Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church has died. Although in the years immediately following his 1971 ascension he was a politically active critic of the regime, a house arrest from 1981 until 1986 seems to have led him to become more conciliatory, and he became more a voice for Coptic rights within [...]
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The most recent prominent sectarian incident in Egypt began, as so many do, with allegations of an affair in which, given the patriarchal culture, the male is seen as dishonoring the female. Christians were attacked, some Muslims protected them, and property was destroyed. Then then this happened: “A ‘committee’ of local figures — Muslim [...] The first round of voting in Egypt’s three-stage elections indicates that the new parliament will be dominated by Islamist parties. The areas that voted this week were more liberal than Egypt as a whole, and yet the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have upwards of 40% of the seats, or about what they were expected [...] My weekend was dominated by pre-Thanksgiving binge grading, and so I’m only now getting my mind around the details of the tumult taking place, not just in Cairo, but Alexandria, the Suez Canal cities, and elsewhere around Egypt. The direct chain of events leading to the current clashes came when Deputy Prime Minister Ali [...] Today, Egypt’s military government killed at least 19 Coptic demonstrators in Cairo: “Nineteen people were killed in Cairo Sunday when Christians, some carrying crosses and pictures of Jesus, clashed with military police, medical and security sources said, in the latest sectarian flare-up in a country in political turmoil. “Christians protesting against an attack on [...] Undemocratic regimes don’t consist of just one powerful person. They exist with the support of certain elements in society that profit from their continuation. Because of this revolutions aren’t just protests which depose rulers, but broader social movements by which different social groups try to improve their position, whether economically, politically, or even culturally. [...] As I’ve commented before, Yusuf al-Qaradawi matters, as a conservative Sunni Islamist who appeals to massive youth audiences through television even as the older generations remember his connection to Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. On Friday, he gave a sermon in Midan Tahrir. I can’t find a complete English text, but here is some [...] |
Blake Hounshell (aka praktike), our co-founder and main man, is managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He's now reporting on the Egyptian Revolution from Cairo. 
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