It'll be a Cold Day in Egypt for me to Post on Saturday . . .

. . .  Alexandria had snow.

For a Three-Day Weekend: Nasser on the Brotherhood and, for Comparison, Tantawi

For the three-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend, I thought I'd share these clips from a speech by Gamal Abdel Nasser in which he tells of meeting the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1953 (the speech is sometime later), and making fun of the idea of women wearing the hijab or not being allowed to work. I'm sorry that neither of these has English subtitles' if anyone knows of a subtitled version let me know.

Even those who don't know Arabic might find it worth listening a few minutes anyway to Nasser's style. Yes, he was a dictator who installed a brutal national security state that still lingers. But if you have ever wondered why he was so popular in Egypt snd all over the Arab world, watch him work the crowd. He uses sarcastic humor, jokes with the audience, and sounds like he's really speaking extemporaneously. It skewers the Brotherhood much more effectively than the fearmongering of the Mubarak era.

Those who can understand it, watch the Nasser clips. Then watch as much as you can (I dare you to hold on for long) of Field Marshal Tantawi's nstionally televised "The Mummy Speaks" address in November. Do you detect a difference in effectiveness in speechmaking?

Happy New Year 2962 to Any Amazigh Readers!

We talk a lot about "Arab Spring" or the "Arab Awakening," but not all those who have awakened are Arab. In both Libya and Tunisia, Amazigh (so-called "Berber")  populations have made their feelings known, and have won support from their brethren in Morocco and Algeria, where they constitute a larger proportion of the population. Especially in Libya, where Qadhafi forced the Amazigh to take Arab names and famously claimed the Tamazight languages are just "dialects of Arabic," the Amazigh heartland in the Jebel Nefusa became a major center of resistance. A glance back at my earlier posts on Berbers, Imazighen, and the Tamazight languages tags, will trace many of the events of the past year, with links to Amazigh videos, websites, etc.

Amazigh Flag

Many Amazigh nationalists or those seeking to reclaim a distinct identity in their own nations have taken to marking the "Amazigh New Year." Because the Islamic calendar is purely lunar and dates move around the year, agricultural societies need a solar calendar as well, to determine times to plant and harvest; in the Levant the old Semitic month names are used; in Egypt, the names of the Coptic months, and in North Africa, the names are derived from the Roman names, and the older Julian calendar is still used. Tomorrow is the first of January (Yennayer) in the Amazigh and North African agricultural calendars.

Shoshenq I (Wikipedia)

As for the era, with tomorrow as the first day of 2962, this stems from what historian Eric Hobsbawm called the invention of tradition,, a modern innovation which purports to be, and ultimately comes to be  seen as, ancient. In the 1960s, the Academie Berbere in Paris introduced a "Berber era" dating from 950 BC, the approximate date when the Pharaoh Shoshenq I (or Sheshonq I) ascended the throne of Egypt. Shoshenq was of Libyan origin, so they identified him as the first identifiable Berber in history. (They also promoted the use of Tifinagh script, which has gained some traction with Berber activists.) While not an actual historical era in the usual sense, it's a symbol of awakening Amazigh idenity.

The Amazigh are major contributors to the history and culture of North Africa, though the Arab nationalist regimes that have been in charge have underplayed their role. Algerian blogger Lameen Souag has a recent post about his hometown of Dellys, and his first anecdote (but read the whole post) depends on a bilingual pun: whereas aman means "safety" in Arabic it means "water" in Berber, and the local custom was to sprinkle water on newlyweds. But it only works if one knows both languages. North Africa is inextricably a product of Arab and Amazigh both, and to any Imazighen who may be reading this, a happy 2962 or whatever date you want.

Did Israeli Agents Support Jundallah by Claiming to be US Agents?

Mark Perry has a sensational (if true) story at Foreign Policy called "False Flag," asserting that according to US intelligence sources, Israeli agents met with Jundallah, the Sunni opposition movement inside Iran that has been accused of bombings and assassinations against Iranian targets, and that the Israelis posed as American agents in a false flag operation. Iran regularly accuses the US of supporting Jundallah; the story, if true, may have leaked because of unhappiness in the US intelligence community over the Israeli operation.

I don't know Perry's source, and stories like this always need to be approached cautiously, but I thought it worth noting.

Can This Possibly Be Real? Apparent Syrian Pro-Asad Propaganda Video Uses Darth Vader Theme

This is making the blogosphere rounds and I have to admit I don't know if it's legit. It's supposedly a Syrian state propaganda video. With clips of Nasser, Hafiz al-Asad, and Bashar all talking about Syria. It all looks like typical state propaganda. But (even if you don't understand the Arabic), listen to the background music, which gets louder at the end. That "patriotic" march is, yes indeed, the Darth Vader/Emperor march theme from Star Wars. Either this is a monumental case of somebody choosing the wrong music, or else it's a subtle satire. Either way (but especially if the former) it's funny. Or maybe Bashar sees himself as Emperor Palpatine. (There's a Hafiz al-Asad "Bashar: I am your father!" joke I could make as well.)

I suppose the Horst Wessel Lied would be worse in one sense, but hardly anyone today would recognize it.

It Must Have Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Juan Cole has posted a wonderful 1970s ad touting how wise the Shah of Iran is for investing in nuclear power. Of course, that was when Iran was one of our twin pillars of stability.

50 Years From Operation Damocles to Tehran: Why Israel is Suspected

When yet another Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated in Tehran today, Iran blamed the US, the UK (Iranians do that for old times' sake), and Israel. Secretary Clinton was quick to deny that the US had any knowledge or involvement, and blaming the Brits is a legacy reflex in Iran. I think most people, though, assume this was an Israeli operation. (Not to mention that they're pretty coy in their non-denials.)

Willy Messerschmitt's Helwan Fighter

That's not just because Middle Easterners, Arabs and Iranians in particular, reflexively blame Israel for everything, including in recent memory shark attacks in the Red Sea and a spy vulture in Saudi Arabia. Nor is it just because Israel's policy of "targeted killings" is well-established when it comes to clear enemies like the Hamas and Hizbullah leaderships. It's because attacking scientists working on military programs has a long history in Israeli secret operations, one that will mark its 50th anniversary this year: from German scientists working on an Egyptian rocket project in the 1960s, through Iraqi nuclear scientists in the 1980s, to the wave of Iranian nuclear scientists today, there seems to be a clear pattern.

Operation Damocles, 1962-63

The first of those, in 1962-63, was exposed when the Swiss arrested a Mossad agent involved; that led to a quarrel between David Ben-Gurion and the legendary (now: his identity was a state secret then) first head of Shin Bet and from 1951 also head of Mossad, Isser Harel, and Harel's resignation. The attacks on the German scientists, reportedly called Operation Damocles, was in response to Egyptian President Nasser's efforts to acquire a missile and aircraft industry using ex-Nazi scientists. (Horrors. It's as if we had hired Wernher von Braun to run our space program. Oh, wait.) Nasser made a lot of belligerent boasts that his missiles would be able to hit any target "south of Beirut," which Israel quite reasonably interpreted as meaning themselves.  Since both rocketry and aircraft manufacture were banned to the Bundeswehr, a lot of German scientists were looking for work. The iconic Willy Messerschmitt himself, in fact, had set up shop in Spain (then of course still under Franco), and agreed to produce a light fighter jet design he developed there as the Helwan HA-300 in Egypt.

Nasser (dark suit),  and Al-Qahir

Those remaining German rocket scientists not already working for the US and Soviet missile programs were recruited by the Egyptians. They designed a V-2 clone (Al-Qahir, usually spelled Kaher in Western reports) and a shorter-range version (Al-Zafir), and produced at least parade mockups of a two-stage version called Al-Ra'id.

As already noted, the assassinations of German scientists were eventually linked directly to Mossad. The Egyptian missile program never got much beyond the V-2 stage. Today most of the prototypes (some of which may have been mockups for military parades) are on display in town squares, traffic roundabouts, or even children's playgrounds.

How much did the Israeli assassination project against German scientists contribute to the failure of Nasser's rocket dreams, and how much was it due to impracticality and lack of funds? We'll have to wait for the Egyptian military to declassify the files. Don't hold your breath.

The Iraqi Nuclear Program

Pretty much all of you will know about Israel's strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. Less well remembered is the killing of an Egyptian nuclear scientist said to be heading the Iraqi program, Yehia  El-Mashad, in a Paris hotel in 1980. The French  suspected Mossad, but there was no smoking gun.

A decade later, somebody shot "Iraqi supergun" designer Gerald Bull in Brussels in 1990. He'd made plenty of enemies in his day, but most people blamed Mossad.

So the string of assassinated nuclear scientists and other "accidents" in Iran lately leads a lot of observers who aren't  knee-jerk blamers of Israel to see a half-century pattern of sorts.

A Year On: A Rerun of My Favorite Tunisian Revolution Picture

I'm going to have to spend most of today on my day job, so I thought I'd do a quick rerun. Since Saturday will mark a year since the departure of Ben Ali from Tunisia, I thought I'd rerun my favorite photo from the Tunisian revolution:

Stop! I've got a baguette and I'm  not afraid to use it!!

Asad's Conspiracy Theory

I was busy at work on other things today so I'll drop in this evening to comment on Bashar al-Asad's strange speech in which he blamed a foreign conspiracy for his problems. Notice the dictators are all using the same playbook: Like Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Qadhafi, it's all some kind of foreign plot, not domestic opponents. (Well, Qadhafi was being bombed by NATO, so he had a better case.)

But like those men before him, Asad seems increasingly removed from reality. With the UN estimate of dead somewhere the far side of 5000, he's still hanging tough; even the Arab League observers are starting to notice all is not well.

Anyway, Asad seems intent on staying. There is, however, a lot of speculation about his British-born wife Asma, who hasn't made any public appearances in a while, and according to some rumors may have decamped to her old home, London.

Quandt on the US and Political Islam

Just a quick link if you haven't seen it: Bill Quandt on whether the US can adjust to a Middle East dominated by political Islamist movements.

Egyptian Results So Far as Final Runoffs Begin

Today and tomorrow are the runoffs of the third stage of the Egyptian elections for the lower house. Jadaliyya  has a summing up of the results so far:

Thus far, the fate of 427 out of 498 seats in the lower house of parliament have been determined. The remaining 71 seats include:

• 45 seats that will be determined through runoff races from stage #3, which are scheduled to be convened on 10-11 January. These races will feature ninety candidates: 32 from the Freedom and Justice Party; 23 from Al-Nour; 2 from the Egyptian Bloc; 1 from Al-Adl; 1 from Al-Wafd; and 31 unaffiliated candidates.

• 14 other seats will be determined through two party-list races, which have been scheduled for a re-vote on 10-11 January, namely Aswan district #1 (4 seats) and Cairo district #1 (10 seats).

• 12 seats will be determined through re-votes in six individual-candidacy districts (2 seats each), which have been scheduled for a re-vote on 10-11 January, with possible runoffs on January 17-18: Cairo district #1; Alexandria's district #3; Assiut districts #2 and #3; Sharqiya districts #2 and #5.

And, of course, we still have the Upper House elections.

Lorimer's Gazeteer of the Gulf

There's an interesting piece at The National about one of the more amazing works of the British imperial era in the Middle East, John Gordon Lorimer's Gazeteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia. As the article notes, the project was originally classified and intended as a handbook to the region as Britain was consolidating its power there. It grew to be a six-volume, 5000 page encyclopedic survey of the history, geography, tribal structure and topography of the Gulf and its hinterlands, complete with maps and genealogical charts of the ruling families. It is the starting point for almost any historian working on the Gulf prior to the 20th century. You can find a listing of its contents here, in a prospectus for a library reprint edition.

Sadly, in an era when so many pre-1923 works are available online, only one of the six volumes actually seems to be available,  the fifth (which is called volume IIa confusingly enough), and which is the first half of the "Geograpical and Statistical" gazeteer, and is available on Google books. Browsing through it will give you a taste of the whole, and most decent Middle East libraries should have a set.

I'm glad The National thought to write about it since it's one of those works I've used but don't own myself (the reprints are pricey) and might never have thought to blog about.

Clues to Earliest Domestication of Camels Found in Sharja

There's been so much politics lately I'm glad my first post of the day, though an obit, was about a literary master, and my second is about archaeological/historical/cultural stuff and even better, camels.

The UAE Emirate of Sharja seems to have found major evidence of the very earliest domestication of the camel.

All I know about this latest discovery is what is in this article in The National, but it immediately reminded me of Richard Bulliet's 1975 masterpiece, The Camel and the Wheel. Dick Bulliet went on to run the Middle East Institute at Columbia for a long while and to contribute in many areas of Middle East studies from medieval to modern, not to mention writing four mystery novels set in the Middle East along the way, the earliest called Kicked to Death by a Camel.

But it's The Camel and the Wheel that's relevant here. I can't locate my first edition hardcover now, and mahy have loaned it out years ago and never got it back, which is why I'm glad to see (link in text above) that I can still get it through Amazon. It's a great work on the scholarly knowledge (as of 1975) on the domestication of the camel, but its real innovation is its emphasis on the fact that though, so far as is known, the wheel and wheeled vehicles first appear in the Middle East, the domestication of the camel led to the gradual replacement, at least in desert areas, of the horse by the camel, and since camels aren't draft animals, to the disappearance of wheeled vehicles where they had previously existed. Camels can bear burdens, but can't pull carts. Dick Bulliet has written on much broader topics since, but I will always remember him for this, and while I haven't seen him in several years, I have the sense it's still something he's profoundly proud of. He should be.

Writer Ibrahim Aslan, 1935-2012

I'm sorry to say I've never read anything by the Egyptian writer Ibrahim Aslan, who died over the weekend after cold medication he was taking affected his pre-existing heart problems. A novelist and social critic, one of his works was made into the famous Egyptian film Kit-Kat.

M. Lynx Qualey has an appreciation at The Egypt Independent and further comments at her Arabic Literature (in English) blog. Ahram Online's appreciation is here.

Coptic Midnight Mass: Chanting Erupts when Pope Addresses SCAF

This is very poor video and I imagine better will be available soon; I've watched some live streaming but can't actually embed that. Anyway many SCAF generals are in the front rows; the Pope's message to the attendees mentions them and noise erupts; Twitter accounts say some worshipers started chanting against SCAF and were removed.

And Pope Shenouda, at 88 and in uncertain health, is looking quite frail. I hope for better video soon (Arabic narration):
 (Video removed by YouTube)
UPDATES: Not only has YouTube taken down the previous link, but better ones are now available. This news report shows excerpts (also Arabic only except for some liturgical Coptic), but is much clearer video:



More of the Pope in better video:

Zeinobia Comments on Coptic Christmas, SCAF Presence

Zeinobia blogs about Coptic Christmas: apparently several members of SCAF, including Chief of Staff Gen. Sami Anan, are in attendance. If a video of the televised Mass shows up I'll post it; she says Pope Shenouda looks very bad and is needing help with the service.

Ahram Online on The Copts

Ahram Online has a feature for Coptic Christmas on "What Future for Christians in Egypt?," interviewing Copts about their concerns.

Christmas Greetings for Eastern Christmas

I will have more this evening but want to offer greetings to all Eastern Christians who are celebrating tonight and tomorrow. I always liked the idea of having Christmas twice, though these are difficult times for Middle Eastern Christians.

Photoshopping Out the Dome of the Rock

Israel's Haaretz notes that the Israel Defense Forces Rabbinate (the military chaplain corps in Western terms) issued a pamphlet or brochure for Hanukkah with this picture of the Western Wall:

Okay. Inspirational religious image. Obviously Photoshopped to imply the divine presence over the Temple Mount.

But anyone who knows Jerusalem may feel there's something missing here. Like this:

That's right. They also Photoshopped out the Dome of the Rock. The argument that it wasn't there at the first Hanukkah has been used as an excuse, but then shouldn't they have Photoshopped in the Second Temple?

Senior Brotherhood Figures will Attend Coptic Christmas Services.

Coptic Pope Shenouda III

I already noted that the Muslim Brotherhood has said it will help protect Coptic churches in Egypt on Christmas (tomorrow night is Christmas Eve in the Eastern churches). Now, according to the Brotherhood's English language website, the Chairman and Secretary-General of the Freedom and Justice Party (the Brotherhood's political arm), and the Deputy Chairman of the Brotherhood itself will attend the Christmas liturgy at the Coptic cathedral. Whatever one thinks of the Brotherhood's overall program, this shows, I think, an astute political ear.

Pope Shenouda III, meanwhile, is talking about dialogue with Islamists. Though he will doubtless be criticized by the Coptic diaspora, that's also a sign of a realistic assessment of a changed reality.