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Egypt: The Choices We Make

By on Feb 10, 2014 in Politics | 0 comments

Perhaps one of the biggest changes we’ll all felt since Jan 25, 2011 is – the euphoria, and the burden of – choice. Will you go down? What for? Will you risk your life? On which issues? What is the best choice today? What will it lead to tomorrow? Is this what I want to do? What kind of president do I want? What kind of constitution? Yet – in retrospect, and to some along the way – it seems like we’ve had no choices at all – A referendum in March 2011, which asked, or so the Military Council and the Media, and the Islamists would have had you believe – whether you wanted us to proceed according to ‘a’ plan, or whether you wanted CHAOS. So Egyptians chose…you know, the non-chaos option. Then we had elections. Humdrum. Okay. Arguably, even the Morsi win could be attributed to a choice towards stability. Everybody knew that all hell would break loose if Mubarak-Regime Candidate Ahmed...

Egypt: Story Arcs

By on Feb 1, 2014 in Politics | 0 comments

Obligatory recap It’s difficult to know how far back to go – but let’s just say this; it’s January 2014, the Post-Morsi constitution has passed, with a (ridiculously) high approval, but a relatively low turnout. Now a Field Marshall (just promoted a few days ago, and active today), El-Sisi, the man who was instrumental in removing Morsi from power on July 3rd, is expected to become the new president. Plot Points To Consider El-Sisi had initially stated that there would be no military candidate, and that having one would imply that the army had performed the coup for personal interests, and not as a means for fulfilling the popular demands of June 30th. Despite having obtained a popular mandate on July 26th to wipe out terrorism, Egyptian today feel less secure than they ever have since the revolution began. It has not been reassuring for them to see that the response of the security...

Another Look at the Referendum Results…

By on Jan 20, 2014 in Politics | 0 comments

Although, ostensibly, you could vote Yes or No – in reality the No vote was never presented (or explained) as an option. Everybody knew what would happen with a Yes vote; the constitution would pass, and we’d move along, etc – but nobody ever bothered to investigate or discuss what a No vote would entail. Would the whole constitution be re-written? Would only certain articles be written?

English Translation of El-Sisi’s Alleged Leak

By on Dec 11, 2013 in Politics | 4 comments

Yesterday, this video came out on YouTube, posted by the now mostly defunct Freedom & Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s supposedly a leaked (and unused) portion of an interview previously conducted with Minister of Defense Abdel Fattah El Sisi. It’s been making the rounds for two reasons; first it appears, that like the MB members at Rabaa, he puts quite a bit of stock in ‘dream visions’ and the other is that it appears to show that he does, indeed, have presidential ambitions. Here is a transcript of the video, translated into English: Interviewer: Had you expected to take on the leadership of the Egyptian Army? El-Sisi: The leadership of the Egyptian army, or something greater than that? Interviewer: Fullstop. El-Sisi: I am of the people who’ve had a long history of visions. This is only for you. Interviewer: Okay,...

Egypt: A Sampling of Cognitive Biases

By on Aug 24, 2013 in Politics | 0 comments

The conversation going on right now in Egypt, whether it’s on twitter, or in a cab, or on a supposedly well-respected television show – has mostly been bereft of all logic and reason. I really can’t be bothered to go through all the cognitive biases that people commonly succumb to (and that our media lately has been almost relying on), but this is a short sample of some biases, with brief introductions taken mostly from Wikipedia, and with each one, I’ve tried to attach examples that are, let’s say, a bit more…local. Enjoy. This is not comprehensive, and certainly not exhaustive, and my examples might certainly exhibit some of the biases I’m warning people about, but then again, that is the Blind Spot Bias… Please Note: These biases obviously exist in all people world-wide, the main object of this exercise is to see how strong a part they play in some of the conversations...

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