tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10546555170211548542024-03-05T18:45:45.805+02:00Cinerevolution NowA blog about cinema, politics and video, focussing mostly on Egypt and Palestine. Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-74467945791705082172013-07-18T14:25:00.005+02:002013-07-18T14:29:15.464+02:00Totalitarian Democracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The cover of the current issue of Time Magazine
labels Egyptians as ‘the world’s best protestors’ and ‘the world’s worst
democrats’. The startling ignorance of this cover highlights a fundamental
question that is not – in the current climate of frenzied analyses of Egypt – being
asked:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it more democratic to elect a fascist ruler or
to topple one? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘Democracy’ alone was never a fundamental demand
of the Egyptian Revolution. Bread, freedom and social justice: these are the demands
of the revolution. Freedom. Not representative democracy. Freedom. People were
killed in their hundreds for freedom, not for a ballot slip. Morsi was elected
because he was the lesser of two evils. He stood in Tahrir and promised he
could deliver the goals of the revolution. And he <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSk0OpQ7MQg">imprisoned</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2kMzrFHt-Y">raped</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxyjiAM0q0I">tortured</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1azZlC3jh0I">killed</a> his citizens
like every government before him. And now he has fallen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Democracy – which at the very least would mean an
independent judiciary, citizen rights, freedom of the press and transparent
elections - will not be won in Egypt through elections because there is a
historical and geographical context that determines what is and isn’t possible
through the ballot box alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The current state structure within which Egypt operates
is based on layers of colonial and military history, each layer building on the
last to obscure the state and place it above – and separate from - the people.
Mehmed Ali ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1841, introducing private land ownership,
dividing up agricultural territory into private estates. He created Egypt’s
bureaucracy and the first modern army in the region. This became the
cornerstone of Egyptian nationalism<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>,
the expression of which reached its visual apex last week when army helicopters
showered Tahrir with Egyptian flags. The French destroyed, redesigned and
rebuilt villages to create, codify and entrench class strata<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[2]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.
The British centralized gubernatorial and mayoral appointments under the
Ministry of the Interior<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[3]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.
Nasser and the Free Officers created a massive security apparatus to watch over
their “revolution from above” and placed generals in key state positions.
Sadat’s rapid and unregulated infitah opened up the country to outside
investment, creating a new class of business elites who matured comfortably
into the crony capitalists of the Mubarak years. Mubarak massively expanded the
police state, removing direct power from the Army but pacified ranking generals
with a system of “loyalty allowances”, offering them retirement possibilities
in lucrative state positions – such as gubernatorial appointments - in return
for their allegiance<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[4]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.
And so the circle closes. By 2011, 200 years of successive policies designed to
centralize and concentrate power and suppress political possibility had evolved
into an impenetrable, unaccountable and unchallengeable cycle of money and
influence that circulated between a handful of key institutions, soldiers and
businessmen closest to the ruling family. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How could democracy – when proposed by this
ancient totalitarian machine of the deep state - arrive neatly with the ballot
boxes nine months later?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beyond the deep state stands the international
regime. Just as Egypt’s economic, military and social structures were forged by
colonial schema of oppression, so its position within the “international
community” of wealthy countries and corporations is confined to one of
neo-colonial subjugation and collusion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three brief examples:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One: as a reward for signing a peace treaty with
Israel in 1978, Egypt became the second largest beneficiary of US military aid
in the world. Vast sums poured into the Egyptian military’s budget in exchange
for peace with Israel, the repression of the Palestinians and keeping the Suez
Canal open for business. In 2005, the Mubarak government began selling natural
gas to Israel, supplying it with 30% of its total fuel needs at below market
rates. This continued until last year, when the deal was suspended under
intense popular pressure. Also in 2012, Egypt began importing natural gas for
the first time to meet a domestic demand that is rising. That demand is so
heavily subsidized that it consumes 25% of the national budget. But <a href="http://rebeleconomy.com/economy/reinventing-egypts-energy-subsidies/">93%</a>
of it is consumed by the richest fifth of the population. So the state is
currently spending more than it does on health and education combined on
subsidizing the rich’s fuel. And has racked up <a href="http://rebeleconomy.com/commodities/egypts-biggest-oil-debts/">$5bn of debt</a> to at least 42 different oil and gas companies and up to $15bn to
banks and other ministries in the process. So Egypt is now out of cash for
imports and domestic alternatives are needed. Enter Dana Gas, a UAE company now
<a href="http://platformlondon.org/2012/09/19/shell-frack-egypt-egyptians-say-oi/">fracking in the Nile Valley</a>, a possible side-effect of which could be the
poisoning of the river. 98% of Egyptians live alongside the Nile and depend on its
water, which is already so polluted that the rich now drink bottled water
produced by Coca Cola (Dasani) or Pepsi (Aquafina) or the Army (Safi), allowing
the government to ignore the issue. Meanwhile Ethiopia presses ahead with its
Renaissance Dam project whose as yet unknown effects on her upstream neighbours
have been the source of such a hysterical public outcry that Ethiopia became
Egypt’s main security concern in Morsi’s final, US-approved months in office. Instead
of Israel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two: Sinai. A mountainous peninsula that lies
between the two key US-Egyptian ‘security concerns’: the Suez Canal and the
Gaza Strip. Its coastline was developed for tourism by the Israelis when they
occupied it in 1967. In 1982 the military occupation was handed over to the Egyptians,
who opened the door to international investment but marginalized the indigenous
Bedouins; denying them land rights even as they watched foreign companies build
towns and luxury hotel complexes for European tourists. The southern coastline
and historical sites are now key drivers of tourism, but only a fraction of the
money they bring in goes back into either the community or the state, with
everything up to and including airport licenses dominated by foreign companies.
Industrial development plans fail because they gloss over the Bedouin’s
grievances and continue to pursue the state’s preferred military-capitalist
model.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[5]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
‘Security’ will never be achievable as long as the siege of Gaza continues, the
tunnel economy flourishes and the gas pipeline to Israel exists. But to address
any of these issues would mean the end of American military aid. And from this Catch-22
a new idea has emerged, whose idiocy is only matched by its $4bn price tag: to
build a bridge to Saudi Arabia. To make an environmentally disastrous
land-crossing between the most volatile region of the most populous country in
the Arab world and the petroleum-fuelled evangelical heartland of extremist Wahhabi
ideology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three: wheat. Egypt is blessed with fertile land,
regular irrigation water and limitless sun. Until the end of the Ottoman era
Egypt was a net exporter of food and textiles. Mehmed Ali divided the territory
into private landholdings before the British colonists shifted crop production
towards cotton to feed the Manchester mills driving their industrial revolution.
By 1914 cotton accounted for 92% of the total value of Egyptian exports.
Nasser’s attempts at land reform were curtailed by Sadat, and with the
capitalist boom of the 1970s the wealthier classes began eating more meat,
domestic crops were diverted to feed livestock and an import-dependency on
USAID began to “feed the poor” whose bread was now being eaten by the rich’s
cows.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[6]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
And so, today, Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat and lives
permanently on the edge of a food crisis. To try and stave off a repeat of the
1977 Bread Riots the state underwrites a vast, inefficient and corrupt subsidy
system while continuing to divert domestic production away from staple foods
towards export crops to produce hard currency to service interest payments on
international loans taken out to buy grain in the first place. And if Egypt’s <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/76486.aspx">$38.8bn debt</a> wasn’t
burdensome enough, successive post-revolution governments continue to hold
talks with the IMF in the hope of securing a $4.8bn loan, whose approval would
require further “structural adjustments” towards export crops, such as cut
flowers, for European markets. And so the circle closes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The elite domestic and international regimes have
created a matrix of corruption, control and inequality that cuts through every
aspect of Egyptian life. The ballot box would not have given any new president the
authority or the power to seriously tackle any one of these issues. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Egypt had elections, but nothing else. Elections
can be a tool - one of the tools through which social change can be attempted.
They can also be a very strong sedative. The decrease in voter turnout in Egypt
from 53% for the parliamentary elections in November 2011 to 33% for the
constitutional referendum in November 2012 shows that the form of democracy required
is much more radical than what’s on offer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The spreading of democracy by the USA and her
allies has always been inextricably bound up with the liberalization of
markets. Democracy, for recipients of US attention in the global south, means
free market capitalism. The concepts are interchangeable, as they were when the
British were blessing the world with ‘civilization’. Egyptians have spent the
last ten years watching democracy gloriously spreading over the mountains of
Afghanistan and into the oil wells of Iraq. And when the Obama administration
had ensured that the Muslim Brotherhood would keep the country open for
business and not make any moves against Israel, the ballot box acquired its
sanctimonious glow here too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, Time Magazine, and all you other fading giants
of yesterday’s media, being a “democrat” was never a choice for Egyptians. You
don’t just wake up and choose whether or not you live in a democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Morsi’s winning of the presidential elections gave
him a degree of legitimacy. But legitimacy without consent is meaningless and
the Muslim Brotherhood did such a disastrous job of governing that consent was
lost within a year. Morsi made specific electoral promises - not just to the
electorate but to most formal revolutionary and secular groups - to build a coalition
government led by a non-partisan figure, to write a consensus-based
constitution and to make legislative reforms of the state. Then his cabinet of
choice (mostly made up of weak, Mubarak-era bureaucrats and Brotherhood
members) refused to cooperate with civil society on labour issues, police
reform, anti-torture work, the economy or energy – all issues on which human
rights groups, activists and development NGOs offered their services and
expertise - and were shunned. So when, after a year, people felt that their
lives were continuing to worsen, Egyptians took to the streets in their
millions – a revolutionary act that also, since it keeps coming up, happened to
be profoundly democratic. The Tamarrod movement was, in essence, a recall vote
– something that might have been worked into the new constitution if Egyptians had
been truly involved in the writing of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the great Howard Zinn wrote: “protest beyond
the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
The whole world is lecturing Egypt about democracy; but commentators should
realise that by narrowing the idea to fit their preferred analysis they are
undermining their own future freedoms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bread, freedom, social justice. It is possible. The
solution, though, is not simply representative democracy. Egypt requires, at
the very least, a radical overhaul of the state, the dismantling of the
military’s supra-state, the democratization and decentralization of local
politics, extensive land reforms, cooperative partnerships with neighboring
countries, a progressive policy on Israel and a completely new set of
international political and business relationships that begins with cancelling the
debt accrued dishonestly by dictators. These goals will never be achieved by
any of the corrupt and compromised elite currently playing politics at the
national level. These goals cannot be achieved in isolation – the domestic and
international regime are so intertwined that everything has to be fought at
once. The Egyptian revolution will must couple with the revolutions that began
across the world in 2011 and are still kicking and fighting today. The road
ahead is long and hard. The revolution continues. </span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">An </span></i><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/17/egypt-revolutionary-act-democratic"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">edited, shorter, version</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> of this piece first appeared in the Guardian on
Wednesday July 17<sup>th</sup></span></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><sup><br /></sup></span></i></div>
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<i><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This version appeared on <a href="http://www.madamasr.com/content/totalitarian-democracy" target="_blank">Mada Masr</a> on Thursday July 18th</span></sup></i></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Khaled Fahmy, </span><a href="http://libgen.info/view.php?id=546642"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">All the
Pasha’s Men</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(AUC Press, 2002)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Timothy Mitchell, </span><a href="http://libgen.info/view.php?id=267198"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Colonizing
Egypt</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(University of California
Press, 1991)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Aaron Jakes, </span><a href="http://cairobserver.com/post/41094238802/the-severed-branches-of-local-government#.UeEuNRYdSpU"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Severed Branches of Local Government</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Cairobserver,
2012)</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Yazid Sayegh, </span><a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/files/officers_republic1.pdf"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Above the State</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Carnegie Middle East
Centre, 2012)</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ministry of Planning &
International Cooperation, The Prospects and Challenges of Sinai’s Development,
January 2013</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1054655517021154854#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> See Timothy Mitchell, </span><a href="http://www.merip.org/mer/mer169/americas-egypt"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">America’s
Egypt</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(MERIP 169, 1991)</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-90888177583583595722013-07-15T18:20:00.000+02:002013-07-15T18:20:40.418+02:00Upcoming Screenings: Though I Know the River is Dry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A quick update on upcoming screenings of <i>Though I Know the River is Dry. </i></div>
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We will be featured in three major international festivals this summer, starting in <a href="http://tinyurl.com/q7em4lz" target="_blank">competition in Melbourne</a> in August. We will be able to announce the other two shortly. </div>
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We will also have screenings in two art spaces in London this summer: <a href="http://www.mosaicrooms.org/short-films-by-omar-robert-hamilton/" target="_blank">the Mosaic Rooms</a> and <a href="http://boldtendencies.com/projects/2013/events/africa-film-though-i-know-river-dry" target="_blank">Bold Tendencies </a>at the Peckham Multi-Storey Car Park. Both these screenings will be presented alongside a selection of films from <a href="http://www.mosireen.org/" target="_blank">Mosireen</a>. </div>
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Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-75949878634743574702013-07-11T10:14:00.004+02:002013-07-15T18:15:19.461+02:00Selective Memories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This piece was originally published in <a href="http://www.madamasr.com/content/selective-memories" target="_blank">Mada Masr</a>.<br />
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I am neither a supporter of Mohammed Morsi nor of the Egyptian Army. To place oneself in either camp is to assert an allegiance to hierarchy, patriarchy, capitalism, secrecy and violence. The Army and the Brotherhood are not two poles that encompass Egyptian society, they are two elitist organisations with vast domestic networks, international connections, opaque business interests and legions of footsoldiers. And yet, in the international press, readers are being repeatedly presented with this false binary.<br />
<br />
A vast swathe of the Egyptian populace has recently succumbed to national amnesia, cheering the APCs that crushed protestors at Maspero just twenty months ago. Others are being inflamed with the language of legitimacy and martyrdom pouring from the Brotherhood’s stages. State media has never been more sectarian or the independents more keen to please the ascendant military. And previously reliable foreign news outlets seem also to have lost perspective.<br />
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The Guardian, for example, proudly boasted of its role as a reliable news source during the initial 18 days of the revolution, and truly did excellent work. But since the election of the Muslim Brotherhood it has taken a perplexing editorial line that regularly mixes veneration for our Brotherhood ex-rulers with hectoring lectures on the necessary difficulties of democracy and the ultimate sanctity of the ballot box.<br />
<br />
I was surprised to see space given in yesterday’s Comment is Free to Yahia Hamed, Morsi’s Minister for Investment, who wrote that Morsi had a “single mission: to establish stable sustainable mechanisms for the peaceful democratic exchange of power.” The article repeatedly speaks of Morsi’s fanatic devotion to democracy but fails to give a single concrete example of any action that Morsi took in the pursuit of his supposed democratic faith. Not one.<br />
<br />
That’s because there were none. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood have been ousted from power they repeat the words ‘democracy’ and ‘legitimacy’ incessantly – but this abuse of history and of language must be challenged. Morsi’s legitimacy was lost the moment Brotherhood militias were unleashed on a protest sit-in last November, the moment the activist Mohammed al Guindy gasped for his last breath in a police torture cell, the moment four Shias were lynched without drawing a word of criticism from the government. Democracy under the Brotherhood was no different than under Mubarak or under SCAF – by opposing them, by thinking differently to them, you risked your life.<br />
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And if we want to consider Morsi’s commitment to the democratic process let’s remember how a post-revolutionary Constitution was forced on a population with the approval of just 64% of a 33% turnout.<br />
<br />
In an editorial on July 9th, the Guardian wrote “According to our body count, more Egyptians have been killed and injured in two weeks of protests than in one year under Mohamed Morsi.” What the editorial doesn’t say is that at least nine people were killed by a gunman inside the Brotherhood’s headquarters, eight were killed by Brotherhood protestors and there is a wave of sectarian violence sweeping the countryside – the worst episode so far seeing at least four Christians killed in Luxor. The body count is higher and it is rising, not only because the Army are back on the streets, but because the Brotherhood is armed and angry and will not back down.<br />
<br />
The Army and the Brotherhood both have blood on their hands and both seem determined to escalate. And let there be no doubt – we recognize that the ultimate and gravest threat to the revolution is the Army, that the most brutal and well-equipped organization is the Army, that the institution that is most to blame for the country’s vast problems is the Army. But that does not mean that liberal news outlets should canonize the Brotherhood because they’re in the habit of defending persecuted Muslims at home. Neither the Army nor the Brotherhood have any interest in delivering the people’s demands of ‘bread, freedom and social justice.’ We know this. What we don’t know is what the people can do next.<br />
<br />
The people are the great unknown. The people have spent two and half years talking about nothing other than politics. So is it too much to ask for commentators, writing in English, to stop telling us “how democracy works”? Because, from where we’re standing, the firesale of Greece, the bailouts of the banks, the titanic advertising budgets of electoral candidates, the Tory Old Boy’s Club government and the invisible muscle of the lobbies are just a few hints that no-one’s democracy is working properly.<br />
<br />
And, if the ultimate arbiter of legitimacy is the ballot box, perhaps US citizens could be allowed vote on whether to continue military aid to Egypt? Or UK citizens could choose where David Cameron next flies to peddle his weapons? There is not a fair and functional system anywhere in the world. At least Egypt’s is in flux and her governments are trembling. And as long as the people believe they don’t have to accept their reality, as long as they believe that their future has not been decided for them, then something new is possible.<br />
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Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-60800403285181439202013-06-04T18:21:00.000+02:002013-07-15T18:24:44.318+02:00Ramallah Premiere<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Our Ramallah premiere will be this week at the Sakakini Centre.<br />
<br />
Entry is free.<br />
<br />
This is the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/261433527328098/261451167326334" target="_blank">Facebook event</a>.<br />
<br />
See you there.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4cD4iMm0k_rovuVagceu3nXl8qrHcYM_90VD7Ke35IuiaxYfIOzgIGmKuufyox3f4uDOe6jAbFXkyK_UHNnX4vgAePnpwBJiEJFXz1vdi_tMvyzUTLRc5J53x-4rDE0HO62P3THJu7Qmo/s1600/omar's+film+yazan+design.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4cD4iMm0k_rovuVagceu3nXl8qrHcYM_90VD7Ke35IuiaxYfIOzgIGmKuufyox3f4uDOe6jAbFXkyK_UHNnX4vgAePnpwBJiEJFXz1vdi_tMvyzUTLRc5J53x-4rDE0HO62P3THJu7Qmo/s640/omar's+film+yazan+design.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-90143614274266917132013-04-01T15:46:00.000+02:002013-04-01T15:52:47.104+02:00Jews of Egypt - Cinema Release<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have no idea if it's going to be any good or not, but if you're in Egypt you should go and see Jews of Egypt tonight or tomorrow.<br />
<br />
It's an independent film that has fought against both the Ministry of the Interior and the monopolists of the domestic film industry to get a slot in the cinemas. It is very very rare for an independent film to get on a cinema screen in Egypt - for reasons that have been discussed in old old posts - so it would be good if this one makes a little cash.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cYFwtgeOypQ" width="640"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
It's showing at the Renaissance Nile City and Sun City in Cairo and San Stefano in Alexandria.<br />
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<div>
I know we are supposed to be boycotting Renaissance Nile City but I think, in this case, the positive impact of each ticket bought for this film will be more felt than the negative impact of bringing business to Nile City. Just don't buy any snacks there.<br />
<br />
This is why we're (mostly) boycotting Nile City<br />
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/3lSCAstp2uk" width="640"></iframe>
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Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-31629303436182314582013-03-29T13:58:00.000+02:002013-03-29T13:58:29.295+02:00Festivals & Screenings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So <i><a href="http://www.riverdryfilm.com/" target="_blank">Though I Know the River is Dry</a> </i>is finished and is out there beginning it's life on the festival circuit.</span><br />
<br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="321" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/56294764?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="600"></iframe> </div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It opened in competition in Rotterdam and won that festival's nomination for Best Short Film at the 2013 European Film Awards. Which was a very good start. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We then spent about three days going through lists and lists of all the film festivals in the world and trying to come up with a chronological strategy of where we would submit to. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The whole slog of film festival applications is incredibly dull if you don't have a distributor, but - unless you can be sure of getting 100,000 hits online, you've got to do it. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, in case this makes anyone's life any easier, this is the </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/crot5f7" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">spreadsheet we produced</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone will have their own preferences about which festivals sound attractive, but there is also a clear hierarchy - with festivals with markets, competitions and AMPAS qualification at the top of the pile. And main thing you have that is of value is your regional premieres, so you need to have a global strategy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hopefully the spreadsheet can help with that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0Cairo, Cairo Governorate, Egypt30.0444196 31.23571160000005929.9344746 31.074350100000057 30.1543646 31.39707310000006tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-40698954470827886372012-10-15T12:14:00.003+02:002012-10-15T12:36:42.831+02:00Beyond Tahrir<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This piece was written for the magazine, The Middle East in London, about two weeks before the government erased the graffiti on Muhammad Mahmoud st. </span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Muhammad Mahmoud Street is one of the ten
roads that feed into Tahrir Square.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is home to the beautiful old campus of the American University in Cairo and,
therefore, to the all the most expensive cafes in Downtown Cairo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was also the theatre for the biggest
street battle in Egypt since Mubarak’s fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Over five freezing nights in November the police killed more than 70
people and Tahrir transformed itself into an enormous field hospital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, Egypt’s newly emerged graffiti artists have
converged to make the long unbroken walls of the street sing with beautiful,
heartbreaking, ever-changing murals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pharaonic figures spelling out timeless lessons for good governance make
way for a fallen sheikh’s guiding hands and Christian angel’s wings, while huge
Islamic calligraphy curls up and around the faces of the overwhelmingly young,
smiling martyrs and down again to angrily sprayed stencils calling for freedom
for the imprisoned and justice for the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is where I come when I need reminding
that our strength comes from the combination of countless small, individual
contributions to the collective cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here is where I know that the revolution is more than street protests,
more than battles with the police, more than the presidency, more than American
foreign policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here I know that the
revolution is, in the end, about the pent-up beauty that’s been released into
this country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is both an obvious and a very
difficult lesson to learn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But<s>,</s>
to be successful<s>,</s> the revolution has to constantly remember it<s>,</s>
has to be both mass street protests and smaller, personal acts of protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unionizing nurse, the striking worker. The
two nourish each other, push each other forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We forced the removal of Mubarak by
taking and holding Tahrir for 18 days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Tahrir then was a mortally contested space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire police force was defeated in the
winning of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it has become a space
‘allowed’ to the revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much like a
protest march in London has its route and territory marked out by the police,
Tahrir has – to a lesser extent – become an accepted area for
congregation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is when venturing
outside it that the inevitable confrontations with the police and the military
flare up; it is outside that the boundaries that need testing now lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ministry of the Interior, the State Radio
and Television Building, the Ministry of Defence. These are the black sites of
recent and future bloodshed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are
the houses of power, the new challenges that the young unarmed men and women of
the revolution are drawn towards now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can you take the State TV building
without a hundred thousand people pushing at the barbed wire that surrounds
it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will the machine-gunners on the
first floor open fire on women and children chanting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">selmeyya</i> (peaceful)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe
we won’t have to find out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe, with
our elected civilian president, words will no longer be met with bullets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have entered the third stage of our
Revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is true that we have
won many victories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We still can’t
believe this history that we’re living through, that we’re making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we’re also still living in a police state
whose land and major assets are controlled by the military and a neo-liberal
business elite who are subservient to American and Israeli interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The police just shot and paralyzed a
seventeen-year old boy in a train station for singing an Ultras song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have a long way to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times it feels impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at those times I go down to Muhammad
Mahmoud Street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1nmwSZAUo53jcZJVazpEGaHzv2RdhAnC6TMpzlT-pBENcwtxUWhKoussRnE3iHhuyZedrnatCHmnPYmakHWNU5rDWI1kpSh3TEyi0_Dzdw8ZwXov6r1ZHDeLeE8QhI7CT6577H1ikLB-/s1600/Sheikh_Emad_Effat_grafiti,_Mohamed_Mahmoud_St..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1nmwSZAUo53jcZJVazpEGaHzv2RdhAnC6TMpzlT-pBENcwtxUWhKoussRnE3iHhuyZedrnatCHmnPYmakHWNU5rDWI1kpSh3TEyi0_Dzdw8ZwXov6r1ZHDeLeE8QhI7CT6577H1ikLB-/s640/Sheikh_Emad_Effat_grafiti,_Mohamed_Mahmoud_St..jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-50242644213737459132012-09-19T18:03:00.000+02:002012-09-19T18:03:55.364+02:00First look preview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We wrapped principal photography on <i>Though I Know the River is Dry</i> in early July and, after a little break, I got to work on editing it. I'm hoping it will be done by the end of the year.<br />
<br />
I recently cut together this preview sequence to show at an event at London's Southbank Centre. I was speaking on a panel with the title, 'Transnational Tactics of Repression' and so wanted to have something from Palestine to show people. This is what I came up with. It's not exactly how it's going to be in the finished film, but this is just to give people an idea of what's coming up...<br />
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<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/49608806?byline=0&portrait=0" width="600" height="337" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>
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Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-10325637752849237152012-07-15T12:46:00.001+02:002012-07-15T12:49:27.102+02:00Production Stills<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So we've wrapped photography in Palestine on <i>Though I Know the River is Dry</i>. Here are four production stills. More info, as usual, is up on the film's website: www.riverdryfilm.com<br />
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<br /></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-86642686252373426972012-06-09T10:30:00.002+02:002012-06-09T10:31:30.076+02:00Director's Statement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now @occupiedcairo and I are back in Palestine and preparing to finally shoot <a href="http://www.riverdryfilm.com/" target="_blank">riverdryfilm</a> I'm going back over all the things that I wrote and noted down when we started this project two years ago to get back into the process.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here's the director's statement, with only a chronological update: </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT</span></b></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Palestine, as a subject, can feel inaccessible and overburdened with history. Too often genuine drama and style is lost in ideology and political correctness. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having worked in Palestine for the last five years, living there for a month or two each year, I have been constantly struggling, thinking, writing and talking about how cinema - our most immersive artform - can hope to recreate even a fraction of the Palestinian experience. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is an experience that is at once deeply complex and remarkably simple. It is both cinematically physical and invisibly psychological. It can be instantly lethal and slowly maddening. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I doubt there is a single piece of work that could ever do it all. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But film-makers have a responsibility, art has an obligation to tell people's stories, to tell the stories that are being buried. With this short I think we can tell a relevant and resonant story, and I think we can tell it in a way that is both challenging and dramatic. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The action will be split into three chapters; each from a different time and perspective, each circling around a central, unseen death; each with a totally distinct style and technique; each moving with the sustained pace available to a short film. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Choosing not to tackle violence head-on, its true meaning lost between fatalistic journalism and the carnage of the multiplex, the film concentrates on the longer, subtler, suffocating experiences of occupation. The daily humuliation of crushing through checkpoints. The impossibility of living a moment free of responsibility to your cause. The thirty minute journey that now takes four hours. The unrelenting misrepresentation of you and your society. The constant threat of unpredictable and catastrophic violence. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are the experiences of the film. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By pushing the form to match the subject, rather than squeezing the subject into a traditional form, we will tell the story in a style as layered as its characters deserve. We will tackle a fraught and pressing subject with cinematic originality, human sensitivity and political awareness - and so hope to contribute to the evolution of Palestine's narrative. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-32864794190334687432012-06-08T17:14:00.000+02:002013-04-01T16:09:03.159+02:00Casting Call | مطلوب ممثلين<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">فيلم روائي قصير<span class="s2">:</span> <span class="s2">"</span>بالرغم من أني أعرف أن النهر قد جف<span class="s2">" </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px;">(عنوان مؤقت)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">، يبحث الآن عن ممثلين في فلسطين. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">لمعلومات أكثر عن الفيلم أنظر <a href="http://www.riverdryfilm.com/" target="_blank">هنا</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">سيكون التصوير في الضفة من ٢٦ يونيو إلى ٧ يوليو</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">نبحث عن ممثلين لعدد من الأدوار، وبالذات<span class="s2">:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">سيدة شابة<span class="s2">:</span> ٢٥ <span class="s2">-</span> ٣٥ سنة</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">الأم<span class="s2">:</span> ٥٥ <span class="s2">-</span>٦٥ سنة</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">شاب<span class="s2">:</span> ٢٤ <span class="s2">-</span>٢٩ سنة</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">رجل كبير السن<span class="s2">:</span> ٥٥ <span class="s2">-</span> ٦٥ سنة</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">تقام اختبارات التمثيل في رام الله الخميس ١٤ يونيو</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">نرجو إرسال<span class="s2">:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">سيرتك الذاتية <span class="s2">(CV)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">مجموعة<span class="s2"> </span>صور<span class="s2"> </span>لك</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">فيلم<span class="s2"> </span>لك<span class="s2"> (</span>إن<span class="s2"> </span>وجد<span class="s2">)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">روابط<span class="s2"> </span>لأي<span class="s2"> </span>من<span class="s2"> </span>أعمالك<span class="s2"> </span>موجود<span class="s2"> </span>على<span class="s2"> </span>النت</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">نرجو<span class="s2"> </span>إرسال<span class="s2"> </span>كل<span class="s2"> </span>هذا<span class="s2"> </span>إلى<span class="s2"> </span>المنتج،<span class="s2"> </span>لؤي<span class="s2"> </span>لوارن في موعد أقصاه الثلاثاء ١٢ يونيو، <span class="s2"> </span>على lblewarne@riverdryfilm.com</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">Short fiction film, <i>Though I Know the River is Dry</i>, is now casting for actors in Palestine. See more details about the film <a href="http://www.riverdryfilm.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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Shoot dates will be in the West Bank between June 26th to July 7th.</div>
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We are currently casting for several roles and are looking for actors in the following age ranges:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Mona</b> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="white-space: pre;">His</span> wife. Moves with him to America against her better judgement. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>late 20s</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Smart but not adventurous</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Pregnant</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Bassem</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="white-space: pre;">His </span>brother</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>early to mid 20s <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>very political </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>very energetic</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>a leader</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Mother</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="white-space: pre;">His</span> mother</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>late 50s </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>strong</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>leader of the family</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>centre of the household</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>compassionate</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>opinionated</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Uncle</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="white-space: pre;">His</span> uncle</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>late 50s but aged badly</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>tired but kind</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>used to more political / in the resistance</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Manager</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>late 3os</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>businessman</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>pragmatic</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>not super smart</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Old Woman</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Young Woman x2 </b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>community members with a problem</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>working class</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Older man</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Younger man</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>crossing Qalandiya </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>impatient</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Taxi Driver</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1 scene</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Neighbour</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>50s</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>friendly</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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Auditions will be in Ramallah.</div>
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Please send the following: </div>
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1. Your CV</div>
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2. Photographs of yourself</div>
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3. Your showreel, if you have one</div>
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4. Links to any of your work online</div>
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to the Producer, Louis Lewarne on <a href="mailto:lblewarne@riverdryfilm.com">lblewarne@riverdryfilm.com</a> by 10pm on Tuesday June 12th. </div>
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Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-27302066353639701772012-05-25T16:55:00.001+02:002012-05-25T17:12:56.681+02:00The Long Game<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">So we've all woken up to what, instinctively, feels like a worst-case scenario. </span><br />
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But here are some positives: </div>
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7 million people voted for radical economic change. 7 million people were mobilised without a serious institutional machine pushing them into the polling stations. The Brotherhood have impressed with their continued ability to mobilise and it seems clear that the combined 1.3 million people employed by the Army and the Security Services have been encouraged to vote for Shafiq. </div>
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13 million people don't see religion as the cure for political problems. </div>
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Turnout was down at around 40% from 54% for the parliamentary elections. That's a whole lot of people that, in just 6 months, realised that parliamentary politics is not going to be what delivers the change they need. </div>
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It feels like a loss that Sabahi and Abouel Fotouh were unable to combine. But it wasn't a total disaster. Had they been able to form a coalition yes, they would have won. And political space would have really opened up. But maybe the chance for a really radical change would have passed. </div>
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Elections are deeply flawed and party politics is never able to deliver real change. Nor is it meant to. At least now we don't have the illusion of a messiah to grapple with. </div>
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If Shafiq wins he will, as SCAF's puppet be unable to run the country. Much as SCAF themselves have found themselves unable to. And, unlike Mubarak, who projected an image of strength and built a personality cult around himself - Shafiq has neither the gravitas nor the time to carry the inevitable anger of nation alone. When people next erupt the apparatus behind and around him will be in the firing line. </div>
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Meanwhile, he will be crippled by an uncooperative parliament and the Army and Brotherhood will be unable to find a way to work together. </div>
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Likewise with Morsi as President. If they control both Parliament and the Presidency the Brotherhood will be in a serious position to challenge the Army's grip over the country's resources and economy. We will have four years of fight between them and, though the Brotherhood won't be able to deal a fatal blow, will seriously loosen the Army's grip. </div>
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Meanwhile, in both these scenarios the Revolution lies in the hands of the Revolutionaries. The Revolution's job is to pressure the fault lines between those in power, to maintain the core narrative of the Aims of the Revolution ('bread, freedom, social justice'. [Note, it's 'freedom', not 'democracy']) and to provide alternatives. The Revolution has provided countless alternative governance structures on smaller, local scales - some with earth-shaking consequences (Tahrir Sq) - but the challenge is continuing to build ideas that can one day be applied on a national or regional level. </div>
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The problem at that point, of course, lies in the idea of the nation state. But let's deal with that later…</div>
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In short, as long as we are willing to work we have lots to be grateful for. In America you get two choices. And they're both religio-miltaristic warmongers. Same in the UK. In Egypt, at least the guns and the prayers are still separated for now. And, given the history the Army and the MB have, are unlikely to combine anytime soon. Eventually, they will turn on each other. But first, they'll want to crush the revolution. </div>
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The coming months are dangerous. The coming days are depressing. But let's remember the long game. We don't want a charming president and a functional parliament. We want to change the world. </div>
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</div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-30487869227098970382012-05-15T12:13:00.001+02:002012-05-15T13:20:35.798+02:00حول العودة من غزة<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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الرجوع إلى القاهرة من غزة تجربة غريبة وصعبة. لمدة خمسة أيام، عشنا <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> نحن مجموعة الأدباء والفنانين العرب الذين كنا <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">"</span>احتفالية فلسطين للأدب<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">"</span> <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> في غزة. والآن غادرنا. </div>
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الأضواء،<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;"> </span>الضجيج،<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;"> </span>السيارات؛<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;"> </span>القاهرة<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;">. </span>الفروقات<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;"> </span>الشاسعة عبر المسافة القريبة. </div>
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غزة،<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;"> </span>جارتنا،<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;"> </span>شقيقتنا<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">:</span> كم نحن قريبون، وكم تكافح الآن، وحدها.</div>
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لكن غزة لم تهزم. </div>
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سراييفو تختال بعلامات الحرب فيها<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">:</span> تؤطر وتبرز دروس التاريخ للأجيال القادمة. بيروت تغطي علاماتها بالمساحيق والمولات <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> تختار أن تنسى، أن تعيش لليوم. نيويورك تدفع بنفسها في السماء، تنغرس فيها، تتحدى المستقبل. أما غزة فتعيد البناء، وتعيد البناء، وتعيد البناء. كل ما لديها تستعمله <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> فقط لتظل باقية. ليس بمقدورها أن ترسخ تاريخها ولا أن تؤَمِّن مستقبلها. تعيش بحسم في الحاضر<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">:</span> تعيد البناء، وتعيد البناء، وتقاوم. </div>
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في غزة تبتلع الأساسيات حياتك اليومية <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> المياة، الكهرباء، البنزين. كلها تعاني فيها النقص، كلها تظهر وتختفي بتخطيط أياد أجنبية. </div>
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في غزة تشم أنفاسك فقط حين تنظر إلى البحر، وحين تغرب الشمس تتقد المياة بكشافات السجن <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> خط متكامل ثابت من الأضواء يبتر الأفق، يمحي إمكانيات المجهول.</div>
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في غزة يعرف الناس أنك غريب حين تجفل لدوي خرق حاجز الصوت؛ لم تكتسب بعد المناعة لعذابات السجان.</div>
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في غزة تعلق بين الماضي والحاضر<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">:</span> تعاني وحشية الاستعمار القديم، يجسد تهديده اليوم روبوتات طائرة.</div>
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في غزة قوبلت بدفء لم أخبره من قبل، ورأيت صمودا لا يجب أن يطالَب به بشر، وتشرفت بالتعرف على شعب يحافظ <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> في وجه كل المصاعب <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> على القيم التي تشكل صميم إنسانيتنا<span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">:</span> العطف، والتراحم، والتجمعية، والصبر. التخلي عن غزة يثير التساؤلات حول كم الإنسانية المتبقية فينا <span style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Lucida Grande';">-</span> ويدفعنا للعمل على التمسك بها. </div>
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</div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-2970337601736174362012-05-15T12:11:00.002+02:002012-05-15T13:19:45.978+02:00On Returning From Gaza<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: 300;">Coming back to Cairo from Gaza is a strange and difficult experience. For five days the Palestine Festival of Literature – a collection of Arab artists from inside and outside the Arab world – lived in Gaza City. Now we have left.</span><br />
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The lights, the noise, the traffic of Cairo. The contrast is overwhelming.</div>
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Gaza, our neighbour, our sister: how close we are, have always been. And how hard she struggles now, alone.</div>
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But Gaza is not defeated.</div>
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Sarajevo wears her scars with defiance– memorializing history’s lessons for the next generation. Beirut paints hers over with malls and make-up – choosing to forget, to live for today. New York pushes herself further into the heavens – challenging the future. But Gaza, Gaza rebuilds and rebuilds and rebuilds again. It takes everything she has to continue to exist. She can neither cement her history nor secure her future. She exists firmly in the present: rebuilding, rebuilding, resisting.</div>
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In Gaza your daily life is consumed by fundamentals – water, electricity, petrol. All in short supply, all arriving and disappearing according to the designs of foreign hands.</div>
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In Gaza the only free breath you can take is looking out to sea. But when the sun sets the water is illuminated with prison floodlights – a perfect unmovable line of lights that cuts short the horizon, erases the possibility of the unknown.</div>
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In Gaza people know you’re foreign when you jump at the explosion of a sonic boom; still not yet numbed to the jailor’s torments.</div>
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In Gaza you exist between the past and the future, suffering colonial barbarities unleashed by robots in the air.</div>
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In Gaza I was greeted with a friendliness I have never felt before. I saw a resilience that should not have to be possible. And I had the honour of meeting a people who are keeping alive – against all odds – the values we prize as humans: compassion, community, patience. That they have been so abandoned should make every one of us question what little humanity we have left . And do everything we can to hold on to it.<br />
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</div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-22230631196257711442012-05-13T14:30:00.001+02:002012-05-13T14:30:22.649+02:00Analogue Zone, Cairo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This week Analogue Zones begins in Cairo - a week long workshop on shooting, processing and cutting 8mm and 16mm film. It is the first project to run out of Cimatheque - soon to be the hippest cinema in Africa. </div>
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The week opens with a screening tomorrow night of selected experimental films, including one I made when taking the same workshop in Athens in September 2011. </div>
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<br /></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-26905719950211219852012-03-22T12:20:00.001+02:002012-03-22T12:28:00.642+02:00The Aspirations of Man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I haven't had a chance to write anything for a long time and as work intensifies along three fronts - Mosireen, the Khaled Ali campaign and the Palestine Festival of Literature - it may be a while yet.<br />
<br />
So I thought it worth to quickly post a video that epitomizes all that we hope will soon be within reach of independent film-makers the world over.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ao5CKLr9NGQ" width="640"></iframe></div><br />
</div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-62698239350351634072012-02-05T14:41:00.001+02:002012-02-05T14:41:39.788+02:00Reponse to Arab Israeli Book Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Ahdaf Soueif's book on the revolution so far has, comfortingly, been given a <a href="http://arabisraelibookreview.com/2012/02/04/in-brief-ms-soueifs-revolution/" target="_blank">lousy review</a> by Samer el Youssef in the Arab Israeli Book Review. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I have left the following comment, and it is "awaiting moderation". But since I don't expect it to be approved, here it is: </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">I wonder if the reviewer has read even a chapter of this book? Soueif makes it clear, repeatedly, that the book is intended as an act of intervention in an ongoing revolution, that it is false to think of the 18 days as a complete narrative and that we are engaged in an ongoing struggle.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Secondly, anyone that is familiar with Soueif's work, or, indeed, has read the book, will know that she has been writing fiercely critical articles of the Mubarak regime for the last decade. For anyone that wants to check them out, they are all compiled both on her website and the Guardian's.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally - though it's hardly worth mentioning in such a summarily incoherent article - the reviewer accuses Soueif of "posing" as a revolutionary, aligns her with people "who don't know a word of Arabic" - and then goes on to say she was seen "manning the barricades at Tahrir Square". Which one is it? Does the reviewer even know?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fog of confusion hangs thick over this article. But that should hardly be a surprise given the website that hosts it. </div></span></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-32972949116059519612012-02-01T16:37:00.000+02:002012-02-01T16:37:36.695+02:00The Camel Battle: Anniversary Edition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">My first real day of action in the Egyptian Revolution.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7F3hbTrw9EU" width="640"></iframe></div><br />
</div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-18546786606786034732012-01-13T15:27:00.001+02:002012-01-13T15:28:23.173+02:00The People Demand the Fall of the Regime: Egypt 2011<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This is a short film I've put together that tries to show what 2011 in Egypt felt like.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KVo3nqfKMbM" width="640"></iframe></div></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-31484463297942723692011-12-14T15:25:00.004+02:002011-12-14T16:45:09.644+02:00Capturing Our Changing Realities<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333233; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;">December 5th</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Ten mangled neon strip lights hang from the ceiling, framing two fans, stilled and blackened by years of cigarette smoke. At the front of the room, behind the judges’ bench, a triumvirate of tattered, empty leather armchairs. Six overweight policemen sit behind me. To my right, the length of the room is taken up with a cage; a cage that has been filling up with men in blue jumpsuits since I arrived an hour ago. We are at an appeal hearing for my cousin, Alaa Abd El Fattah, court-martialed and imprisoned by Egypt's new military rulers for refusing to accept their legitimacy. He has been in jail for thirty six days now.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Last week I was choking, suffocating in endless tear gas as we battled the Egyptian police. I was carrying bleeding bodies to field hospitals. I was running between filming burning buildings, uploading videos to YouTube and constant interviews with foreign news agencies.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Ten days ago I was trapped in a doorway in Bab el Louk; soldiers had taken control of the embattled streets. With their shotguns, they slowly approached the doorway where we were hiding, metre by metre. I didn’t know how many; I could only hear the clicks of the reload as they got closer. And closer. We waited for them to turn the corner, to fire. </div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">I was convinced I was filming my final moments of life. </div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Three guns came round the corner and the girl I was with took a decision - she raised her head and voice from behind my body, loudly, clearly - <i>there's a girl here, there's a girl here, there's a girl here, let us out, please, let us out, let us out. </i>Her quick thinking kept us alive.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">How could I go home to a production budget? To casting?</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">I am constantly on the verge of tears.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">How can film-makers, whose craft is so slow, so expensive, so made with its eye on the future, operate through these revolutionary nights?</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">How, when the days used to be stretched long by defeat, did anyone ever begin such labours before them?</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Where once we had time now we have energy.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Where once we were few now we are many.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Everyone now is a film-maker. Our revolutions must be among the most recorded events of all time. The gap between the classical, expensive production process and the disposability of daily life is being ever more tightly bridged. Every mobile phone now has the power to challenge, to become the narrative. This disruptive decentralisation of the news, the occasional eruption of civilian participation, has happened many times before. The most famous is the Zapruder film, without which there would be very little fuel for debate about the manner of JFK's death. But now it is not the occasional blip, it is civilians and civil institutions that, time and again, are capturing the moments that are shaping the narrative. They are there for that fleeting moment of sadism that lays bare the ungraspable violence of years of state systems in an instant.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The tortured, lifeless bodies of Khalid Said and Hamza al Khatib; the young Cairene who stood up and stopped a water cannon; the Alexandrian killed as he opened his jacket to reveal his weaponless body; Neda Agha Soltan's dying moments; Gaddafi's capture. The news crews are not there. The people making the news are.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Jean Charles De Menezes. Sean Bell. Marc Duggan. The unrecorded. How the change in the world could burn brighter.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">*********</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
December 6th<br />
<br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">I am home from the hospital where Manal, Alaa's wife, has given birth to the newest member of our family. His father, five miles away, in the same jail that houses the Mubarak sons, has not yet seen him.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">I film a little then start to cut a youtube video. Footage from yesterday at the court, Alaa handcuffed to a policeman, standing with us for five minutes before being taken back to the police truck. Cuts to today at the hospital, the new baby being stroked and adored by his aunts, his mother. I doubt it will get to 5,000 views but it feels important, necessary.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">We talk about whether there's any building outside the prison that Alaa can see, whether we can project a home movie onto it.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dFFTtLFpPb8" width="640"></iframe></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The question of how traditional film-makers fit into this new video landscape will be what defines the future of Arab cinema and beyond. How can the new mobile-phone pixel rate of reality be worked into the 'cinematic'? Can cinema shift from formulaic narrative and its fetish for fantasy towards something that actually represents life, does justice to life?</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">I am privileged to be working with a new collective of young film-makers in Cairo. Each dedicated to making their camera count. We call ourselves <a href="http://www.mosireen.org/" target="_blank">Mosireen</a>, or We Are Determined. We work fluidly and interchangeably and with increasing efficiency and remarkably little ego.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Four days ago we finished a film on the martyrs of the Egyptian revolution. The film ends with a scrolling list of all the names of the dead. It is the first time they have been gathered and listed together. Three columns of names run across the screen for over two minutes. It is heartbreaking. We screened it on a makeshift cinema that we erect in Tahrir whenever we can.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">And when the moment comes that gives us both energy and time, we can begin to think again about longer, more detailed films. Films that would traditionally be classed as cinema.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">But since our reality is so changed, so must our films be. Cinema is more tied to reality than any other art form. Even Avatar needed a basis of reality to record. And yet the push from the mainstream has always been towards the unreal. Hollywood produces nothing except franchise and fantasy, growing more craven and repetitive each year. In the Arab world, industrial cinema has consisted of romantic comedies and schlocky thrillers for thirty years, each more removed from the urgencies of reality than the last. People, for now, are still paying for tickets, but we have to believe they are growing tired. Tired of being told that their reality is unimportant, that their partners are ugly, that their lives are uninteresting and their emotions pedestrian. Most of the world's population have never seen anything close to their reality represented on screen.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">In America et al people are shifting to television. In the Arab world we have nowhere to go. The horrors of television production make a trip to the cinema feel like a night at the opera.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">So we must take it as an opportunity. There is a moment now, a possibility, not just to reinvigorate our wretched film industries, but to revolutionise the way we construct moving-image narratives. And maybe to lead the world into the new.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The traditional division between cinema and documentary shows very clearly that cinema is built upon the re-creation of reality, rather than the capturing of it. It must then be true that the more reality you have to deal with, the harder it is to recreate it cinematically. The more crowd scenes and gunfights there are in your reality, the more time and resources you then need to "make the movie".</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">And the inverse, Americans and American society are probably the most divorced from reality, the most existent in a media-fed self-consciousness. Hollywood has harmonised the ideologies of romanticised militarisation, of the pointlessness of civic or personal engagement and the primacy of the individual's sensitivities and narratives into an endless stream of summer blockbusters and grosses equivalent to national debts. And in the constant framing of the boy-done-good, the worker-turned-hero, the wife-turned-renewed-object-of-sexual-desire an unattainable and basically undesirable society is constantly being re-packaged and sold back to an increasingly disenfranchised audience as being about them.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">We are lucky then, that the media manipulation we’re fighting in Egypt is so heavy-handed, so divorced from reality, that the battle is over the sheer volume of the media message, rather than decades of emotional manipulation of a national idea of identity.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Our governments in the Arab world still rely heavily on the police, on physical violence as their primary method of population control. And in the violent cycle of these days, each beaten body, each blinded eye is a spark that might just pull a million people on to the streets. Every camera, every phone, every civilian now has the power to change the future.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Which means, of course, that those of us working in the movies have an opportunity. There is so much room for improvement, so little competition, so few institutional frameworks to dismantle, that we have everything to play for. As we are imagining a new, fairer, world, so we must imagine a new, fairer cinema; not one that would come at the expense of story or entertainment, but one that shuns the primacy of the individual. One that moves away from the shot-reverse-shot formulae that soak the imagination out of the frame. One that isn't afraid to try and capture reality rather than permanently worrying about financing the recreating of it.</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">**************</div></div></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-46503841004230905172011-12-01T22:33:00.000+02:002011-12-01T22:33:37.471+02:00المجد للشهداء - جمعة رد الإعتبار - Martyrs of the Egyptian Revolution<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Really important new film from the Mosireen collective: the martyrs of the Egyptian Revolution.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/47IPxAnDdtg" width="640"></iframe></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-41432772456628180372011-11-29T12:56:00.000+02:002011-11-29T12:56:07.565+02:00Election Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">I have changed my mind and decided to vote. I'm not happy about it, I think the elections are a sham, but since I stated publicly on Al Jazeera that I wasn't going to vote, I feel I have to put my thoughts down for the record. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">There are three main reasons:</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">1. The elections have been designed as a weapon against us. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">They have been designed to give SCAF supporters and the MB as big a slice of parliament as possible. For a long time I wasn't convinced that the MB and SCAF were co-ordinating. But having seen them build the wall to contain the revolution last Thursday I finally accepted it. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The hierarchical, patriarchal, nationalist-but-self-interested nature of the two organisations makes them perfect partners. It was the Military's dependence on American aid and America's supposed trepidation about Islamist parties that gave cause for doubt. Friends of SCAF Generals would anecdotally report that they had received direct instructions from Washington not to allow the MB to take more than 30% of parliament. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">We'll see how things turn out, but it certainly seems now that the power triangle of the Military, the MB and SCAF may have found a balance that satisfies all of them. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">And so, if by voting, I have a 0.0001% chance of disrupting their goals for parliament, and by not voting I clearly have a 0% chance, then I will take the 0.0001% and vote.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">2. Voting is not a vote on SCAF's legitimacy</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I think that what we saw on Tuesday and Friday, on those two millioneyas, was a public declaration of SCAF's illegitimacy. There was no hesitation about the chants - everyone was unified in calling for an end to military rule and for the removal of the Field Marshall. Now that same declaration is being made through voting, that same resistance to the designs of those who have been preparing for these days is being shown. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">3. Voting and Tahrir are not mutually exclusive</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">This is the most important point of the three, and I think those of us in Tahrir need to make sure that people who aren't in the Square every day do not feel alienated from Tahrir, or less revolutionary for having voted. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">No one is expecting voting to achieve the aims of the revolution. I don't think anyone even wants to vote. The elections are a sham. But they are one of the battles that are being forced on us so I think we should engage.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The revolution will rise or fall on how widespread it is. Tahrir was most effective when it was the physical representation of a national will; when the country was shut down because of it and the wave of union actions behind it. It can be that again, but we have to make sure it keeps feeling like everyone's home.</div></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-7067686191306322272011-11-27T22:35:00.000+02:002011-11-27T22:35:11.761+02:00The Death of Ahmed Sorour<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Yesterday, at 7.30am, seven Central Security Forces trucks pulled up at the entrance to Parliament St. The latest part of the administrative centre of Cairo to be occupied by revolutionaries.<br />
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As they arrived everyone quickly sprung from under their blankets and ran to stand in the road in front of them, chanting at them, waving them away.<br />
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After a few minutes of uncertainty, the trucks began to turn, slowly, to head away.<br />
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The seven trucks chaotically U-Turned, gently bumping into each other as they went.<br />
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They turned the corner and drove away. We had won, they had been driven away. Then, one minute later, a group of men are running towards us carrying a body on their shoulders. The 19 year old body of Ahmed al Sayed Sorour.<br />
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When I saw him his lower half was covered in blood and he was unconscious. Later, we would re-trace the little puddles to find the spot he was injured in.<br />
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He was raced to an ambulance in Tahrir and taken to hospital. Two hours later it was confirmed that he had died.<br />
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Vlogger and activist <a href="http://www.twitter.com/sarrahsworld" target="_blank">@sarrahsworld</a> was with his family at the hospital and then the morgue. She reported that the coroner announced he had died of a 'shattered pelvis.' <br />
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State TV / SCAF began broadcasting their version of events from around 9am, stating that the trucks had taken a wrong turn and, in their panicked retread, had run Surour over, and he had died of a shattered pelvis.<br />
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This is being pushed as the narrative, but based on what I saw on the day and research done since, I believe it is a lie.<br />
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There are two main component to the State narrative:<br />
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<b>1. The trucks had taken a wrong turn.</b><br />
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Apart from the clear absurdity of this statement, which implies that several units of the police were unaware that there was a revolution going on in the centre of Cairo, we can see from the video below that seven trucks arrived and parked simultaneously. And they arrived in rows of two which, for trucks in transit, is irregular.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Mej6yRCCs00" width="640"></iframe></div><br />
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<b>2. Ahmed Surour was killed by being run over</b><br />
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There are several reasons to believe this is untrue:<br />
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- The trucks are not moving very quickly at all. Though it was chaotic it hardly seems chaotic enough for an able-bodied young man to be run over.<br />
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- The nature of the wound does not look like it resulted from impact with a vehicle. Look at this still image from the video. It clearly looks like a single bullet hole to his lower back.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ZdhblzyVrvWZ66EUXZSGHcAgOk3MyJmy_nifTug-qRhxo9Zh3DpjG7RFaEhhGHVVpvgAmnRmzahctg8efDXr04cYA-WMQkMuT67bT87cillJYQUniQcQjb4yy4_95Hw5nV0dlZxAWbL6/s1600/Ahmed+Surour+Bullet+Wound.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ZdhblzyVrvWZ66EUXZSGHcAgOk3MyJmy_nifTug-qRhxo9Zh3DpjG7RFaEhhGHVVpvgAmnRmzahctg8efDXr04cYA-WMQkMuT67bT87cillJYQUniQcQjb4yy4_95Hw5nV0dlZxAWbL6/s1600/Ahmed+Surour+Bullet+Wound.png" /></a></div><br />
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- The cause of death at the morgue was stated to be a "shattered pelvis," which made room for SCAF to declare he was run over. But, according to the actor, Khalid Abdalla, a bullet to the pelvis can cause massive shattering of the bone, leading to a fatal internal haemorrhage. He knows this through conversations with an American sniper, who was working as a technical advisor on his last film <i>Green Zone</i>. The sniper told him that they are, in fact, trained to aim for the pelvis with their first shot because it is lethal shot, though it doesn't appear so at first. Then, when people gather around the victim to find out what has happened, they are picked off one by one with head shots.<br />
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I am not implying that he was killed by a sniper, but this piece of information tells us that it is possible to die from one bullet wound to the lower back. Which leads me to believe that SCAF are lying about Sorour's cause of death and that he was shot by a policeman.<br />
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</div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-80217297516173297332011-11-25T18:35:00.014+02:002011-12-14T16:42:43.616+02:00When Tahrir is in Action, Tahrir is Democarcy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This comment piece first appeared in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/25/tahrir-square-democracy-egypt" target="_blank">the Guardian</a> on Friday November 25th.</i><br />
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<i><div style="display: inline !important; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="display: inline !important; text-align: justify;"><i><div style="display: inline !important; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="display: inline !important; text-align: justify;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<i><div style="display: inline !important; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="display: inline !important; text-align: justify;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i></i></span></div><i><div style="display: inline !important; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="display: inline !important; text-align: justify;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For five days a battle has raged across downtown Cairo between the Central Security Forces (CSF) and unarmed protestors. At least forty people are dead. Thousands are injured. There are seven field hospitals and hundreds of doctors at work in Tahrir Square. </span></div></div></div></i></div></div></i></div><br />
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<i><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It has centred on Mohamed Mahmoud St., the road leading from Tahrir Square in the direction of the hated Ministry of the Interior, whose jurisdiction the police forces fall under. For 110 hours revolutionaries and the CSF have fought for its control. The revolutionaries aiming for the Ministry. The CSF aiming for Tahrir. The revolutionaries armed with rocks ripped up from the pavements. The CSF armed with shotguns, rifles and CS gas </span><a href="http://treehugginghoolah.blogspot.com/2011/11/tahrir-ammo.html" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">acquired from around the world</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. I have seen shotgun shells and bullet casings from Italy, China, USA, Libya and the Czech Republic; tear gas canisters from </span><a href="http://www.less-lethal.com/" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">CTS in Pennsylvania</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> and </span><a href="http://twitpic.com/7ihofj" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Chemring</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> in </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:EGcvoytcStwJ:www.chemringdefence.com/Download.aspx%3FResourceId%3D8849+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShv0b-JFdM3re4NTEzCu2IDzVpWLwY7WKup6gnvnuDRE_VwtFpYgGKSsZpEq8-0riOmZWnBBomgsIU5hM_I1Lt0zp9ImeTkbywOAtCg5ygjiq1CrrtMjoqVSk1LYgIwuz1ASMdH&sig=AHIEtbSylavvZi41cN1JtyfI2x9Jl_-jIw" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Hampshire</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. And their supply is seemingly unlimited. Egypt bought </span><a href="http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/reports/documents/rpt655_FY09.pdf" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">32,000</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> units of tear gas from the US in 2009 alone.</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">At least three people have died from asphyxia.</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This violence has sparked part two of our revolution, and the pressure on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to step aside to democracy is intense. For every body carried away from the front line to the field hospital, another twenty arrive the next day. Monday's proposed elections have lost any glimmer of legitimacy they had. While Tahrir is in action, Tahrir is democracy. </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But there are key parties with a deep investment in these elections: SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood. And yesterday they set about working to strangle our renewed revolutionary vigour. </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Though the Brotherhood have repeatedly declared themselves to be part of the Revolutionary forces, they explicitly refused to join this renewed wave of protest when the call went out for a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">millioneyya (</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">million-person protest) on Tuesday. And when the Square pulsed with Mubarak-level numbers they were left looking irrelevant, self-interested and disconnected from the will of the people. </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So yesterday the Army and the Brotherhood joined forces to build a wall across the battle lines. The Army enforced a ceasefire, moved in with a bulldozer, a crane and cement blocks. The Brotherhood dispatched dozens of mid-level members and sheikhs from al-Azhar to cheer them on and push people - against their will - away and into the square. When it became clear that violence wasn't scaring people away, that it was only emboldening them, they decided it had to end. </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2-gkVdk2gQc" width="640"></iframe></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The elections must go on. </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So now there is a Wall. For the second time since taking charge, SCAF have taken their cue from our neighbour to the East. This is how they end violence. Not by controlling the police. Not by listening to people's demands. Not by stepping aside to democracy. But by trying to strangle their will. For as much as this Revolution believes in peace, it hates the police. The police who beat people to death on the streets, the police who fire shotguns into crowds of civilians, the police who torture people before asking them a single question. </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But this fake peace will not be enough. The Army and the Brotherhood continue to think simplistically. When they find violence wont keep people away, they try peace instead. They think that if we stop seeing people's bloodied bodies on television people will go back to being herded towards these elections. </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But, as usual, they are wrong. Today is going to be huge. There will be tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people out across the country unified, once again, in their demands. For the SCAF to step down, for a civilian transitional council to take full legislative power to take us to real elections and for us to begin to live in the freedom that over 1,000 people have died fighting for. </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div></i></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054655517021154854.post-9073516564734846462011-10-31T02:24:00.001+02:002011-10-31T02:54:03.827+02:00Free Alaa<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i>My cousin, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/alaa">Alaa Abd El Fattah</a> was sent to jail by a military court today. This is a statement we released.</i><br />
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<div class="p1">We, the Campaign to End Military Trials of Civilians, condemn in the strongest possible terms the imprisonment of prominent Egyptian activist and blogger, Alaa Abd el Fattah and the unjust and illegal system of military tribunals implemented by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) since becoming rulers of Egypt on January the 28th, 2011.</div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">Today Alaa Abd El Fattah was summoned to the Military Prosecutor's office, accused of assaulting military personnel, stealing military weaponry and inciting violence against the military. On questioning, Abd El Fattah declined to answer the prosecutor’s questions, stating that it is illegal and a clear conflict of interest for the military, as a party accused of a crime, to hold proceedings or adjudicate fairly. He was sent to detention pending further military investigation. </div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">As of today we refuse to co-operate with the military prosecution of civilians and we call on all Egyptian citizens to stand with us. </div><div class="p3"><br />
</div><div class="p1">At least 12,000 Egyptian civilians have been subjected to summary, covert military trials. The accused are often denied counsel, the opportunity to review evidence or examine witnesses; there are limited avenues of appeal. Eighteen death sentences have been handed down so far. </div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">Abd El Fattah's targeting is only the latest example of the systematic targeting of journalists, media figures, bloggers and activists by SCAF. </div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">Abd El Fattah is being held responsible for violence on October 9th, the night when the Army killed at least 28 peaceful protesters and injured several hundred more. Several respected human rights organisation have attested to this. </div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">Furthermore, it is perverse that Mina Daniel is listed as the first name on the Military Prosecutor's list of the accused. Mina Daniel was killed by military gunfire on October 9th. </div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">Abd El Fattah is now being held for fifteen days in prison - which can be renewed indefinitely - by a body which has no legal authority to do so. Twenty eight more are in jail. Mina Daniel paid with his life. </div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">We demand that Alaa Abd El Fattah be freed immediately, that military trials of civilians be stopped and all those sentenced thus far be released or at least retried before civilian courts. We support all of those who similarly refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the military prosecution. </div><div class="p2"><br />
</div><div class="p1">This is not the new Egypt we have fought and died for.</div></div>Omar Robert Hamiltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02838488853744322283noreply@blogger.com0