Buscador avanzado

A mural in Cairo in 2012 depicted President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and former ministers after he was deposed in the Arab Spring. Credit Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Ten years ago, as masses of demonstrators filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square, I made a modest bet with a friend that Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s dictator of nearly 30 years, would hold on to power. My thinking was that Mubarak controlled the army, and the army could see that the choice Egypt faced wasn’t between democracy and dictatorship. It was the choice among Islamism, chaos — and him.

I lost the bet, but I wasn’t entirely wrong.

Mubarak himself, of course, soon fell, raising broad hopes that decent, stable, representative democracy might yet establish itself not just in Egypt but throughout the Arabic-speaking world.…  Seguir leyendo »

Alaa Abd El Fattah speaking at a conference in Cairo in 2015. The Egyptian blogger was freed last week after five years in prison. Credit Nariman El-Mofty / Associated Press

We woke to the news last Friday: The 37-year-old software-developer and pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd El Fattah had finally been released from prison, after completing a five-year sentence for having called for street protests in defiance of the law. “Alaa is out. Yes, I swear,” tweeted his sister, Mona Seif, in Arabic. Not long after, she shared a blurry photo of him, sitting on a rattan chair at their family home, playing with their dog. Next came a photo of Alaa sitting with his now seven-year-old-son and holding the boy’s little feet.

It wasn’t Alaa’s first arrest, but his seventh, and longest, under four governments.…  Seguir leyendo »

Last month, on the third anniversary of the revolution of Jan. 25 that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, millions of Egyptians came out onto the streets carrying Egyptian flags and pictures of Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the army leader whom they considered their hero for siding with the will of the people and overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood government in June. At the same time, supporters of the Brotherhood’s deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, continued their confrontations with the police, which resulted in 49 deaths and scores of injuries.

There was a third position taken by some of the young revolutionaries who played a role in ending Brotherhood rule last year, but were terrified at the prospect of the return of the police state they had opposed when Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

2013 was unexpectedly a terrible year for several Arab nations because the promise of greater freedoms and political reforms was reversed, most violently in some instances, by taking a few countries down the path of anarchy and complete chaos. Syria and Egypt are two cases in point.

Syria has been hit the hardest. For months, the United Nations has maintained that over 100,000 people have been killed in the 33 months of conflict. More recently, the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights concluded that at least 125,835, of which more than third of them are civilians, have been killed.

The U.N.’s…  Seguir leyendo »

Mariam Ashraf was an eight-year-old Coptic girl. On Oct. 20, she went with her family to the Church of the Virgin, in Cairo, for a relative’s wedding. She was thrilled with her new hairstyle and the new white dress her mother had bought for the occasion. She stood on the street outside the church with other guests waiting for the bride and groom to arrive. Then a motorbike sped by. On it were two men who opened fire indiscriminately, killing Mariam and three others, and wounding scores of guests. According to an official medical report, eight bullets pierced her body; she died from gunshot wounds to the chest.…  Seguir leyendo »

When I was a boy in Desuq, Egypt, a city on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, about 50 miles east of Alexandria, my family lived steps away from the local landmark, a mosque named for a 13th-century Sufi sheik. Five times a day, we would hear the call to prayer. Our imam encouraged us to study, telling my friends and me, again and again, of the message revealed by the Prophet Muhammad: “iqra” — read! Education was in the fabric of our culture and religion.

I left Egypt in 1969 for graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. I have been on the faculty at Caltech for 37 years and carried dual citizenship for 31.…  Seguir leyendo »

Se ha extendido la idea de que el general Al Sisi dio el golpe de Estado del 3 de julio a petición del clamor popular y para defender la revolución democrática egipcia. Es la única versión que se acepta en Egipto. Lo demás se considera alta traición y la policía —o en su defecto la judicatura— actúa de inmediato. Es, por supuesto, la versión que se hace circular desde las cancillerías egipcias, y la que conviene a la opinión pública internacional, que no simpatiza con los islamistas. Sin embargo, la realidad es totalmente diferente.

Valiéndose de las protestas contra Morsi, Al Sisi dio un golpe de Estado para acabar con la revolución, encarnada en parte por los manifestantes.…  Seguir leyendo »

En un reciente editorial de este periódico, muy justamente titulado Frenar la matanza, se decía, como corolario, lo siguiente: “El destino de un país como Egipto […]ha quedado primero al albur de unos ineptos políticos como los Hermanos Musulmanes y después de una casta militar autoritaria y cruel”. La llamada a frenar desde el exterior tanto derramamiento de sangre está encontrando la habitual respuesta de las grandes potencias: la parsimonia, la mística del comunicado, los meetings hasta el alba de los que nace, como mucho, el ratoncillo no de un embargo, sino de una restricción al envío de armas. Ni la Unión Europea, con la ineficacia global que la caracteriza, ni los Estados Unidos, atrapados en su propia geodinámica, se atreven a proponer a la ONU lo que sería única medida de contención y vigilancia: el envío in situde una misión de cascos azules, sobre todo si la Hermandad prosigue sus manifestaciones públicas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Como frecuente visitante de Egipto, nunca he visto el país tan profundamente polarizado en el plano ideológico, social y político como en la actualidad, tanto en sentido horizontal como vertical. La lucha actual enfrenta a los Hermanos Musulmanes y a sus aliados islamistas con el Gobierno apoyado por los militares y un segmento considerable de la población egipcia unida a los poderes rectores, en pleno aliento populista. El marco religioso de referencia se enfrenta a una identidad con siglos de antigüedad, de signo nacionalista y profundamente arraigada.

Esta lucha encarnizada por la hegemonía y la identidad futura del Estado egipcio se reviste de connotaciones culturales y existenciales.…  Seguir leyendo »

Tema: Las Fuerzas Armadas y su Gobierno interino han recurrido a la represión violenta para sofocar la revuelta islamista encabezada por los partidarios del depuesto presidente Morsi y evitar que vuelvan a tener la opción de gobernar Egipto.

Resumen: La gestión de gobierno llevada a cabo desde la Presidencia por el islamista Mohamed Morsi y la labor legislativa impulsada desde el Parlamento por el Partido Libertad y Justicia (PLJ) –brazo político de los Hermanos Musulmanes– desencadenaron una segunda revuelta popular en Egipto a finales del mes de junio de 2013 que, a su vez, coadyuvó al golpe militar del 3 de julio siguiente.…  Seguir leyendo »

El golpe de Estado del Ejército egipcio es una revancha no solo contra los islamistas sino, sobre todo, frente a la revolución de febrero de 2011. Las protestas de la plaza de Tahrir de aquel año sorprendieron a los militares tanto como a Hosni Mubarak. Llegaron en un momento en el que había un grave problema de sucesión en el sistema político. Durante la última década, una parte importante de la clase dirigente no aceptaba el modelo de república hereditaria que Mubarak quería instaurar, tal como se había hecho en Siria. Su hijo, Gamal Mubarak, sucesor putativo, no tenía apoyos suficientes dentro del sistema: su perfil favorecía a determinados sectores financieros que amenazaban a otros sectores de la burguesía estatal, incluso a militares involucrados en negocios.…  Seguir leyendo »

¿Qué importa, en estos momentos, lo que pueda pensar cada cual sobre los Hermanos Musulmanes, sobre su oscura genealogía y su ideología mortífera?

¿Qué importa la responsabilidad de los unos o los otros en el abominable engranaje que está desfigurando Egipto y arruinando, de una vez y para siempre, las conquistas de su primavera?

Hoy hay una urgencia y solo una: hacer todo lo posible para detener el baño de sangre en el que el general Al Sisi y sus acólitos han ahogado las sentadas de protesta que sucedieron a la destitución del presidente Morsi y, de paso, desmontar la máquina propagandística que, como de costumbre, cubre el crimen y en la que, lamentablemente, se han dejado enredar algunos de los portavoces de la juventud rebelde de El Cairo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Tema: Las revueltas que han tenido lugar en los países árabes desde 2011 muestran que tienen más posibilidades de sobrevivir a ellas los gobiernos que se anticipan con cesiones o los que recurren a la represión extrema. El actual gobierno militar egipcio ha optado por esta vía para erradicar la movilización islamista contra el golpe civil y militar que depuso al gobierno en julio de 2013.

Resumen: El Real Instituto Elcano dedicó un especial a la caída del gobierno presidido por Mohamed Morsi en el que se advertía a quienes celebraban en la calle el éxito de su revuelta que los Hermanos Musulmanes pondrían en marcha su propio proceso de movilizaciones que podía llevar a Egipto a un guerra civil.…  Seguir leyendo »

Se supone que el mes de agosto, hasta el día del Trabajo (este año es el 2 de septiembre), debería ser un mes tranquilo en Washington, como en la mayoría de capitales. No obstante, por desgracia siempre se produce algún episodio o acontecimiento. Este año se trata de Egipto y de la crisis de Oriente Medio en general.

Se convocan conferencias de prensa con carácter urgente, senadores y congresistas visitan las capitales de Oriente Medio en lugar de dirigirse a Cape Cod o a otros lugares turísticos. Embajadores y expertos trabajan horas extras, se asiste a encendidos enfrentamientos en programas especiales en televisión e incluso la bolsa acusa la situación.…  Seguir leyendo »

After more than a dozen death threats, longtime Egyptian journalist Mohamed Gohar decided he finally had to leave his Cairo home for Canada.

Mr. Gohar, 66, launched 25TV three years ago, employing more than 100 young protesters from Tahrir Square and training them as journalists. The 24-hour-a-day network, named after the Jan. 25, 2011, revolution that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak, became immensely popular because it focused on democracy and secularism, and stayed away from ties to the government and political parties.

But the network also got him into trouble. Mr. Gohar’s first run-in happened in 2011 when members of the military and the Muslim Brotherhood entered his offices near Tahrir Square after a number of Coptic Christians were killed nearby.…  Seguir leyendo »

Saudi Arabia’s surprising decision to support Egypt's military leaders in their bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has split the Arab world in two.

The unequivocal Saudi move to back Egypt’s secular military rulers who toppled the Muslim government in a coup has left the Obama administration without a clear policy in a Middle East war that threatens our long alliance with the Saudi kingdom.

From the beginning of the Egyptian crisis that is fast turning into a religious civil war, the Obama administration has been caught flat-footed and confused in its response, taking contradictory positions throughout the course of the conflict.…  Seguir leyendo »

The state of Egypt today is nothing less than expected, as Islamic radicalism has created outcomes of misconduct and inhumane criminality wherever it has existed. From casting disfiguring acids on to the faces of young girls to prevent them from getting an education to beheading human beings for merely having a different belief system to burning churches, the common denominator is extremism. Dreaming that respecting the ballot in Egypt was miraculously going to solve the problem is simply unrealistic. As exemplified by ballot results in Iraq and Afghanistan, elections are unable to prevent radicals from conducting heinous criminal acts.

In fact, since the Muslim Brotherhood has ruled Egypt, the United States itself has been attacked on several fronts.…  Seguir leyendo »

For millions of Egyptians still reeling from the shock of Wednesday’s state-led massacre, which killed at least 600 peaceful protesters and possibly many more, the questions are now very basic: How do you reconcile with people who are prepared to kill you, and how do you stop them from killing again?

I represent an alliance of Egyptians who oppose the military coup that overthrew President Mohamed Morsi in July. Over the last two weeks, we have met with foreign diplomats, including Bernardino León, the European Union envoy, and William J. Burns, the American deputy secretary of state, who were invited by the coup’s leaders to mediate.…  Seguir leyendo »

It was only a momentary interruption of his vacation in the oh-so-tony climes of Martha’s Vineyard. As the death toll from Egyptian riots topped 500, President Obama took it upon himself to call for restraint on both sides, neither of which appeared to be listening. The State Department helpfully chimed in that there “was no place” for violence despite the pitched battles taking place between the Egyptian military and Muslim Brotherhood rioters demanding the return of ousted strongman Mohammed Morsi. Mr. Obama further showed his displeasure by suspending the joint U.S.-Egyptian military exercises scheduled for next month, a biennial landmark for both armies.…  Seguir leyendo »

It’s nothing short of heartbreaking to remember those heady moments of early 2011, when hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Egyptians converged on Tahrir Square and stunned even themselves by ending a three-decade-old dictatorship.

Gone are the illusions of unity and brotherhood. Gone are the dreams of a smooth, relatively peaceful transition to a democratic system that would make Egyptians proud of their country and command admiration from the rest of the world.

Today, the blood-soaked streets of Cairo are a testament to tragedy. The images from the Egyptian capital bring to mind the final scene of a violent video game, where the last remaining survivor stands amid the rubble surveying the destruction.…  Seguir leyendo »