London Free Press: Food Waste: Unjust, Environmental Disaster

London Free Press: Food Waste: Unjust, Environmental Disaster

Jan 17, 2017

The holiday season has passed and, almost certainly, a considerable amount of food has been thrown into the garbage.

Food waste is a serious challenge in the developed world. While some suffer from food insecurity, estimates are that up to 33 per cent of food supply is wasted globally. In Canada, that number is closer to 50 per cent, and more than half of such waste is likely avoidable.

A study by an international consultancy group Value Chain Management Centre found that the cost of Canada’s annual food waste in 2010 was $27 billion, rising to $31 billion in 2014. One commentator puts this figure in perspective: It’s more than the GDP of the 29 poorest countries in the world combined.

Food waste comes in many forms: trimmings during meal preparation, plate scrapings and perishable items such as fruits and vegetables that are expired or nearly so. The waste takes place at both the household and the business levels.

A number of European countries are taking active steps to tackle the latter problem. Both France and Italy recently introduced laws that prohibit supermarkets from throwing away food and Germany has put a plan in place to halve food waste by 2030. Tellingly, household food waste in Germany is estimated at only 11 million kilograms, compared to nearly four times as much in Canada. A Danish government initiative to reduce waste has spurred on the opening of a “food waste” supermarket: Perfectly edible food that is then sold at 30 to 50 per cent cheaper than usual.

What about Canada? A private member’s bill introduced last year by NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau to establish a national strategy for combatting food waste was defeated 220-59. The vote was not strictly partisan: 11 Liberal, four Conservative and all nine Bloc Quebecois members joined the NDP caucus in voting for the bill. From Ontario, only nine MPs voted in support of the bill, including only one London-area MP.

To be fair, opponents of the bill did not seem to question the need for a national food strategy.

Rather, their objections seemed to centre on whether the specific strategy introduced in the bill had received sufficient “stakeholder” input.

Despite the renewed attention and the startling figures, our federal agriculture minister has not committed to anything beyond being “open to discussions” in 2017.

There are practical consequences to food waste beyond the moral argument that a just society should not waste so much food when so many are going without. A 2015 Maclean’s article points out that food production uses 80 per cent of all fresh water consumed in the United States and edible food that ends up in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas. “If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after China and the U.S., and a major contributor to global warming,” the report says.

In Canada, businesses can reduce operating costs by 15 to 20 per cent and increase profitability by up to 11 per cent by cutting down on food waste.

Even in the absence of a national or provincial strategy, local action is possible. Municipalities, for example, can implement their own programs, as Nanaimo and Thunder Bay have done. Sustain Ontario, a not-for-profit dedicated to sustainable food and farming, has recently launched a toolkit for local programs to reduce household food waste.

But more importantly, there are a number of strategies we can implement as individuals to reduce household food waste. At the end of the day, common sense prevails. Plan meals, don’t buy in bulk, pre-portion food, and find alternate uses for overripe fruits and vegetables.

University of Guelph researchers have found that the more aware people are of food waste, the less food wasted.

Don’t wait for the politicians. Ask your family to make reducing food waste a shared new year’s resolution for 2017.

Wael Haddara is a London physician and educator.

Original Link: 

London Free Press: Troubling views of women found close to home, too

London Free Press: Troubling views of women found close to home, too

Dec 12, 2016

The past few months have been a whirlwind in the U.S. with the presidential campaign and the election of Donald Trump. But let’s not pat ourselves too firmly on the back.

Many of us in Canada watched Trump vs. Clinton with horror and dismay as scandals broke on both sides. But even as memories of the infamous “locker-room talk” video — perhaps the single most disturbing revelation of that political brawl — fade, instead of a sanctimonious holier-than-thou attitude, I think we need to take a hard look at how we view acceptable male attitudes towards women.

I live in an affluent part of London. The closest shopping centre is apparently one of the most profitable in the province. Recently, I needed to bring my laptop in for repairs and I was early so I took a walk around the mall. At the end of one corridor, there is a store that sells T-shirts and hats and possibly other things.

It has an edgy look to it and, unsurprisingly, I had never been in. So, I decided to be adventurous (yes, that was sarcasm).

I was greeted by a pleasant young woman who started a brief conversation: “Have you been here before?” “No, I haven’t.” “‘Looking for anything in particular?” “No, not really, just killing some time.” And so she left me to browse.

The first row of T-shirts was the usual fare — quirky superheroes, some with a Canadian twist, for example, a maple leaf superimposed on the Superman S. The next set of T-shirts was something else altogether.

It’s not particularly easy to shock me, but I was shocked. Appalled, actually. One after the other, there was a series of T-shirts with misogynistic, demeaning, crude statements. I am not entirely sure who the target market is, or what social context would be an appropriate setting to wear one.

Wait, let me rephrase that: I am entirely sure that there is no social context in which it would be appropriate to wear one of these. No self-respecting man (I assume the target market is men) would wear one. But the fact that someone thinks that those captions would make good T-shirts to make a buck on — indeed, that the store is in the business of selling them — can only mean that someone out there disagrees with me and does so with his or her wallet.

You’re probably wondering how bad those T-shirts could have been. I’m not sure I can tell you. In fact, I’m almost certain the editors wouldn’t print — in the newspaper or online — many of the words screened onto the T-shirts that, for the right price, anyone who wants to can wear while walking down a street near you.

I don’t blame the editors, I wouldn’t want my children to pick up the newspaper or click on a website and read them, either.

(Editor’s Note: Correct, the T-shirt slogans are not printable in a newspaper or on a newspaper’s website. Here are two of the most tame, with BEEPs where necessary: “I have the BEEP, so I make the rules”; “This is Bill. Bill likes to drink and BEEP BEEP. Bill is a badass. Be like Bill.”)

Some of you will want to make arguments about freedom of speech, of course, and I want to emphasize this column is not being written to start a boycott of any stores or tell any store owners what they can or cannot sell.

Instead, it’s a simple observation that if the attitudes toward women that Donald Trump had on display in that video with then-TV host Billy Bush can be printed on a T-shirt to wear here in London, then we, collectively, have somehow decided those attitudes are OK.

And that should give us pause.

Wael Haddara is a London physician and educator.

Original Link:

lfpress.com/2016/12/09/troubling-views-of-women-found-close-to-home-too

The Middle East Eye: Greatest Threat to democracy? The Myth That is inevitable

The Middle East Eye: Greatest Threat to democracy? The Myth That is inevitable

Nov 28, 2016

In an increasingly connected world, the failure to defend democracy anywhere erodes democracy everywhere
 

Until recently, the proposition that democracy was vulnerable even in countries where it has been long established would have been met with derision. But what a difference a few months can make.

In the United States, we are witnessing the rise of what can only be described as fascism in the presidential elections. After months of refusing to contemplate a Trump candidacy, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D Eisenhower has nominated a man for president who has proudly campaigned on promises to violate and disregard the Constitution of the United States of America. At one point, Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com polling website had him neck to neck with Clinton. 

In Austria, an avowed far-rightist was narrowly defeated, only for the results to be annulled by the courts and fresh elections ordered. Across Europe, far-right parties are surging in countries such as France and the UK to the point where their popularity and possible influence enter into the calculus of mainstream parties. The Brexit campaign helped to mainstream far-right political narratives in Britain and the result has in turn empowered those parties in other European countries.

Why is this happening now? There are complex reasons for why nations descend into fascism, but I believe there are two fundamental factors that are at the heart of the phenomenon at hand.

‘The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled’

First, democracy can only survive surrounded by other democracies; lone democracies do not survive long. Second, democracy is ultimately undermined by discourses that create the illusion that democracy is unassailable, that democratic governance has become so entrenched in society it cannot be undone.

It is difficult to remind people that democratic governance in Germany and Italy is one generation deep, that Spain has yet to celebrate 40 years as a stable democracy

Democracy is also ultimately undermined by discourses that posit that democratic governance is made possible because of factors intrinsic to that particular culture or society. The latter discourses are examples of mythomoetuers, that is myths “about the origins, special character, and destiny of a nation”.

One of the most dangerous mythomoteurs in “Western democracies” is the sanctimonious discourse that posits that democracy is possible only because of factors innate to Western societies. For example, that the Judeo-Christian-Hellenic tradition makes democracy almost effortless and inevitable as the only possible means of government.

‘Human rights is in our DNA,’ Bernardino Leon, then EU Special Representative for the Mediterranean, told members of Morsi’s administration (AFP)

By contrast, “non-Western” societies, that discourse goes, must struggle to achieve democracy. In his contentious Regensburg address, Pope Benedict XVI seemed to argue that the roots of European civilisation lie in rationality, traced back to the Christian ideal of elevating rationality to the level of the divine.

And he seemed to argue that Islam, on the other hand, was incompatible with Europe since it maintains that the divine exists beyond rationality and other human concepts. Bernardino Leon, then EU special representative for the Mediterranean, liked to harangue members of President Morsi’s administration, that “human rights is in our DNA”. 

Keyser Söze made the insightful observation that ‘the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist’

This discourse creates a false sense of security, a sense of entitlement and contributes to a fundamental misunderstanding of the very real threats to democracy. A population so socialised, progressively becomes less likely to make the choices necessary for the perpetuation or real defence of democracy.

Keyser Söze made the insightful observation that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist”. In a similar way, the greatest threat to democracy in any country may be the national myth that democracy in that country is inevitable and unassailable.

Another facet of this discourse is to cast modern “Western” history in one long and sweeping progressive arc towards ever wiser and better government and hence that the future can only bring more democratisation and progress.

Lost in both of those constructions are the inconvenient details: democracy in Greece and in Rome had but a brief tenure. For most of its history, the Judeo-Christian tradition tolerated and indeed supported authoritarianism. It was only with the expulsion of religion from the public sphere in the “West” that democratic government became possible.

This discourse has been so powerful and insidious that it is difficult to remind people that democratic governance in Germany and Italy is one generation deep, that Spain has yet to celebrate 40 years as a stable democracy.

Anywhere is everywhere

The other factor that contributes to an erosion of democracy is the defeat of democracy elsewhere. In an ever shrinking world, made smaller every day by the proliferation of communication technology and the ease of travel, if democracy is threatened anywhere, it will be threatened everywhere.

When Malcolm X was asked about the assassination of John F Kennedy, he responded that it was a case of ‘chickens coming home to roost’

When Malcolm X was asked about the assassination of John F Kennedy, he responded that it was a case of “chickens coming home to roost.” He subsequently explained that no society can condone hate or violence against a segment of its population while expecting that violence to remain entirely contained against only that population and that “hate, allowed to spread unchecked, had finally struck down this country’s chief magistrate”.

Tolerating and indeed supporting anti-democratic regimes elsewhere in the world is the international equivalent of “chickens coming home to roost”. We cannot tolerate, even encourage, violence, repression and authoritarianism as the most expedient and successful means of governing people in places like the Middle East without risking a bleeding of those attitudes into “Western” societies.

The case of Egypt is telling. Senate leaders, various presidential candidates, the secretary of state, and, to some extent, even the president of the United States have all extolled the virtues of Sisi’s authoritarian ways as both necessary and visionary. Is it then such a leap when those republican presidential candidates extol the governance style of Vladimir Putin? Is it so surprising when we discover that there are some, even many, in our “Western” populations who admire such qualities and believe we also need such leaders?

Those two factors are inter-related. Nations’ proclivity to see themselves as exceptional is directly related to a more limited interest in the cause of democracy elsewhere, while the rise of authoritarianism elsewhere is more likely to appeal to a population less attuned to the risks of authoritarianism to their own democracy.

Define it, defend it

But if it is the self-interest of democratic nations to promote democracy around the globe, how is this best done? After all, the current, sustained tragedy that is Iraq was largely wrought by an invasion that promised to liberate that nation from the grip of authoritarianism and transform it into a blossoming democracy. 

Perhaps we should agree on what ‘democracy’ means. First and foremost, it does not mean wholesale imposition of values and laws

A decade and a half later, the only things that seem to be blossoming in Iraq are sectarianism and violent extremism. An even more limited intervention in Libya does not seem to have had much better success. Some have addressed that apparent failure eloquently. But in essence, democracy promotion ought not to be an exercise in creating societies or states that are identical to ours.

As Baghdad comes under heavy US-led bombardment in March 2003, a missile hits the Iraqi planning ministry (AFP)

How to promote democracy may be a difficult question, but perhaps we should first agree on what “democracy” means. First and foremost, it does not mean wholesale imposition of values and laws. 

At a minimum, however, three factors must be in place for a country to claim to be somewhat democratic: the right of people to choose their own government; rule of law, underpinned by a robustly independent judiciary and anti-majoritarian protections; and finally primacy of non-violence in resolving conflicts.

The tasks of propagating those values is difficult, but in pursuing those goals, as in pursuing the cause of democracy overall, we should be more attuned to the fact that, in a progressively shrinking world, the failure to defend democracy anywhere, erodes democracy everywhere.

– Dr Wael Haddara is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Western University in London, Ontario. He is a husband, a father, a pharmacist, a physician, a lecturer, a bibliophile, a community activist, a Canadian political analyst and a thought-leader on the Middle East. In 2012-2013, he served as senior advisor to President Mohammad Morsi.

Photo: An Egyptian man show his ink-stained finger after casting his vote at a polling station in Mansura, 120 kms north of Cairo, on 19 March 2011 as voters got their first taste of democracy in a referendum to a package of constitutional changes after president Hosni Mubarak was forced to relinquish his 30-year grip on power last month in the face of mass street protests (AFP)

Original Link: middleeasteye.net/opinion/greatest-threat-democracy-myth-it-inevitable 

 
AlJazeera: Is Sisi Losing His Grip on Egypt?

AlJazeera: Is Sisi Losing His Grip on Egypt?

Apr 28, 2016

 
 
 
 

On April 15, the scene on the streets of Cairo was unfamiliar: Thousands of Egyptians, angered by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s policies, called for the downfall of the regime while chanting slogans from the 2011 popular uprising against then-President Hosni Mubarak, who later stepped down: “We don’t want you, leave.”

Street protests have all but dried up in Egypt since an anti-protest law was passed in November 2013. However, the Friday protests indicated that popular unrest has not completely burned out.

Sisi, who once enjoyed widespread public backing, has been facing mounting criticism in recent months over a faltering economy and widespread reports of police abuses, some of the motives for the uprising that unseated Mubarak in 2011.

So is Sisi finally losing his grip on Egypt? Al Jazeera speaks to three Egypt experts.

Wael Haddara, former adviser of ousted President Mohamed Morsi  

“Sisi is not losing his grip on Egypt. He never had one.”

Is Sisi losing his grip on Egypt? No, because Sisi never had a grip on Egypt in the first place. The illusion that he did is one of the fundamental root causes behind the miserable state of affairs in Egypt today.

The only way events could have unfolded differently is through recognition that Egypt can only be governed effectively through a mechanism in which all significant players have the assurance that they will have the freedom to pursue their self-interest in an equitable and fair fashion.

As I have argued, Egyptians have a hierarchical conceptualisation of power. Power is possessed by those high up and is wielded upon those lower below. In reality, power is diffuse and resistance is possible at every level.

The coup that took place from June 30 to July 3 was possible only because a wide coalition of forces came together to bring an end to Egypt’s brief democratic experiment. Many of us who supported Egypt’s democratically elected president understood that the coalition arraigned against him would be unsustainable.

In the conversations I had with western diplomats in the immediate aftermath of the military coup, only one saw this clearly. He accurately described the coalition as a “coalition of denial”, brought together only through opposition to Morsi.

He shared my assessment that the coalition would prove difficult to sustain, not only because of the lack of a common purpose beyond removing Morsi, but also because the coalition depended on restoring and amplifying the positions of the various partners.

For some, like the security services, the judiciary and the military, this amplification could only come at the expense of society at large, creating further instability. For others, like the political actors who thought they would be at centre stage, it would be impossible.

In that sense, the coalition was always destined to fail, with the more central players progressively disposing of the more peripheral ones. As one-time partners were disposed of, they turned into critics. Others turned to obstructionism, directing whatever power they could leverage towards undermining the regime.

This phenomenon explains many of the episodes in which the regime appears to have shot itself in the foot: The wheat import crisis, the Al-Jazeera journalists debacle, the bungled investigations into the Russian Metrojet bombing and the murder of the Italian student Giulio Regeni, to name a few.

These new opponents joined the ranks of the old ones – the supporters of the democratic experience in Egypt, albeit with minimal shared vision. Sisi, and his remaining partners in power, came to the conclusion that more brute force was needed and so, over the course of 2014 and 2015, we witnessed ever greater exclusion and repression leading to more of the same.

The only way events could have unfolded differently is through recognition that Egypt can be governed effectively only through a mechanism in which all significant players have the assurance that they will have the freedom to pursue their self-interest in an equitable and fair fashion according to jointly agreed on rules that level the playing the field.

Mubarak had become adept at manipulating Egyptian polity so that enough players felt they had enough of an opportunity to pursue enough of their self-interest. However, over the course of his 30-year rule, this accommodation was progressively lost and by 2010, he suffered the consequences.

Sisi never understood those rules and became quickly drunk on his own imagined charisma. Sisi is not losing his grip on Egypt. He never had one.

Abdullah Al-Arian, assistant professor of history at Georgetown University, author of Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt  

“Popular protests should come as a worry to the regime and its supporters”

Since its emergence following the July 2013 military coup, there has been no shortage of experts, observers and wishful thinkers predicting the imminent demise of the regime of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt.

After all, the coup promised to replace the turmoil of the nation’s post-Mubarak transition with an era of peace and prosperity and it has failed spectacularly on both counts.

The resurgence of popular protests this month and the unity of purpose displayed across Egypt’s ideological spectrum should come as a worry to the regime and its supporters.

The fact that Sisi has resorted to unprecedented levels of state violence while failing to develop a broad political base to legitimise his rule has only lent more credence to the notion that his regime’s days may be numbered.

If a renewed effort to challenge Sisi’s rule does emerge in the coming weeks, there are a number of significant recent developments worth tracking. Even among the staunchest supporters of the coup across Egyptian society, uncritical backing of Sisi has waned considerably.

Leftist opposition figure Hamdeen Sabahi, who offered his enthusiastic endorsement of the coup and dutifully ran against Sisi in the 2014 presidential election to lend it an air of legitimacy, has been remarkably critical of the regime.

Last week, Sabahi sued Sisi over his decision to turn over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. A number of prominent journalists, intellectuals, and television personalities have also spoken out against the regime in recent weeks. Indeed, if the islands episode has demonstrated one thing, it is that the fascistic hypernationalism promoted so forcefully by Sisi has come back to haunt him.

In another troubling sign for Sisi, there has been a flurry of reports of major divisions within the regime itself, where rivalries between competing intelligence agencies and powerful state institutions threaten to tear the regime apart at the seams and make Sisi the first casualty in this bitter competition.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s economic situation has only added to Sisi’s woes. With the state’s foreign reserves down by more than half and the value of the Egyptian pound dropping at unprecedented rates – recently topping 11 pounds to the US dollar – Egyptians are feeling the pinch across all segments of society.

Tourism, a major source of revenue for Egypt, has been decimated since the coup, and certainly was not aided by the downing of a Russian aircraft and the regime’s scandalous response to the killing of Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni.

No amount of foreign aid or investment is likely to turn around Egypt’s economic disaster. Indeed, the tens of billions of dollars in Gulf assistance since the coup have not mitigated the situation, nor is there likely to be any more coming.

If anything, Sisi’s international standing has diminished considerably as pressure continues to mount on governments to cut ties with a regime that has continued its relentless assault on the rights of its citizens and behaved erratically on the global stage.

The Regeni tragedy and Italy’s subsequent withdrawal of its ambassador from Cairo has exposed the limits of the West’s ability to blindly endorse Egypt’s slide back into authoritarianism.

Even when taken together, these factors alone are not sufficient to signify that the Sisi era may be short-lived. However, the resurgence of popular protests this month and the unity of purpose displayed across Egypt’s ideological spectrum should come as a worry to the regime and its supporters.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s followers have notably set aside their demand for the reinstatement of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, instead coming together with liberal and leftist protesters to wave Egyptian flags and call for the fall of military rule.

To be sure, in the face of popular mobilisation, the state has shown itself to be far more ruthless in its defence of Sisi’s rule than that of Mubarak in his final days.

But with a never-ending string of crises stemming from the internal and external pressures to his rule, the coalescence of such a movement may yet defy Sisi’s bid to cement his authority for years to come.

Joshua Stacher, associate professor of political science at Kent State University, author of Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt & Syria  

“When will Sisi be overthrown?”

Egypt’s general-turned-president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is at risk. He is just the latest presidential sacrifice trying to stop the state from haemorrhaging its capacity to govern.

Sisi, and military colleagues who distrust the state’s 6.5 million civil servants, have failed to build resilient networks with docile crony capitalists, and untethered security forces that compete against each other more than provide security.

Whatever direction Sisi turns, he will not be able to outrun the political, social or economic instability that haunts the generals’ narrowly based regime like a spectre.

Whoever tried to govern Egyptians after 2011 was going to have problems because the people’s revolutionary demands remain unacknowledged and unmet.

This is compounded because it has been more than five years since the initial uprising that took place on January 25, 2011. Not only do Egyptians now live under the most repressive government in their modern history, according to the country’s human rights workers, but incidents of police brutality are the quotidian norm.

The state’s violence was supposed to break dissent and mobilisation. Instead, it leads to unpredictable protests to push back against murderous police, overzealous judicial sentences and general injustice.

If this was not bad enough, Sisi and his military colleagues who distrust the state’s 6.5 million civil servants, have failed to build resilient networks with docile crony capitalists, and untethered security forces that compete against each other more than provide security.

Everything is harder and more dangerous than the days of Mubarak’s broken regime.

The economy is also buoyed by more rent than at any time in 25 years. Yet, tourism continues to ebb, the expanded Suez canal is not producing the profits Sisi promised, and the aid transfers from the Gulf seem to carry an informal consequence that Egypt needs to give something back in return.

As the Egyptian pound continues to drop, prices on everyday goods rise, pensions stretch further, and people at pitted against one another to survive on less. In December 2012, the ousted president’s unilateral constitutional declaration produced protests at the palace. Sisi, then minister of defence, publicly worried that the president’s divisiveness might cause “the state to collapse”.

Seven months later, Sisi relieved Morsi from his elected office. In a more muted replay last week, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) leaked that it had told Sisi transferring the Islands “could harm national pride and upset the public”.

Is SCAF starting to distance itself and return to its fictitious role of neutrally defending of the country? Much has been invested in Sisi’s presidency. It is unlikely that he will be dumped without the wild card of uncontrolled popular mobilisation. Social scientists could not predict the 2011 uprising.

Few felt the 2013 military coup was possible given the international support around Egypt’s presidential elections and political “transition”. We will never know beforehand when it is the next leader’s turn.

But a few things remain clear: The state continues to fragment. The unorganised generals have no answer for fixing the post-independent state, its economy, or producing genuine stability by politically engineering social classes. When will Sisi be overthrown? He already has been.

The event just has not happened yet.

 
 Original Link:

 
 
The Middle East Eye: One Murder Too Far: How The Regeni Case Turned The Tide on Egypt

The Middle East Eye: One Murder Too Far: How The Regeni Case Turned The Tide on Egypt

Apr 26, 2016

What no one counted on was Paola Regeni, who stood up not only for her son, but for all the other Egyptian victims of the regime

An Egyptian folk tale revolves around two men who had a hard-working and faithful ass. They had grown so dependent and attached to the animal that they gave him a name, Abul-Sabr (The Patient One). One day, the animal died and the two men sat over the grave of this animal weeping. As people went by, the grief exhibited by the two brothers, their stories of the deceased’s hard work and worth and the moniker all conspired to create the impression that the deceased was a saint of some sort.

The two men, quick to appreciate the lucrative potential, erected a shrine over the grave of this animal and called it the “Shrine of The Patient One.” Money flowed from penitents, each of whom had a request or prayer from The Saint, the Patient One. One day, the men feuded over the allocation of the income and one invoked the soul of the dead saint in asserting his truthfulness. The other, reminded him, “Really? We buried it together.” 

Much has been made of the Egyptian regime’s obtuse response to the Italian government’s request for a thorough, credible and transparent investigation into Giulio Regeni’s murder. Regeni, a PhD student at Cambridge, was in Egypt researching labour movements when he suddenly disappeared on 25 January. His body was eventually found in a ditch with extensive signs of torture.

Unhappily for the Egyptian regime, Regeni’s mother has mounted a relentless campaign for the truth regarding her son’s murder. The Egyptians attempted some rather weak, face-saving manoeuvres that failed to satisfy the Italians. The drama has culminated in Italy withdrawing her ambassador to Cairo, after which the Egyptian Foreign Minister finally declared that Egyptian authorities will attempt to meet the demands of the Italian investigators including some which other Egyptian authorities had earlier declared unconstitutional, only to backtrack a few days later.  

The Egyptians must be scratching their heads over the entire episode. In August 2013, this regime perpetrated the single largest massacre of Egyptians in contemporary history. Over 800 Egyptians were killed at Rabaa, in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) described as a pre-planned, act of mass violence by the state likely ordered by very senior leadership, including possibly Sisi personally. Weeks before Rabaa, the regime had killed some 50 Egyptians shortly after morning prayer in front of the Republican Guard headquarters. Two months later, on 6 October, there was another mass killing by security forces during anti-regime protests.

In 2014 and 2015, regime repression spiralled with more abuses: systematic rape and sexual abuse, forced disappearances; extra-judicial killings, more arrests and more torture. Despite the escalating and often public abuses, Sisi found himself received on many a red carpet in several European capitals. Italy and France welcomed the field marshal with open arms in their capitals in November 2014 and Italian PM Matteo Renzi had already visited Cairo earlier in the year. Germany and the United Kingdom followed in 2015, all preceded by the Leader of The Free World who had already met the field marshal in September 2014. 

Over the course of the two years following the military coup, a number of prominent Egyptians opposed to the regime warned diplomats in Western Europe and the United States that the Egyptian regime will understand normalisation of relations as a carte blanche for more abuses; silence and so-called quiet diplomacy will fail to move the Egyptian regime towards any mitigation of human rights abuses. We argued that the Egyptian regime will correctly understand the mild condemnations to be nothing more than the trappings of public diplomacy.

I believe that is exactly what happened. The Egyptian regime found its abuses not only unpunished, but indeed rewarded. Democratic governments had asserted that they are unconcerned by the murder of hundreds, if not over a thousand Egyptians, detentions of tens of thousands of other Egyptians, systematic rape, extra-judicial killing and rampant torture and forced disappearances.

And so when, one fine Cairo winter day, Giulio Regeni was caught in the same web of torture and murder, the Egyptians should have reasonably expected nothing to happen. Indeed, the French and the British dutifully played along as before. The British hardly uttered a word, and the French announced plans for a visit to Cairo by Francois Hollande, during which the French president claimed that human rights issues were raised, apparently in between signings of massive trade and weapons deals. The Egyptians had every right to expect that Regeni’s murder can be swept under the carpet and Sisi was confident enough to say so publicly.  

What no one counted on was Paola Regeni, who stood up not only for her son, but for all the other Egyptians, unknown and uncelebrated, who fell victim to the brutality of this regime in a similar fashion.

But for her, it would have been business as usual. And, for whatever reason, there has not been a shortage of Egyptian officials coming forward, albeit anonymously, to link the murder to the Egyptian security apparatus and possibly to Sisi himself. The regime has reacted by retaliating against Reuters, who broke the story.

It is still far too early to know how this episode will end, but one can only imagine that senior Egyptian officials’ response to the Italians’ official indignation is some diplomatic form of, “really? We buried it together!”

– Dr Wael Haddara served as a senior advisor to former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi during his year in office. He tweets at @waelhaddara.

Photo: Relatives of Giulio Regeni, including his father Claudio (R), mother Paola (C) and his sister Irene (3rd R) follow his coffin during his funeral in Fiumicello on 12 February, 2016. Giulio was found dead bearing signs of torture after disappearing in Cairo (AFP).

Original Link: middleeasteye.net/opinion/one-murder-too-far-how-regeni-case-turned-tide-egypt

AlJazeera: The High Cost of Repression and Incompetence

AlJazeera: The High Cost of Repression and Incompetence

Feb 19, 2016