Mr. Cole, I've been reading you for a long time & respect you and your thinking. However, in a piece like above I think you weaken it by your editorialising -- it is awful enough & people think better when your stories give them the space to do it. They will make the connections, you don't have to do it for them and the connections will be stronger because they've done it themselves. I speak as a journalist (ABC, BBC, pre-Murdoch WSJ, Christian Science Monitor -- among many others. I'm old)
Thank you for the comments on women....when I was a journalist in Cairo I found women incredibly brave and aware in their battle for equality. It is a very complex situation, but I have always urged that the job of Western women is to find out what their Arab/Egyptian counterparts want and support it.
At the time (a very long time ago) the percentage of women in the professions was the same as in the Scandinavian countries. And when I would come back to Ireland for R&R I always found the average Irish intellectual male more basically sexist than the average Egyptian male intellectual -- who was at least willing to listen to what I had to say.
I think it was a carefully orchestrated attempt to create violence because as long as the protesters remain non violent there is very little he can do to silence them but if they do something violent, his statements about being the bulwark against chaos will ring true to some (Israel and the US for starters). The only thing which gives me hope is the political astuteness of the organizers so far and the poltical awareness of your average felaheen.
My Arabic was never what it should have been, but Is a new and earnest journalist in Cairo in 1980/1981 I did not find very many Egyptians 'largely supportive' of the peace with Israel. That said I think your comments about Islamic movements gaining authority by providing the services jettisoned by neo-liberal states is excellent.
As a slightly more experienced journalist I watched it in Turkey and it will be very interesting to see what happens in Tunisia.
I think Phud if you listen to/read the anit-Arab comments that many Israelis make you'll see that THEY see it as a racial distinction...one, unfortunately, where they are the master race.
Mr. Cole, I've been reading you for a long time & respect you and your thinking. However, in a piece like above I think you weaken it by your editorialising -- it is awful enough & people think better when your stories give them the space to do it. They will make the connections, you don't have to do it for them and the connections will be stronger because they've done it themselves. I speak as a journalist (ABC, BBC, pre-Murdoch WSJ, Christian Science Monitor -- among many others. I'm old)
Thank you for the comments on women....when I was a journalist in Cairo I found women incredibly brave and aware in their battle for equality. It is a very complex situation, but I have always urged that the job of Western women is to find out what their Arab/Egyptian counterparts want and support it.
At the time (a very long time ago) the percentage of women in the professions was the same as in the Scandinavian countries. And when I would come back to Ireland for R&R I always found the average Irish intellectual male more basically sexist than the average Egyptian male intellectual -- who was at least willing to listen to what I had to say.
I think it was a carefully orchestrated attempt to create violence because as long as the protesters remain non violent there is very little he can do to silence them but if they do something violent, his statements about being the bulwark against chaos will ring true to some (Israel and the US for starters). The only thing which gives me hope is the political astuteness of the organizers so far and the poltical awareness of your average felaheen.
My Arabic was never what it should have been, but Is a new and earnest journalist in Cairo in 1980/1981 I did not find very many Egyptians 'largely supportive' of the peace with Israel. That said I think your comments about Islamic movements gaining authority by providing the services jettisoned by neo-liberal states is excellent.
As a slightly more experienced journalist I watched it in Turkey and it will be very interesting to see what happens in Tunisia.
I think Phud if you listen to/read the anit-Arab comments that many Israelis make you'll see that THEY see it as a racial distinction...one, unfortunately, where they are the master race.