Category Archives: Arsenal Essay

Cairo University assault illustrates Egypt’s violence against women

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As I’ve discussed previously, Egypt has a pretty big violence against women problem, backed by both the society and the power of the state, which has worsened dramatically under military rule (both in 2011 and in 2013-present).

Here’s a noteworthy stat from Egypt News Daily:

According to a UN report issued last year an overwhelming majority of Egyptian women (99.3%) have experienced some sort of sexual harassment, and 96.5% of women had been sexually assaulted in some way.

In the latest high-profile incident — as opposed to the daily struggle for basic safety many of Egypt’s women face quietly — a female Cairo University Law student was sexually assaulted in plain sight by a dozen men on campus, who brazenly filmed their attack. She only escaped worse because some individual members of the campus security had the decency to intervene (something that can’t be said of much of Egypt’s local and national security forces).

The appropriate response would be: “Wait, we have a horrific problem where some of our male students feel secure in sexually assaulting our female students right out in the open on campus in front of security cameras and their own! What are we doing wrong? What can be done to change the culture and behavior of our male students?”

Instead, Cairo University’s president helpfully called her attire a “mistake” that was “out of the ordinary” for the dress code. He added that campus security should have removed her from campus or told her to change her clothes, before she was assaulted, rather than after. Sure he also said they would look into it, or whatever, and maybe think about some prosecutions because they shouldn’t have done it, but really he seemed to feel it was fundamentally attire-related.

Media treatment

Egyptian news media, closely aligned with the military government, extensively blamed the victim and gave her what might here be dubbed the full Rush Limbaugh treatment (with eerie parallels to his Sandra Fluke rant), calling her a “hooker” who should be in the “red light district” instead of at law school. At least one channel also obtained video footage — probably from one of the attackers — showing her walking around campus so the audience could see how she had been dressed. (Perfectly normal or even conservative campus attire, of course, by U.S. standards… not that it in any way matters.)

Egyptian pundits also wrote off the Cairo University assault using the tried-and-true method of rape apologism that dehumanizes everyone involved including fellow men, by suggesting that no man could possibly not try to rape a woman who crossed his field of vision. Below is newscaster Tamer Amin, mid-rant, on that line of attack:
tamer-amin-egyptian-rapist-apologist-newscaster
Statements like that always raise more questions than they answer.

Questions like “Tamer Amin, since you clearly believe every man lacks all self-control and is a rapist at heart, is that belief from personal experience?”

Or, “Tamer Amin, how many women have you yourself raped and assaulted? Too many to remember?”
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Italy still not on board with democracy, really

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italian-republic-emblemAnother ten months, another failed Italian prime minister. The next prime minister is expected to be the Mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi of the ruling Democrat Party, who has been summoned to the presidential palace to see about trying to cobble together a new governing majority coalition and cabinet.

Because, as you may have realized from the above, he’s not actually a member of parliament, he will presumably be proclaimed a “Senator-for-Life,” the appointed position granted to Mario Monti at the end of 2011 so he could become Prime Minister. Under the constitution, the President can appoint anyone to the Senate and then invite them to form a cabinet as prime minister. It’s more or less undemocratic, but it’s constitutional.

Monti, a former career EU official at the time with no elected experience, proceeded to select a cabinet composed entirely of other non-elected “technocrats” (apolitical experts), so he could enact austerity measures. He was succeeded by the now-outgoing Enrico Letta, just last year, after losing an election. Letta wasn’t exactly elected either by the country, but he was at least an elected member of parliament who managed to form a majority from within his fellow members across the three largest parties.

He was brought down by a no confidence vote Mayor Renzi instigated last week. Both Letta and Renzi are Democratic Party members but Renzi took control of the party leadership in December 2013 and didn’t feel like waiting his turn — or even being elected to parliament first.

Post-World War II Italian politics have been increasingly wracked by instability due to having several major parties in parliament — usually 3 or 4 at a time — often with strong geographic alignments in the second tier parties. This all adds up to no one party usually being able to form a majority and certainly not one that can survive no confidence votes easily.
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52s the Mike

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michael-samThe prospect of an openly gay NFL player has been bubbling just under the surface for nearly a year. When the crazy Manti T’eo fake girlfriend story exploded, some asked if it was some sort of cover for him being gay (though Manti said he was FAR from it). Former Raven’s linebacker Brandon Ayanbadejo said he was in talks with four players to come out of the closet during the 2013 season. But over the course of the season, no such announcement came and we were left to wonder why. Supposedly one older free agent, who had made private announcements to friends and other teams, subsequently could not secure a job. Many have speculated that this story refers to former defensive back Kerry Rhodes, who fits many of the reported details.

Then there’s the curious case of superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who gave an interview saying he “really, really likes women” after internet rumors put him in a relationship with his roommate and personal assistant of four years. I’m not usually one to give credence to sketchy gossip sites, but some of Kevin Lanflisi’s tweets made this story seem plausible at the very least. I’m honestly not sure about what other interpretations there are for a tweet of Lanflisi and Rodgers sitting on beach chairs with the text: “I know the truth. I’ve seen it. There’s no guilt. I’m bought. Owned. His. Free.”

But instead of speculating on current players, the NFL now has to face the reality of an openly gay player in the 2014 NFL draft. Mike Sam is a Defensive End/Outside Linebacker out of Missouri and he gave an interview this weekend to ESPN.

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The propagandists’ alternate history of the Egyptian revolution

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egypt-coat-of-armsRegular readers will have noticed by now my informal chronicling of curious propaganda coming out of post-coup Egypt. Today I flag this passage in a New York Times op-ed, “Egypt’s Despair, and Its Hope,” by Alaa Al Aswany:

a systematic media campaign carried out by state television and the private channels owned by businessmen who used to back the Mubarak regime. This public relations effort aims to convey the notion that the January 2011 revolution was a plot by American intelligence agencies to remove Mr. Mubarak. It accuses the young revolutionaries of being traitors and paid agents of the West.

 
You might wonder how this kind of Bizarro-World bald-faced lying could actually work. How could any Egyptian be persuaded that the January/February 2011 uprising, which was resisted for many weeks by American officials — who had long backed Hosni Mubarak and were hoping he would hold on to power — could also be orchestrated by American intelligence agents and their Egyptian youth recruits?

This gets to the same problem I raised in my first post on post-coup propaganda:

Obviously, given their easy access to outside media, most internet-using Egyptians are probably well aware of the distinction […] It’s worth remembering, however, that a lot of Egyptians still get their news from television media and, unlike their Twitter-savvy brethren, aren’t necessarily exposed to alternate sources of information.

 
Indeed, many young, urban Egyptians are well aware of the alternate reality being constructed around — and, in fact, against them. As Aswany notes, recently a Facebook post on the despair of the rolled-back revolution went viral. Two sentences stick out in the this context:

Yet we keep on stating that it was a real dream, no matter how much they try to falsify history. None of us who have lived that dream will ever forget, or regret it, for a moment.

 
The question now is whether they will hold on to those memories long enough to outlast the efforts of the alternate-reality propagandists who are trying to convince them they have misremembered what happened and were wrapped into a Western web of lies and insurrection. It’s hard to keep hold of what you know is true the longer you spend in an environment that tells you an alternative narrative, day in and day out, and gaslights your lived experience constantly.
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Abolition of Russian serfdom vs Abolition of US Slavery

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It seems like the emancipation of 23 million serfs in Russia in 1861 was a lot better organized and planned out than the emancipation/abolition of U.S. slaves during the American Civil War happening at the same time. In part, this difference would likely have stemmed from the fact that the Imperial Russian government could act by fiat and receive compliance. Moreover, the serf-holding landowners in Russia were way more indebted/obligated toward their government (than the already literally rebelling Southern American slaveholders) and thus couldn’t resist such a decision from the central government.

But, more importantly, the committee that planned the Russian emancipation also did a lot of theorizing on how to handle emancipated serfs in a manner that didn’t trap them on old lands and gave them some economic opportunities. Freed serfs didn’t exactly get 40 acres and a mule either — and it was still a pretty bumpy outcome — but it was a lot closer to a comprehensive and effective dismantling of the system in a responsible manner. The U.S. approach seems to have ended up at “you’re free now, problem solved. ok, next thing on the agenda,” which immediately led to slavery-by-another-name practices like abusive sharecropping contracts.

President Lincoln was elected by a pro-abolition party (even though that wasn’t personally his primary or even secondary campaign plank). Many of his generals repeatedly tried to brainstorm and implement measures — such as the aforementioned, abortive 40 acres land grants proposal — to deal with the slaves encountered in the South while suppressing the rebellion (and he objected to all of them). So obviously, in spite of (and because of) the Civil War going on at the time, a lot of people in the United States were thinking about this issue on some level.

I would have hoped somebody in the Republican Party or government or military would have at least had a working group on implementation of abolition. After all, this wasn’t a foreign concept because the northern states already had plenty of experience with dismantling their slave-inclusive economies with relatively minimal disruption. Yes, they consistently had fewer slaves, but they still figured out something that worked. So the information and ideas needed to plan for this eventuality — foreshadowed as early as the Constitutional Convention of 1787 — should absolutely have been there by 1861.

But instead, U.S. abolition was implemented chaotically and indecisively over the 1860s, with little plan for what to do with/for all the freed people, and with little enforcement (especially after the removal of Federal troops at the end of Reconstruction) to prevent abuses.

Why I won’t be watching the Sochi Olympics

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I was a huge fan of the Olympics when I was growing up, probably ever since I had to do a book report on Jesse Owens when I was in elementary school. I knew about the problems in the past — and have had an emerging appreciation for the difficulties and tribulations it causes the residents of host cities, particularly the lower-income folks. But, broadly speaking, I believed it was one of those things that had an important ideal for humanity even if it didn’t always meet it.

When I say I was a huge fan, I mean huge. In fact, from February 2002 (i.e. Salt Lake) to some time around February 2006 — maybe later even — my bedroom was always decorated with Olympics-related stuff. As a kid, I knew an insane amount arcane trivia about various Olympics, and I’m not even really big into sports. I even had an Olympics-themed birthday party one year. I’ve stayed up late so many summers and winters, night after night, to watch the games. I was very disappointed not to have a TV in 2010 for the Vancouver Games and kept trying to find TVs playing it in public spaces. In 2012, despite all the annoying tape-delay BS, I was relieved I had a TV to watch the London games.

This year, I would have all the time in the world and my own TV. But I won’t be watching any of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Not after everything that’s happened in the run-up to it.
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Op-Ed: Chinese Antarctic Rescue A Positive Signal

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My latest op-ed in The Globalist:

Last week, a Chinese helicopter crew rescued 52 people trapped on a Russian icebreaker stuck in Antarctic pack ice.

A difficult mission like this would, in the past, usually have fallen to the United States – and indeed, a U.S. ship is in turn now rescuing the Chinese crew from their own trapped vessel. But China has now joined the small ranks of those nations with the capacity to help in such a situation.

This situation – a Chinese air transfer of an international team on a Russian ship to a waiting Australian icebreaker, accompanied by a U.S. follow-up mission – is symbolic of international cooperation in Antarctica as a whole.

 

Read the full text here.