Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Sunday, July 31, 2011,
Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian heart surgeon turned media celebrity, will begin his new show Al Barnamag (the Show) on private channel On Tv tomorrow, the first day of Ramadan. The Show, a satirical take on news a la Jon Stewart, follows a remarkably successful show on Youtube Youssef hosted in his Cairo apartment in March in which he exposed the hypocrisy of political life and mocked the reaction of celebrities during the revolution. Youssef will have to thread carefully as he attempts to resto... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Wednesday, February 23, 2011,
Here is an interesting article on the role religious groups played (or didn't play rather) in the Egyptian revolution. I've been following tele-Islamist Amr Khaled as he visited Tahrir Square at the height of the protests there and broke his silence on politics, something he clearly avoided in his television shows up till now. As this article shows, the revolution in Egypt has brought with it a new political culture in which religiously devout young Egyptians identified with religion differen... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Sunday, February 20, 2011,
The Libyan government has stooped to an abysmal low by allegedly paying young Africans (names of countries have not been released) up to $30k each to carry out the dirty work of hitting and killing protesters in the streets of cities like Benghazi. Al Jazeera English has also been reporting that a number of Libyan students in the US were allegedly called by their embassy in Washington and coerced to participate in pro-Gaddafi rallies in the US Students. Their scholarships would be called off ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Monday, February 14, 2011,
The New York Times had a fascinating article and an interactive timeline tracing the roots of the peaceful revolution in Tunisia and Egypt. The transnational dimension of these uprisings is just incredible as activists and protesters exchange idea, tactics and read up on resistance literature and activist initiatives in the history of the United States and more recently in Serbia. What's also fascinating is how the Web and social media have become mobilizing tools to brand these revolutionary... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Saturday, February 12, 2011,
I feel so proud of this young generation of Arabs. They have proven all the skeptics wrong and their heroism is remarkably infectious. What my generation has been unable to do, these young Arabs have done it effectively and peacefully. What a historic day. There is much excitement, but there's a lot of trepidation also about what's to come next. I don't want to focus on the trepidation for now. Egyptians deserve to enjoy this revolution and relish it for days to come. This was no small feat. ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Wednesday, February 9, 2011,
If you haven't seen Wael Ghonim's famous interview with Egyptian private television network Dream TV, here it is with English subtitles. Ghonim is the Google executive who spent 12 days in police custody and was released late last week. He was most certainly arrested by secret police as seen in this video because he created a Facebook page in June called, "We're all Khaled Said." Said was the young businessman allegedly attacked and killed by Egyptian police as he was filming a video of two p... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Wednesday, February 9, 2011,
Ian Buruma published an opinion column on Al Jazeera English today about why the West should respect the results of elections in Egypt even if the Muslim Brotherhood wins them. Of course, I firmly believe that the MB will face much higher competition from other opposition (non-religious) groups if the elections are fair and transparent. It's Mubarak's heavy-handed rule which has popularized the MB in Egypt by forcing them to go underground and organize more organically in the Egyptian society... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Saturday, February 5, 2011,
If this is not a people's revolution, I don't what is. How much more evidence is really needed to be convinced Egyptians have a visceral hate for their president?
Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Saturday, February 5, 2011,
Where else would you really see these two men on television? Excellent interview and insightful observations from both about what's happening in Egypt. Really worth your time.
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Tuesday, February 1, 2011,
Here is one of the best commentaries on the events of Tunisia of Egypt by Asef Bayat who first wrote about post-Islamism in Arab countries. He makes some interesting observations about a new Arab street that is not animated by political or religious ideologies but mostly by requests for democracy and human dignity. Here is one good argument from this article that will be tested in the next few days, months and years to come:
"The ‘middle class poor' are the new proletariat of the Middle Ea... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Sunday, January 30, 2011,
Many observers are comparing what's happening in Egypt to how things turned from a people's revolution in Iran to a brutal theocracy in 1979. First, the comparison misses an important and critical difference. That revolution had a distinctly religious figure behind it. Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile in France and was at the heart of that popular uprising. He managed to stir up passions through his religious sermons famously distributed on audio cassettes throughout Iran. One of the most stri... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Sunday, January 30, 2011,
According to AFP, opposition leaders in Algeria have called for massive demonstrations there on February 12 with "the intention to change the regime." Many Arab countries are following the events in Egypt through Aljazeera and regimes there are bracing for a new era of domestic politics. It's not premature to say that Arab leaders have heard the message loud and clear (even if Mubarak refuses to step down) that ruling with an iron fist can no longer be tolerated. Governance is not an absolut... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Saturday, January 29, 2011,
The famous Egyptian teleIslamist Amr Khaled just appeared on CNN (almost crying) and announced that 50,000 members of his LifeMakers Association will go out tomorrow to fight against the looting of public and private property. The situation is dangerously precarious. It's clear the regime is on its way out and it will be a messy situation for sure. Mubarak appointed his intelligence chief as vice-president. Clearly this is a leader who doesn't make sense anymore and lives in his own world. He... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Friday, January 28, 2011,
It's hard to blog about the events in Egypt because they're moving very fast. Aljazeera is reporting that protesters are welcoming the military as they make their way to Al-Tahrir Square. It's unclear whether the military will clamp down on the protesters since the only sign coming from the president of Egypt who is also the commander in chief was to impose a curfew from 6 pm to 7 am tomorrow. Many protesters are hoping for a similar turn of events as in Tunisia when the military turned again... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Tuesday, January 25, 2011,
Egypt is witnessing some of the biggest riots in many years as thousands
of people took to the streets chanting slogans as "Mubarak Mubarak,
Saudi Arabia is waiting for you." Below is a chilling video of what's
happening in Cairo today. A young protester stood in front of a
water-hosing truck in a moment reminiscent of the Chinese man who
defiantly stood in front of a tank during the Tiananmen Square uprising.
Twitter was blocked in Egypt and cell phone communication was interrupted. L... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Monday, January 10, 2011,
This is the kind of articles we need to see more often. Denouncing violence verbally is one thing but showing support through concrete and strongly symbolic action is quite another. This past week, a number of prominent and ordinary Muslim Egyptians showed up at a Coptic mass and offered their bodies as a human shield to protect the Christian community. This is a bold first step in the right direction and I hope it will provide some fodder for a frank discussion of a long checkered history of... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Wednesday, December 1, 2010,
Just when you thought rigging elections was so 20th century, the ruling party in Egyptis flexing its muscles by shutting down all opposition. As one newspaper publisher told the NYT,“At least get creative in how you rig the elections. I was
expecting a few more seats for the opposition.” Well, the Muslim Brotherhood which has about 88 seats in the current parliament (unofficially: MB candidates have to run as independents to skirt a ban against their party) may end up with none, and ou... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Wednesday, March 17, 2010,
If you visited IslamOnline recently, you may have found dead links to many articles and fatwa answers. That's because hundreds of workers in the site's editorial office in Cairo have been staging walkouts and sit-ins accusing their managers in Qatar of plotting to replace them with a team of religious hardliners. The managers are allegedly unhappy about a recent trend at the site to run more articles and advice columns about social issues, art, and youth-related topics. IslamOnline has become... Continue reading ...
Posted by Nabil Echchaibi on Saturday, August 8, 2009,
A few weeks ago, the Ministry of Culture in Egypt awarded the state's highest prize in the social sciences to Sayed al-Qimni, a controversial historian and sociologist who has received death threats for what many believe is heresy in his writing and for strong denunciation of what he calls the intellectual bankruptcy of Islamic extremists. That decision has opened wide gates of fire as some Egyptians and other Arab Muslims on satellite television scurried for places to call for the withdrawal... Continue reading ...
I was born and raised in Morocco. My research focuses on the intersections between Islam, Arab popular culture and the media. I'm currently an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
I was born and raised in Morocco. My research focuses on the intersections between Islam, Arab popular culture and the media. I'm currently an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
