Terrorism and General Egypt Update
The low-light of Rob, Laura, Eric, and Charlotte’s visit was (aside from people hectoring them to buy things or wanting “baksheesh,” which basically means “tips”) concerns about safety. The week before they came a young man tried to throw a bomb in the Khan el Khalili market, killing himself and 3 foreigners, including an American. Because of this, we decided to skip the market and, the first weekend they were here (before they went off on their own journeys outside of Cairo), focus instead on the lovely Al Azhar Park, the Citadel, and Coptic Cairo, which seemed safer places to be than the Egyptian Museum or the Pyramids, which are less defensible and have very high concentrations of foreign tourists.
Fortunately nothing happened while they here, but a week or so after they left there were two more incidents that, it turns out, were related to the first. Apparently several people were still wanted in connection to the first bombing, and one of them blew himself up and injured some tourists near the Museum while being chased by police. The other incident took place a short time after that when the bomber’s fiancee and sister shot at a tourist bus then, we’re told, killed themselves. Neither attack seemed very well planned, which buttresses the government’s claim that this was a small, isolated, and unsophisticated group. I hope this is true. So far, there is no good reason to think it isn’t.
Tensions are, however, growing in Egypt overall. (Though you'd need to read the news to know it, for the most part.) Protests against the government are becoming more common, and the big new Constitutional amendment is receiving a great deal of criticism from opposition leaders for making it too difficult for others to run for President against Mubarak. One interesting development is that a large segment of Egyptian judges is refusing to monitor the elections unless they are given total control over voter lists, ballot distribution, election-day monitoring, vote-counting, etc. They are afraid, it seems, of being used by the government to help make an unfair election look fair. I think this is a very brave and commendable stand, and I hope they are successful. The government, I think, was betting they could manipulate the situation to their advantage: they may succeed, ultimately, in doing this, but protesters, opposition parties, and the judges aren’t going to make it easy. I would guess they all—including (maybe even especially) the Islamic parties—are not happy about the recent terrorism in Cairo. Violence will only give the government more excuses to limit the field of candidates and defend the status quo.
Fortunately nothing happened while they here, but a week or so after they left there were two more incidents that, it turns out, were related to the first. Apparently several people were still wanted in connection to the first bombing, and one of them blew himself up and injured some tourists near the Museum while being chased by police. The other incident took place a short time after that when the bomber’s fiancee and sister shot at a tourist bus then, we’re told, killed themselves. Neither attack seemed very well planned, which buttresses the government’s claim that this was a small, isolated, and unsophisticated group. I hope this is true. So far, there is no good reason to think it isn’t.
Tensions are, however, growing in Egypt overall. (Though you'd need to read the news to know it, for the most part.) Protests against the government are becoming more common, and the big new Constitutional amendment is receiving a great deal of criticism from opposition leaders for making it too difficult for others to run for President against Mubarak. One interesting development is that a large segment of Egyptian judges is refusing to monitor the elections unless they are given total control over voter lists, ballot distribution, election-day monitoring, vote-counting, etc. They are afraid, it seems, of being used by the government to help make an unfair election look fair. I think this is a very brave and commendable stand, and I hope they are successful. The government, I think, was betting they could manipulate the situation to their advantage: they may succeed, ultimately, in doing this, but protesters, opposition parties, and the judges aren’t going to make it easy. I would guess they all—including (maybe even especially) the Islamic parties—are not happy about the recent terrorism in Cairo. Violence will only give the government more excuses to limit the field of candidates and defend the status quo.
