Issandr El Amrani
Opinion columnist
Issandr El Amrani is a writer on Middle Eastern affairs. He blogs at www.arabist.net. His column appears every Tuesday.
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Opinion articles
Egypt has just lived through a period of high anxiety, unexpected political twists and turns, and an ongoing constitutional coup by the military that may or may not be reversed by the new president and other political forces. And this has come after...
Political discourse in Egypt at the best of times can be strange and full of empty talk ("kalam fadi"). But some of the statements recently made by presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq and the media that support him are rather odd. In the...
To: Mohamed Ibrahim, incoming minister of interior
From: A senior ministry official
Your Excellency,
I believe I speak for the entire ministry in extending you a warm welcome in your new position at the head of our august ministry. Your precedessor...
The decision a few days ago by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to appoint Kamal al-Ganzouri as prime minister is a telling move. It is telling of the lack of imagination, and daring, of the council. It is telling of a state elite that...
Last week, over the Eid break, the celebration and over-eating were marred by the news that Ali al-Selmi, the Deputy Prime Minister for Political Affairs, had proposed a new version of the "super-constitutional" principles that would place...
I’ve spent the last week in Tunis, which has been exhilarating for me, and I think for most Tunisians who have just held the first truly free election in their country's history. The results — a large plurality for the moderate...
The visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Cairo this week was probably the peak of a now well-established phenomenon of Turkophilia (some call it "Ottomania") in Egypt. Indeed, there is much to admire about Turkey. It...
On 29 July, a group of around hundred armed men rode into the town of Arish in northern Sinai on motorbikes. They proceeded to attack the central police station, as well as a hospital morgue where they were reported to have taken a body of one of...
I recently returned from a trip to Morocco, where a new constitution proposed by King Mohammed VI has just been approved by popular referendum. The new constitution is a mixed bag: it offers some advances, notably recognition of Tamazight, the...
Let us start with the good news: the unveiling, a few days ago, of a blueprint for what the new Egypt should look like by Sheikh al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb is a positive development. Like a similar proposal by the head of National Association for...
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