A Different Drummer

So I haven't been very bloggy for the last week - its been busy busy busyness!

So in short:

I've moved house again! Living with a Moroccan again, this time a guy though. Surely I am the only person in the world who has consecutively shared houses with 2 different former National Presidents of AIESEC in Morocco - if anyone wants to challenge me on this unique world record, the comments are all yours.

I just spent a weekend in Alexandria that completely reaffirmed my belief in all that is good in the world. Perfect. Ahh, Alexandria. We spent a memorable sunset on the corniche looking our across the ocean - the one good thing about Ramadan time is that because everyone, and I mean everyone, rushes to be home by 5:15 to eat their big evening Iftar, the streets are completely empty at sunset time, and traffic is almost non-existent. It is one of the only times you will ever be able to hear yourself think, and it is spooky. Egypt and noise are almost inseperable, the drone of car horns and yelling and microbus engines is as constant as life itself. To be sitting on the Alexandria corniche in perfect silence, able to hear birds chirp and the waves roll against the sea wall, was fantastic.

What made it even cooler was that we were sitting beside the new Alexandria library, the Bibliotheca Alexandria. Obviously the old Alexandria library was in its time one of the main centres of knowledge and learning in the world, and the new library is yet to compete for that title. But, full credit where its due, the Alexandrians have built themselves a damn fine looking building:



It rises out of the earth like a primordial wedge, a giant discus that was hurled by the gods and skewed into the ground at an angle. Even better, although you cant see it in the picture, is that the entire outer wall of the building is covered in giant engravings of words and letters, written in all the known languages and scripts on Earth. It looks a bit out of place on the otherwise dusty and dilapedated corniche. But I think that is part of the fun of it all.


Sehour - now this is a concept the rest of the world needs to adopt. Basically, it is a legitimised midnight snack, but done in style, and at 2am. In Ramadan most people change their time cycles in order to minimise the time spent actually fasting. So people sleep in until 10-11am, go to work, work for maybe 5 hours maximum, leave the office by 3pm, get home and sleep until Iftar (dinner) time at 5:30, have a giant Iftar meal, and then sleep or laze about again for another hour or two. Those who work in competitive private sector jobs often then go back to work at 8-9pm for a couple of hours of evening work, those who work in the government or in any typical Egyptian low-productivity industry job laze about watching the special "made for Ramadan" TV miniseries that are all over the TV channels.

So after a few hours of work/lazing around, by about 1:30-2am, its time for Sehour! Which is like breakfast, but at 2am. Typical sehour would be flat bread, fuul (stewed beans, taste much better than they sound), taamiya (felafel), white soft cheese, and maybe a boiled egg. A more decadent Sehour (for rich people) would have things like Shawerma, Fiteer (like an Egyptian pizza) and lots of delicious sweet pastries (most along the "baklava" theme of thin crispy pastry soaked with honey and sprinkled with nuts).

The coolest thing about Sehour is the ambience - going out at 2am onto crowded but slightly subdued streets, eating in a big cafe thats full of people so late at night....it is a bit quieter than normal Cairo madness (a bit...) and the moon is full in the sky. And you are ordering a meal. At 2am. It feels kind of naughty and wrong, but everyone is doing it, so all is ok.

It is also a really effective method for fasting. If you go to bed with some food in your stomach, you wake up feeling relatively OK, and it delays the hunger pains until 2-3pm, by which time the end is near and you can start licking your lips and dreaming of Iftar. Iftar is by far the most debaucherous moment in the Egyptian culinary calendar - there is even a system to maximise the hedonistic eating potential. Instead of just stuffing your face at exactly 5:30 pm, you take it slow. Start with a dried date, maybe a couple of cashew nuts, and a glass of apricot juice or karkadey (hibiscus flower drink). Slowly, slowly, move on tearing up a piece of flat bread and dunking it in hummous, tehina or maybe baba ghanoug (eggplant dip, pure heaven). You see, if you just dig into a big plate or food right away, you feel stuffed after ten minutes (something about your stomach shrinking during the day the Egyptians tell me). But if you take things slow, and measured, Iftar can be a good solid hour of well paced evenly balanced victory-eating.

So I have been fasting for nearly two weeks now - and to be honest its not really that difficult. Just imagine waking up and going to work with no breakfast (something most people do quite often anyhow), then forgetting to have lunch as well, then going home and having dinner at 5:30. Yeah, you would be really hungry, but it is managable. What is difficult is the water. Not drinking water for a whole day sucks. But hey, if it is Allah's will then who am I to criticise.

Do people just see this kind of thing happening and think "yeah, nothing unusual?":

"President George Bush turned his Marine One helicopter into a campaign prop, using it to drop in on crowds at three stadiums around Florida...............

He landed at the ballparks to the strains of the Top Gun theme, his most dramatic use of a military asset since he landed in a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier 17 months ago to declare the end of the war in Iraq."
(my bolding)

Is it just me or is the idea of a political candidate landing at an event in a military helicopter with the Top Gun soundtrack playing just amazingly bizarre and weird? Are Americans so different to me that this is just normal campaign theatrics? I like my politians civilian and lame, not militaristic and campy-macho (Top Gun? Seriously? At least he could have chosen something imposing and old skooling like "Flight of the Valkyries" or "O Fortuna").

From the experience of history, politicians who start wearing military uniforms is a bad, bad idea.

Hunter S. Thompson, greatest living writer in the English language, has resurfaced in Rolling Stone magazine this month, with a great article on the upcoming US elections. As you can imagine, he isn't a big Bush supporter - and the vivid, primal feeling of his writing is still as strong as ever. I seriously wish I could write things like this:

"Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from. Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.

Houston is also the unnatural home of two out of the last three presidents of the United States of America, for good or ill. The other one was a handsome, sex-crazed boy from next-door Arkansas, which has no laws against oral sex or any other deviant practice not specifically forbidden in the New Testament..........."

Read the whole thing, its golden.

So, what to McDonalds, Ford, Coca-Cola, News Corporation, Phillip Morris, The World Bank, Pizza Hut and Sillicon Graphics all have in common?

Apart from all being among the most influential organisations in the world, that is?

They are all run by Australians. Every last one of them, and many many more. Check out the whole list of Aussies doing very well for themselves all around the world, put together by Crikey.com.au, another example of Aussie brilliance - and publisher of my first, and only, piece of writing.

After all, if you know how to get into a good old fashioned session of Googling, you can't be all beard and Kalashnikov:

"An Australian journalist kidnapped in Iraq was freed after his captors checked the popular internet search engine Google to confirm his identity. "

Yet another example of the all-pervasive universal awesomeness of Google - is now the time to acknowledge Google as the best internet development ever?

Mazzy is suffering from the great existential dilemma of the AIESEC'er turned office worker:

"I do not want the feeling that I am going to a 'job'.I want the feeling that I am contributing to something higher and see the bigger picture of what I do"

And Mazzy works in a university, in Canada, in the HR/Personal development section. Jaysyus. Freaking self-fulfillment hippy lovefest central. Imagine what she'll be like if she gets stuck in the marketing department of Cadbury Schweppes in Brisbane or something.

Overall, fasting isn't as difficult as I expected, although you do get fairly hungry by the end of the day. The hardest thing, for me at least, is not drinking anything, and specifically, not drinking water in the morning. I don't know if its just me, but my wake up ritual is usually to either go to the bathroom, or go get a glass or water. For sure I will do both of these things, it is just a question of which first. Normally I have a dry mouth when I wake up, at least I feel that way until I drink some water and start to wake up.

So this is the difficult time for me. In fact, my only breaking of the Ramadan fasting so far has been on Saturday morning, when I woke up and practically sleepwalked into the kitchen for some water. It was so automatic and subconcious that I barely realised I was doing it. Anyhow, according to Aly, as long as it was an accident, it is OK.

A lot of fireworks go off throughout the night. It reminds me of Dublin, where firecrackers were getting let off a lot in the lead up to halloween. I think that will be the first and last similarity between Cairo and Dublin that you will ever see me write.

As for the seach for God - no luck yet. I was thinking last night, what is more likely, the existence of God, or the existence of other forms of intelliegent life in the universe? Easy, intelligent life. OK then what about - what is more likely, the existence of God, or the invention of Time Travel. Hmmm more difficult. I decided to put the two at about even.

So from there, the debate in my head turned to this - its not really about the existence of God then - its about the possibility of spectacularly unlikely things to actually happen or exist. Like always, its a leap of faith to believe in them. But are the leaps equivelant? And are they in the same direction?

If the mainstream media isnt satisfying you need for information on the upcoming US elections, then make sure you check out The Onion 2004 Election Guide. Funniest stuff I have read in a long time.

I'm kicking Ramadans ass by the way - fasting rules.

Thea has written up a much better explanation of Ramadan than I did. Thats because, well, she is much smarter than me.

It takes an online nation of millions to nail geek details this hard.

Check out the answers to Gizmodo's quiz challenge - the questions themselves are masterpieces in obscurity, the answers a like small moments of geeky online Zen. My favourite was the answer to question 5:

"5. Name the spoof band whose album appeared in the same movie as the singer whose 1995 album included a song named after a reanimated corpse?

Autobahn. Aimee Mann appeared in the movie The Big Lebowski (as the female nihilist minus a pinky toe). Her 1995 album "I'm With Stupid" included the song "Frankenstein".........

....Amusingly, though, there was an additional correct answer that we did not know about: Crucial Taunt, a spoof band in the movie Wayne's World, which also happened to feature Alice Cooper, whose 1995 greatest hits compilation "Classicks" featured his song 'Feed My Frankenstein'."

I'm just amazed that the Nihilist girl in The Big Lebowski was Aimee Mann, whose hauntingly beautiful songs made the perfect soundtrack to another Coen brothers masterpiece, Magnolia.

"Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos. "

Oh, no. This is bad. Once I get locked into a serious Big Lebowski quoting session, it is hard to get out of. For those who want to reminisce, here is a useful page of quotes.

So tomorrow it begins - one month of fasting, prayer, spiritiual purification and getting closer to god. From sunrise tomorrow, Ramadan kicks in. Readers of An Irish Experience may remember my great "Punishment Deprivation Month", which I managed to get through almost entirely, so I have some experience in this stuff.

I'll be trying to get the whole Ramadan experience - so obviously I'll be fasting. But a big part of Ramadan is also the spiritual fast - the idea of mental purification that comes by focussing your mind on pure thoughts and thinking intensely about your knowledge of self and God. So I'll also be trying to use to clear headedness that comes with both mental and physical fasting to answer a question that I have been pondering ever since arriving in Egypt - do I have a God?

I'm fairly sure that in the Monotheistic sense of the word, I dont. I think that believing in an all powerful God is not a good idea - in fact I am semi hostile to the idea, because I think it is the counter productive to the idea of free choice and personal responsibility. But maybe that is just because I have never really thought about it very much, let alone had any personal connection or spiritual bond with religion. So in this sense, at least my Ramadan soul searching will give me the chance to think about it.

According to all the Egyptians I know, Ramadan is one of the most special times of the year here. It actually has a similar feel to Christmas in some ways - decorations getting put up all over the place, lots of eating (after dark), family time, a source childhood memories - although the religious content is a lot higher than the Christmas most of us are used to. And a lot of toy/novelty electric lanterns are on sale in the street. A lot.

I can't wait for the experience. Next week we have our big national conference for the year, 120 people, sessions all day, everyone fasting and praying etc all throughout. Should certainly be a different experience to the usual AIESEC conference.

Dody, the AIESEC Blogfather, just ran a marathon. I think along with having a baby, getting engaged, and buying your first house, running a marathon is the kind of thing that merits a sort of gentlemanly hat tip. Congratulations Dody. Of course, he's blogged the whole story, so check it out, and light him an electronic celebratory cigar.

"16-19 miles was the make or break miles for me. There were so many times in those miles where I was tempted to stop running and walk. Your mind started to play tricks on you, c'mon, stop running and the pain will go away. 16 was the miles where I put on my mp3 player and started blasting “thunder road“ through the earpieces."

Oh, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, Hosni Muburak has renewed his calls for an international conference on terrorism. It still isn't being taken seriously by many, especially those on the right wing who will do any anything to avoid talking about the current situation in Isreal, because he still seems keen to use the conference to try and legitimise the Palestinian uprising and remove it from the context of international terrorism:

"Mubarak envisioned a conference that would study the causes of terrorism and help make a distinction between "the efforts of people seeking their legitimate rights and attempts by a few deviant elements to impose their violent views on the world"

Its probably true that there is a world of difference between Palestinians attacking soldiers and armed settlers within Palestinian territory, and people blowing up nightlubs in Indonesia - but Muburak should know that he isnt going to get anywhere internationally with a proposal like that. Lets hope he drops this line and pushes ahead, and maybe Egypt taking a serious role in the international war against terrorism could be a turning point for true multilateral efforts, especially in the Middle East.

Nothing substantial to write here, but a few things that I think we should all be aware of:

First, the decline of western civilisation is continuing at an admirable pace:

"A new Halloween costume for kids is so controversial that some stores in Kentuckiana refuse to sell it, but others have no problem selling the pimp and prostitute outfits.......'there was some discussion about whether we should carry it, but when so many people ask for it, we kind of have to do what the customer is asking for'........

Obviously, not everyone agrees. "It's definitely a big change from the angels and kitty cats that we were when I was a kid," Testermen says."

Indeed. On a more genuinely informative note, two of the smartest thinkers around, Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens, did a great interview together on Iraq, terrorism, the US elections, Religion, Secularism and everything in between. Check out the transcript to see them absolutely go to town on all the big issues.

And finally, back to the really vital News That Matters, this website is now the Number 1 search return in Google for "shawerma". Probably because the conventional spelling of Shawerma appears to be with an "a" instead of an "e" at the end. But regardless, for all the dyslexic hungry people stumbling across this page, welcome to my awful world.

Australian Prime Minister elect John Howard, commenting on the possibility that his government will control both houses of parliament, thus being able to legislate, well, anything he frigging well wants:

"We're not going to allow this to go to our head, we're not going to start proposing things that are disruptive, (but we) ... will press ahead very strongly with things that we've believed in for a long time," he said."

He said this while stroking a black cat in his high backed swivel chair, soon after ordering completion of his newly designed Weather Machine. If interest rates stay low, the Earth Orbiting missile base, known affectionately as his "death star" should go operational by 2006.

Randomly came across this famous Australian story today when reading another article. Anyone not Australian should read this story immediately, same for Australians not familiar with the tale.

Australian cricket hero David Boon set a record on the 1989 Australian tour of England. But the record was set on the plane on the way there, and it was the hotly contested and much respected record of the most cans of beer to be drunk on the Sydney-London flight.

Aussies familiar with this might enjoy the article too - has some hilarious insights into how "co-operative" the Qantas airline staff were with the successful record breaking attempt.

".....not long into the flight, the Qantas staff advised us that they’d been keeping count, and Boonie was well on target......then the captain of the plane got on to the PA system and congratulated Boonie on his fantastic effort of breaking the record.”

Read the whole thing - the kind of heroism my wonderful country is built on.

Long, long reflection on the Aussie election ahead. Skip if you are not interested.

Although it was overshadowed for me by the explody'ness in Egypt, there federal election just held in Australia is interesting and somewhat depressing news. In short, for those who don't follow Australian politics, the conservative Australian coalition government was returned to power, with a considerable swing toward their candidates.

I'm not that depressed that the opposition party lost - it really makes little difference in Australia who is in government - we have had 30 years of pretty amazing national growth and development whether progressives or conservatives are in power. And on the big issues, both parties are fairly close to identical (the effect of Thomas Friedman's so called "golden straightjacket" I'd say).

I just think its healthy to change government once in a while. Especially when it comes to conservative governments who start to embrace more and more odious "allies" to stay in power - in the case of the Australian government, this election was the beginning of the presence of a political religious right in Australia - which is awful news for a country with fantastically secuar tradition that I am very proud of.

This election also saw the government catering to the "lets make money from destroying Australia" vote, through the crucial end of campaign decision (bloody terrible decision) by the opposition leader to seriously cut old growth logging in some of Australia's most amazing pristine wilderness areas. The opposition went about this policv so incredibly wrong that it is not funny. With literally just days to go in the election, the opposition leader announced an $800 million dollar bribe....I mean "package" designed to "compensate" the Tasmanian logging community for the fact that he was putting them all out of business.

Proving once and for all that they are asshole opportunists who should never be trusted, Australian trade unions disgracefully came out with only days before the election announcing they could no longer support the (traditonally worker supported) opposition. Because they were taking away jobs from logging workers. Assholes. A few thousand asshole redneck loggers who make their livingabo destroying some of the most beautiful places in Australia being priority over thinking about a truly long term concept - that maybe, ummm, a world heritage standard, completely unique and beautiful environment is worth more in the long term than a few million tons of woodchips. Fucking, fucking, assholes.

But the blame rests with the opposition in the end. It was a poorly planned, cynical vote getting excercise, that played right into the hands of the conservative government who wanted to show a good example of a progressive party planning to destroy the economy, obstruct business, harm honest workers, pander to left wing greenies, and gernerally do all the things that conservatives love to identify progressives with.

Its not that this was the only issue in the election. But its just a micro-example of many cases where a more politically skilled government party managed to outflank a second rate opposition who actually had some good ideas for the country. The opposition's "Iraq" policy - getting out of Iraq and focussing our efforts on terrorist activity in South-East Asia, you know, like, where Australia actually IS, and where we have the best intelligence and historical ties, was actually a far better idea than just offering ultimately marginal support to wherever the US is working. But of course, this was spun by the government as another example of lefties wanting to "cut and run", chicken out of the war against terrorism and appease the people who want to attack us. Disgraceful when it comes to honesty and morality, but excellent, excellent politics.

Which is, ultimately, what this comes down to. Whether you love him or hate him, you really have to acknowledge that John Howard, leader of the current government, is one of the best politicians in Australian history. Maybe not the most visionary, or the most inspirational, or even the most honest. But he just has buckets and buckets of skills where it ultimately matters - getting people to vote for him, and winning elections.

Look at the record - in the last ten years, he has stomped all over 4 opposition party leaders - the first being Paul Keating, one of the best Australian leaders of all time. Since then, he has seen his way through three more opposition leaders, none ever being able to seriously challenge him when it counts. He has held together his party so well that at an elderly age, and with plenty of major mistakes and controversies behind him, there has never been a serious leadership challenge from within his party. He goes into a fourth 3 year term as Prime Minister with a formidable deputy, Peter Costello, who is now very experienced in government, one of the most active politicians in the country, a clear, clear candidate as the next Prime Minister, and aged only 49, making him quite young by most countries standards.

All in all, in my opinion, John Howard is a morally dubious, lying, opportunistic little man. But I admire him above most politicians for raw political talent, endurance, and a clear determination to never, ever lose. Australia could have worse. But I wish we could have better.

Media coverage of the bombings is all over the place with lots of different takes on the story but no one article bringing them all together. Egyptian media coverage has been incredibly average.

The Telegraph is leading with new information about the suspects of the bombing - apparently it might not be just car bombs after all:

"A female suicide bomber is believed to have taken part in the terrorist attack on the Red Sea hotel............"They said they were convinced she was a suicide bomber who had probably carried the explosives in a backpack."

The Jerusalem Post is spinning a similar line to my own initial reaction - that this could be a turning point for Egyptian anti-terrorism activity. Of course the Jerusalem post's take on this is "Attacks may have positive effects for Israel" (that is actualy the headline), but the change in Egyptian policy will be felt throughout the region:

"Frisch said he believes the attacks will bring Israel and Egypt closer together, and will serve as a catalyst to bringing the Egyptians into Gaza after disengagement, a role they considered soon after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed his disengagement plan, but which Egypt became much less enamored of as months wore on."

I heading out to Cairo University today, the biggest state university in Egypt (and the largest university in Africa and the Middle East). 200,000 students probably make it one of the biggest in the world. Its know to be a fairly "politically active" place at the best of times, so maybe I'll see some action worth reporting from out there.

On the Nuweiba bombings, which I mentioned earlier as being less analysed by media up to now, Debka seem to have a pretty amazing scoop that I have yet to see anyone else report. If this is true, then these attacks are an order of magnitude more significant than I said before:

"...exclusive sources reveal the bomb car was timed for the arrival of a group of 40 high-ranking Egyptian officials, most of them close friends of Gemal Mubarak, son and heir apparent of the Egyptian president. Twenty were hurt, some very seriously, and flown out by one of the two presidential planes sent over to remove them from danger without delay. Among them was the head of the ruling party’s economy committee, the director general of Egyptian airports and a son of a former deputy prime minister who is now a leading financial figure. That the terrorists had advance knowledge of this high-powered group’s private visit to the resort is a measure of their efficient and well-placed intelligence, not only in Sinai, but in Cairo too"

Jaysus. Oh, and the lockdown is beginning. Security has gone even tougher than normal, all over the place as far as I can see. Just as background here - Egypt, Cairo especially, is already a very "guarded" place - armed soldiers patrol everywhere, all day and night, and once you get near strategic or foreign interests, expect to see as many automatic weapons as you do cigarette stands and Coke vendors. So to actually step up security, from an already "stepped up" point of view, you can imagine, would be fairly difficult.

I live in one of the nicer, foreigner-heavy suburbs of Cairo, so we are used to seeing plenty of soldiers and checkpoints. But today, on my way back from the train station, my taxi, along with all other cars trying to enter the suburban area, was stopped at the roadblock - and the soldiers actually seemed to have a good look at the driver, me, and everything else in the car. Normally they are either half asleep, or smoking, or both, but never would they actually check the cars coming past. That would be way too much work.

Access to hotels, malls and other middle class and foreigner friendly places is , I hear from friends, really tightly controlled now, with checkpoints at all the entrances and exits, and big concrete barriers guarding against possible car bombings. I'd love to get some photos of this to show everyone but...umm...taking photos of Egyptian security arrangements the day after a massive terrorist attack might introduce me to a lump of lead at a far greater velocity than I usually prefer. No thank you.

A few friends who were traveling in Sinai over the weekend (nowhere near the attacks luckily) are stuck there - the military has completely locked down all entry and exit roads, and no-one can get out (although I'm sure a strategic phone call to an uncle who works in State Security or that father of your best friends fiancee who has connections in the military can probably help you out). But generally, unless the situation has changed in the last few hours, no-one can get into or out of Sinai without a long wait and a lot of scrutiny, and our friends have decided to stay for a couple more days (as good an excuse as any to explain to the boss why you are stuck in a dream like coastal paradise on Monday morning and won't be making it into work for a few days).

I haven't actually spent much time thinking about whether my perception of my own personal safety has changed because of this. I'm not too concerned as yet, for a few reasons:

1) Its one thing to bomb a resort town in the middle of the desert. Its another to even try to do this in a teeming, crowded, gridlocked, unpredictably complicated city like Cairo.
2) I don't tend to go anywhere near "tourist" places - most of my friends are Egyptian and its not like we dance the night away in the disco in the basement of the Cairo Sheraton
3) Strange as it sounds, I actually trust the Egyptian military presence in Cairo, at least their sheer numbers. I don't know what it is like in Taba, but here there is just too many soldiers (although how many of them are 1 dollar a week 18 year old conscripts who would most likely drop their guns and run at the sight of trouble is another thing)
4) Unless the terrorists are awesomely, jaw droppingly, penis-in-an-electrical-outlet stupid, they would know that bombing Cairo would be absolutely disastrous. The Taba bombing at least had the pretence of being tied in with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which Egyptians are passionate about), a bombing in Cairo could offer no such cover. Then again, terrorists have bombed other working class areas of major Arab population centres before, so who knows?

Overall, it is no time to panic yet for foreigners in Cairo. But watch this space and I'll keep you informed if there is.

So I may have got a few things wrong in my first post. Most importantly, the news reports on the Egyptian English language TV were quoting a "majority" of th victims to be Egyptian nationals - according to latest news reports it seems like of the 31 confirmed casualties the majority of the dead were Israelis. Expect the casualty number to go up, media here and abroad are still quoting up to 50 hotel guests "missing".

There is no doubt that this attack was targeting Israeli's - especially the bomb at Taba, which practically straddles the Israeli border. It seems to be similar to the Bali bombings in Indonesia - a primary target (Israeli's in this case, Aussies in Bali) followed by white people, followed by foreigners in general, with equally large numbers of locals in the carnage. These bombings will extract a far greater toll on the local population in the long run. If Israeli's stop going to Sinai, that is a massive, massive blow to Egyptian tourism and economy.

Reporting on the bombings is still pretty patchy. There is yet to be anything close to a definitive death/injury count, although it seems like at least 30 in Taba with over 100 injured there. There has been much less coverage of the other two bombings in Nuweiba, where car bombs appear to have struck a restaurant, and a camping ground. Fatalities and injuries there seem much lower but nothing definitive seems to have come out yet.

Apparently some local Bedouin have been arrested - they are workers from a nearby stone quarry so the specualtion is that they may have supplied the attackers with the explosives. Egypt isnt known for its friendly human rights record at the best of times, especially when it comes to prisoners, more so when it comes to "national security risk" types - so I can imagine that these poor bastards will be experiencing a creative new genital surgery technique involving a blowtorch and a pair of pliers unless they start talking.

The editorials in todays English language Egyptian newspapers were consistent in their attitude toward the attacks - that is is severely bad news for Egypt, that it is unlikely that is was local terrorists, that it has all the signs of an "Al-Queda style" attack (multiple targets, synchronised, car and truck bombs, attacking foreign interests etc). Israel is also strongly suggesting that the attack was Al-Queda organised, although the Egyptian govermnent is officially not saying anything.

The bombings have been overshadowed in a big way in both the US and Australia because of the elections - Australia's was today, and the second presidential debate was held in the US yesterday. Or today. Or tomorrow. The time differences are confusing me right now. But this is big, big Middle East news, and could have some major ramifications in the region.

Given how severely Egypt reacted to its home grown Islamic terrorists murdering tourists in the late nineties, you can imagine that the reaction to probably foreign backed Islamic terrorists killing tourists in the peak of tourist season in the terrorism-paranoid post September 11 world being equally, if not more, severe. Imagine all those college break kids in America with daddy's credit card and a bagful of cash looking to go on holiday - most "cautious Americans" would probably decide to head somewhere else. Hosni is not going to be pleased by all this.

Muburak has been consistently calling for a global conference on terrorism for quite some time now. He wants the international community to define exactly what terrorism is, and the rights of nation states in fighting it. This was presumably originally to try and define Israeli incursions into populated civillian areas as some form of terrorism, which was probably why hardly any countries seemed interested in showing up. Muburak is now renewing his calls for this confernce, and one can only imagine that his priorities will have changed markedly from trying to help his brothers the Palestinians (who have probably just played their part in screwing the Egyptian economy) to something more pragmatic and, lets be honest here, "friendly" to the ambitions of western countries.

Going off on a tangent here, but if this happens (an this is all amateur specualtion from a completely unqualified pundit), you really need to start assessing the current reality after the past 5 years of Islamic "uprising" around the world:

- Overthrow of two "friendly" governments, 10,000 plus Muslims killed in the process
- Complete loss of international support for Yasser Arafat
- Marginalisation of the Palestinian cause, massive loss of sympathy for Palestinian people
- Libya, another "friendly" government, wussing out and giving up the fight
- Muslims killed in organised terrorist bombings in Indonesia, Morocco, Phillipines, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and across Africa
and now....
- The "elder statesman" of the Arab world, Hosni Mubarak, forced to join the war against terrorism

Things aren't exactly looking up, are they?

Luckily I'm not one of them :)

Super lucky in fact considering that we were planning out spending the long weekend out in Sinai but changed our minds at the last minute.

I can't type for too long, but just to mention a few things:

- most media reports on the bombings are presenting them as being focussed on Israeli tourists. This underestimates how severe the casualties will be for Egyptian tourists - as this was the 6 October long weekend, pretty much every middle class travelling Egyptian went somewhere this weekend - Sinai being a particular favourite (see post below). Right now Egyptian television is saying 33 dead, majority Egyptians with 10+ Israelis. But take the opinion of Egyptian english language television with a grain of salt.

- This is incredibly bad news for Egypt. It will cause a significant, significant drop in tourist numbers. After Suez Canal revenues, tourism is Egypt's number 2 earner of foreign exchange dollars. This is bad.

- A gaggle of random fuck-face Islamist groups are claiming responsibility right now. One of them is going by the name of Jamiaah Islamiyah, which was the same name as the group who organised the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia. Although as I understand, Jemiaah Islamiah is Arabic for something like "soldiers of Islam" - which means it is probably a common name for these militant Islamic groups

- Egypt keeps an incredibly tight grip on home grown militant Islamic groups. The army is constantly mobilised all over the country, and the strict counter terrorism measures that have been in place since Sadat's assisination are still used to keep the boot firmly on anyone who seems Islamist and violent. This is going to present an obvious challenge to the Egyptian government. They can all but annihilate local terrorism, but this bombing clearly shows that Egypt, and the people and economy of Egypt, is not off limits to international Islamic terror networks. How Mubarak responds to this could be interesting.

- I wouldnt be surprised if in the coming weeks, the following happens: (1) Egypt is offered a ajor, major new US military aid package designed to fight terrorism (they already collect something around the $2 billion mark). (2) Egypt accepts the aid package (3) Egypt starts to play a much more co-operative role in the Israeli withdrawal of Gaza (it will practicaly become Egyptian territory after the withdrawal). (4) Egyptian personnel start heading to Iraq

I dont think internationally people are really understanding how much of a crisis this could lead to. This event could severely shag the economy of the most populous, miltarily powerful and influential Arab countries - and in doing so, it may have an interesting effect on the Egyptian political and social landscape. Maybe I'm saying too much here because I'm a little freaked out/shocked but for sure this is big, big news here, and in the region.

I will write more once I am back in Cairo. Jesus, what a way to screw the vibe of a nice long weekend on the coast.

Flic in China has made an interesting, and I think, dubious call:

"Eggplant. It's the new Peach."

Read the whole thing to see exactly how eggplant-centric Flic's life seems to be at the moment.

Tomorrow is a public holiday here in Egypt, and a very Arab one at that. It is "Armed Services Day", but popularly known as "6 October Day" (D'uh) - celebrating the great "victory" of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Egypt did indeed kick some thorough ass in the early days of the war, but once the Israeli's regained their balance (and started recieving massive ammunition shipments from abroad) they started to kick ass back, busting their way through Sinai and getting dangerously close to Cairo. Before anything seriously unpleasant could happen the UN got involved and organised a ceasefire.

So in Egypt it is considered a great national day. Indeed, it did shake of the humiliation and sense of outright defeat of the 1967 war, when Israel delivered about as great a whupping as anyone who isnt the French has ever recieved. It also lead to the regaining of Sinai, an incredibly important chunk of Egypt that is not only strategically important as a buffer against Israel, and a significant part of the backbone-of-the-economy Suez Canal - but also a great national treasure, home to amazing places like Mount Sinai (where Moses apparently recieved the Ten Commandments) and the tourist and diving paradises of Sharm El Sheikh and Dahhab. Israel caputed Sinai in the 1967 - if they kept this massive piece of land forever, the consequences for Egypt would have been disastrous (and the land mass of Israel would have at least doubled).

So yeah, it was a pretty important national victory. I'm just not big on celebrating wars as nationalist holidays, and as an Aussie, I prefer the humble dignity of celebrating a day when we got our asses truly and undeniably kicked (but kicked bravely and honourably) as a day of national rememberence. I'd rather glofify bravery and courage (which ultimately achieved very little) than celebrate the clenched fists and snarling glee of victory - seems a better way to discourage others from going down the same track.

Anyhow, I'm not Egyptian. But I am Australian, which means I need to vote, the the Federal Election coming up this Saturday. I don't want to get all political here (although its already started on the TagBoard on the right), but I'll be casting my vote at the Australian embassy in Cairo, and I won't be voting for these pyshcopaths:

"Spot Satan's strongholds in the areas you are living in -- brothels, gambling places, bottle shops, mosques, temples -- Freemason/Buddhist/Hindu etcetera, witchcraft," he said.

As I said to my parents on the phone just yesterday - theres one word here which really scares me. Fear of brothels, gambling, booze - OK thats just Christian bullshit. Mosques? A bit of anti-Muslim hysteria isnt exactly out of place in todays religious Right wing. Buddhism, Hinduism, etc - OK so you're big on Monotheism and you don't appreciate these damn pagans. "There is only one god", as your Muslim friends would say.

But when a modern political party urges is supporters to keep an eye out for Freemasons, you know kookiness abounts in overflowing buckets. Weird. Even scarier is that experts are saying they may actually have a significant influenece on the election.