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The 2008 World Economic Forum (WEF) on the Middle East was convened in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and it seemed that anyone who is anyone descended on the city. Thank goodness the WEF was not held in Cairo. Just imagine: the city would have come to a virtual standstill and traffic would have come to an abrupt halt. The papers, official and independent, were inundated with commentaries on the WEF summit. US President George W Bush came under particular scathing criticism from many commentators who deeply resented his pontificating about spreading democracy in the Arab world.

The opprobrium of Bush was not confined to the opposition papers. Official papers were just as vehement in their denunciation of Bush's double standards and hypocrisy. The editor-in-chief of the official daily Al-Akhbar Mohamed Barakat was livid about what he termed "the unreserved bias of Bush towards Israel". He recounted Bush's message to the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel. "It is obvious from the speech of the American President Bush to the Israeli Knesset, on the day of the Arab and Palestinian Nakba, that he was extremely careful to stress his total bias towards Israel, and his complete and immutable loyalty to Israel," Barakat lamented.

"President Bush paid the least attention to the sensibilities of 300 million Arabs. This is a shameful and regrettable oversight from the leader of the world's most powerful nation. We had hoped that he would have been a fair mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict," Barakat angrily concluded.

In another no less damning commentary, the chairman of the board of the official daily Al-Ahram Mursi Atallah was highly critical of President Bush. "Let me start by saying that it is not in our interests as Arabs or as Egyptians that our relationship with the United States be soured, or with any other country in the world for that matter. However, how are we expected to react if everything that emanates from the Bush administration seems designed to enrage and incense Arab public opinion?" Atallah asked rhetorically. "May the US president permit me to convey to him the outrage and fury of the Arab masses concerning his speech in the Knesset, and in particular the fact that he did not mention even once the plight of the long-suffering Palestinian people. He failed to make reference to the illegitimacy of the Jewish settlements in Palestine and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. The most galling shock is that these sentiments emanated from the man who had not so long ago touted a two-state solution." Atallah also lamented the use by Bush of Biblical language in which he espoused the Zionist cause of justifying atrocities, massacres and the Zionist land grab in Palestine on the grounds of Biblical sanctity. "In all frankness," Atallah concluded, "Bush's 'Biblical speech' raised a huge question mark with regards to the credibility of America acting as a fair mediator in the Middle East peace process."

On a somewhat different note, Al-Ahram ran excerpts from President Hosni Mubarak's speech delivered at the WEF in Sharm El-Sheikh. "Securing food for the world's poor is a major responsibility," he was quoted as saying. "There is an urgent need for a global dialogue on the food crisis," he added. Al-Ahram highlighted the grave view with which President Mubarak took towards spiralling food prices in the world. It also stressed that Mubarak singled out wealthy nations that subsidise their farmers to produce cheap products that undermine the interests of developing countries. He was especially critical of countries that devote vast tracts of prime agricultural land to the production of crops such as corn and sugarcane that are used as bio-fuels. "Is it plausible that some governments subsidise the production of bio-fuel which aggravates the food crisis?" President Mubarak exclaimed.

The opposition papers were no less scathing in their criticism of the WEF. Indeed, the independent press was cynical. The entire event was frowned upon and pundits dismissed the Sharm El-Sheikh gathering as nothing short of a talking shop. The opposition leftist newspaper Al-Badeel ran the headline: "Egypt hosts the World Economic Forum while it faces crises in bread, iron, children dairy products and the stock exchange." The paper argued that the hosting of the WEF by Egypt was disgraceful at this historical juncture, and lamented the fact that a man such as President Bush would be given so prominent a pride of place at the WEF summit in Sharm El-Sheikh. Bush, the paper noted, was one of the most hated figures in the Arab world.

Meanwhile, the daily business-oriented Al-Alam Al-Yom ran a feature about the current economic state of affairs in Egypt. "The Egyptian economic growth rises while living standards decrease", ran the headline of the feature. "What is strange is that Egypt races against time to achieve higher growth rates, while the conditions of the majority of Egyptians are miserable and poor. Everyone is complaining about skyrocketing prices."

In a separate but related development, the announcement a couple of weeks ago that Egypt started exporting natural gas to Israel ruffled the feathers of many a writer. "The natural gas wealth in Egypt has become a big mystery which angers simple citizens," Gamal Abul-Fotouh wrote in the daily opposition Al-Wafd. "Nobody knows exactly the size of natural gas exported, nor the value of export contracts... the simplest rule of transparency necessitates the disclosure of such information which no official in the government wants to expose." The paper stressed that public opinion regards Israel with much hostility and that at a time when fuel prices are soaring, it is infuriating for Egyptians that their precious energy resources are being exported as subsidised prices to Israel, a country that is oppressing the hapless Palestinian people.

Regional politics continued to dominate the columns and preoccupy columnists. Most writers in official newspapers adopted an anti-Hizbullah stance, and made it clear that their sympathies lie with the views and perspectives of the 14 March forces. Under the headline "The mistake and arrogance of Sheikh Hassan", Barakat of Al-Akhbar wrote, "When launching a show of force in all the corners of Lebanon, Hizbullah forgot that by so doing, the legality of its weapons has been annulled... Hizbullah fell prey to arrogance and political ignorance."

On a much lighter and far more mundane note, Al-Alam Al-Yom reported that "six Viagra pills are consumed every second in Egypt." The finding was released in a medical conference held recently in Cairo. In much the same vein, the paper also reflected on the population statistics published last week. "More than 13 million citizens are not married," the paper reported. "Three thousand families live in graveyards," the paper added, presumably referring to Cairo's notorious City of the Dead.