Deepening discrepancies find expression, writes Aziza Sami The disparities afflicting political and social life which appear to have come to the fore after the 11 September attacks on the US and its subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq found expression in several press exchanges this week. Al-Ahram 's Fahmy Howeidy in typically combative style wrote an article on Tuesday critical of what he called "The press of strife". Lambasting "some of the Arabic press", he wrote that the pan-Arab dailies Al-Hayat and Asharq Al-Awsat gave credence to reports that Sheikh Youssef El-Qaradawi, a leading cleric, had condoned the killing of civilians in Iraq. Howeidi then transcribed for readers what he said were "the sheikh's exact words verbatim which he delivered during a talk at the Egyptian Press Syndicate. "El-Qaradawi said, 'The Americans who came to Iraq are all invaders and should be fought' but he also stressed that 'one is not to kill those who are unarmed' (denoting civilians)." Howeidi continued, "When El-Qaradawi subsequently published a denial that he had ever condoned the killing of civilians those very same newspapers did not highlight his statement while writers exploited this erroneous report in order to argue that appearances of 'moderation' exhibited by clerics like El-Qaradawi are false, and that all Islamist activists are terrorists and militants." Howeidi similarly pointed out that what later proved to be false reports that Arabs had participated in the Beslan school massacre in Russia "also provided fodder for [Arab] commentators to denounce 'those evil Arabs', whiplash Islamic identity and bereave the fact that it has -- in the eyes of the world -- become associated with nothing but terrorism and the dissemination of death". Howeidi concluded, "There are common denominators binding this media which foments strife and emanates from a secularist militancy rejecting the unity of religion and state and now working to lash at the very foundations of Arab and Islamic identity. It is a secularism flagrantly advocating a Westernisation that will ultimately throw us into the arms of the US and Israel." Howeidi referred to one instance of such articles written last week by the national weekly magazine Al- Musawwar 's Editor-in-Chief Makram Mohamed Ahmed, "Should Islam bear the brunt of these crimes?" in reference to the execution of 12 Nepalese workers in Iraq. And so, it might not have been totally coincidental that Mohamed Ahmed on the very next day, Wednesday, wrote in Al-Musawwar, "A little justice might help uproot terrorism." As if to moderate and put into context his previous strong condemnation of "using Islam to justify terrorism" Mohamed Ahmed's prognosis was that "unfortunately, three years after the 11 September attacks, the US is as far as it can be from winning the war on terror. To do so entails a rational US policy widening the international alliance against terror, consulting with others and working to win the hearts and minds of the Arab and Islamic worlds. While one argument is that democracy in the Middle East will help rid it of militancy, the other is that justice and the recapturing of forfeited rights will eradicate hatred and do away with the roots of terrorism." Another question upon which might be gleaned the beginnings of a confrontation is that of conservative versus progressive interpretations of Islam. In the weekly national magazine Rose El-Youssef on Saturday, Sayed El-Qimni, an unequivocally secularist thinker, continued in his series of articles which are essentially a searing attack on what he sees as the prevalent and increasingly obscurantist interpretations of religion. Writing of the "new" authorities of Islamic interpretation hailing mostly from the Gulf and embodied by figures such as the late Saudi Grand Mufti Bin Baz, Al-Qimni wrote that the militant interpretations espoused by such clerics cannot grasp the sublimity embodied in the Quran, and are literal to the extent that they endow upon the Creator material attributes such as his possessing "a hand, an ear", etc. "They are so austere moreover," he wrote, "that they prohibit even age-old popular festivities cherished by Egyptians such as the Prophet Mohamed's birthday . El-Qimni continued: "These new religious 'authorities' have transported our countries into morbidity, an Islam of appearances, of destitution of the soul and of psychological depression. If the Egyptians followed them, they would weep day and night." On Sunday and to the point as usual, the national daily Al-Akhbar 's satirist Ahmed Ragab depicted the paradoxical impact that the government's recent tariff cuts have had on the general public. "The government reduced customs duties on the cars bought by the rich and raised the price of diesel fuel utilised in public and cargo transport (by the poor). It is clear that its perception of who is privileged and who is not is totally cross-eyed." The three-part extensive interview given by Minister of Housing Ibrahim Suleiman to Al-Ahram last week seemed to have little impact on writers in the independent and opposition press for whom attacking the minister has become a weekly staple. Adel Hammouda in the independent weekly Sawt El-Umma on Sunday thus relentlessly continued his anti-Suleiman campaign in which he is obviously out for the jugular. The front page of the newspaper carried a photograph of the minister doing a somersault in front of a half-bitten apple. A headline proclaimed in reference to three other photographs published below: "With images: the (simple) family home of the minister, his father's (modest) workshop, and Suleiman's (sumptuous) residential 'palace' after becoming minister." Another headline referred to the anonymous "Wazir Al-Bormagi" (the unscrupulous jack of all trades minister) alleging that "he buys two pairs of shoes -- one to wear and the other with which to smack people." The independent weekly Al-Osbou' departed from the general coverage in the Egyptian press which has given little credence to accusations directed by British authorities against prominent engineering consultant Mamdouh Hamza alleging that he had conspired to kill four Egyptian officials including the minister of housing. The newspaper thus with great fanfare on Monday published what it described as a "full transcript of [recorded] conversations by Hamza indicating his conspiring against the four officials," the source of which it said was "a secret British report. "What is in these transcripts depicts what Hamza said about important figures in Egypt, and is not the responsibility of the newspaper," wrote Editor-in- Chief Mustafa Bakri. Over the week the question of domestic political reform was prominently dealt with in the national press as a precursor to the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) second annual conference. The editorial of the national daily Al-Akhbar on Sunday proclaimed that "vital issues will be dealt with during the conference, including citizenship, democracy, economic stability and the people's needs." This ambitious itinerary did not satisfy the opposition weekly Al-Arabi issued by the Nasserist Party which that day proclaimed: "The reforms of the NDP are fake and people are fed up with the president's party." Al-Arabi claimed, "American reports assert that the NDP's leadership has succumbed to Washington and Tel Aviv's pressure to publish an apology in [the NDP's publication] Al-Liwa Al-Islami regarding an article published in August which raised doubts about the authenticity of the Holocaust." The newspaper added that "contacts undertaken by a US Embassy delegation with top-level NDP officials resulted in the newspaper's publishing an apology and the resignation of its editor who was replaced by a member of the NDP's Policies Committee." On the regional front, national press coverage underscored Egypt's current role regarding Palestine and the Sudan and the summit meeting held in Damascus between President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Two articles written by Al-Akhbar 's Editor-in- Chief Galal Dowidar best summed up Egypt's regional role and its position versus international events. "God be with Egypt and its attempts to put the Palestinian question on the path of an equitable solution," Dowidar wrote on Wednesday. "There is no doubt that in its endeavours, Egypt is faced with complications and obstacles because of the extreme difficulty of dealing with either the Israelis or Palestinians. Experts say any success attained on that front will by all means be a miracle." On the question of Darfur, Dowidar wrote on Friday: "It is not true that Washington is really concerned about the interests of the people of Darfur or their human rights as it claims... What Syria, Lebanon, the Sudan, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan are witnessing by way of political and military intervention indicates the conspiracy concocted against the Arab and Muslim world. There is no solution but to unite and exert genuine efforts for domestic reform. We must utilise every possible potential to attain progress in all domains."
