More Ramblings on Faith

I think I've pinpointed what it is that I can't deal with about religion in America. The entire thing has just reached such a level of excess that it isn't even religion anymore; it's purely an institution. You have mission trips that are valued to the point that it's a borderline modern day plenary indulgence. Evangelicals have a high rate of divorce (for a bit of irony, the lowest divorce rate is among the college-educated elite they typically scorn). Its public face is one that pickets funerals of dead soldiers, despises intellectualism, and has lost sight of what Christianity is.

My problem is that people do what they do because it provides them with a sense of self-satisfaction, a sort of holier-than-thou feeling about their faith and themselves by proxy. This is where I find myself loving Niebuhr even more simply because he condemned this sort of behavior. Their charity work serves a practical good that ought to be valued, but to think this makes you any better or holier in God's eyes is absurd. The thing that keeps drawing me back to Christianity is the bond it builds between people, not the sense of self-gratification I get out of being more faithful than those who aren't.

I'm living in a society that obsesses about public displays of faith. The zabeeb, the callus men develop after excessive praying, is popular here in Egypt. Women pray just as much but rarely have it. There are rumors that men use sandpaper to make the callus more prominent. Women in the 20th century rarely wore the hijab. It's a recent trend. And in Turkey, women don't want it allowed in public places because they fear their colleagues will guilt them into wearing it, just like what has happened here in Egypt. These trends aren't Egypt-specific. The fact that atheists are the least-trusted group in American society should make that apparent.

I want people to return to a style of faith that is more personal, that is about living the good life and drawing the satisfaction out of faith, not that you are holier than your neighbor. There needs to be a true return to genuine humility in service that the sensory overload megachurch and institutionalized religious orthodoxy cannot provide.

Post-Election Thoughts (Ikhwan Edition!)

Well, the elections have come and gone and they were relatively uneventful. They weren't particularly strange, and unless you lived in Shoubra or Giza, there was very little in way of activity. I didn't notice much of anything downtown other than the plethora of posters for Tagammu, which is Egypt's pseudo-communist party (one of which I took off the wall in front of my flat - might take some more, let me know if you want one). I think elections were more interesting in poorer districts and outside of the city where there was more controversy regarding electoral tactics and greater political mobilization.

The biggest news seems to be that the Ikhwan didn't win a single seat outright, losing the 88 seats they had gained in 2005. They are now pulling out of the runoff elections this coming weekend, which comes as little shock. The Brotherhood took a particularly big hit in the opposition community for not joining the el-Baradei-led boycott and pursuing their own agenda. Some have taken this as a sign of the Brotherhood's increasing irrelevancy, though I'm not entirely sure I'm willing to make that claim yet. They are in the midst of a sort of soul-searching following the departure of Mehdi Akef as Supreme Guide and no one, even within the organization, thought they would win a single seat this election. They still remain the only major organized opposition movement that hasn't been co-opted by the NDP. Granted, this slide into irrelevancy comes at an awkward time with the parliamentary elections having passed and presidential elections next year, though I don't see the long-term prospects changing for the Brotherhood. They are, and likely will remain, the dominant force in Egyptian opposition.

The Stresses of Cairo

Sorry it's been so long since last writing. Midterms and everything have wrapped up, and I just haven't really felt like writing for a bit.

In classical Arabic, al Qahirah (Cairo in Arabic) literally translates as "the victorious," in its more appealing sense. It is a city that has been continuously inhabited longer than any other location on earth, dating from the days of On and Memphis to Fustat up until today. Its relevance fluctuates, even within Egypt, but Cairo has always been one of the most important cities in the world. And more remarkable than anything else is its bizarre ability to persist in spite of the various absurdities that seem to govern its existence.

al Qahirah also translates as "the oppressor." Lately, this has felt very true. There have been so many strange contradictions that have really added a lot of stress to my life. Even though I've always noticed them, they've sort of lost their humor now that I've realized what their implications are for the society that couches them and for myself being trapped in it. The proximity of my departure probably spurs some of these sensations as well. There are two things in particular that have been really heavy on my mind: the extent of sexual repression in the Arab world and the bizarre tourist-Cairene relationship.

I never had some silly idea that Islam itself breeds terrorism here. I knew anti-Semitism would be an issue, but not one I would have to deal with or witness because it isn't culturally obvious daily. On the other hand, I have never seen a more sexually bizarre people than the Arabs. Egyptian life is incredibly family-centric, which probably has something to do with this. If someone isn't approved by the family, the marriage won't happen. Furthermore, dating really only happens here after someone's family member introduces the couple to each other, and yes, they are often cousins. That said, with the current generation of youth with their intermingling at school, this seems to be changing, and I do see younger people walking around the street together. However, for the most part, there is a very strict gender segregation in groups of friends, and they are usually either roving bands of young men looking for white women to harass or Egyptian women to talk to or groups of women looking for husbands.

I've come to realize that this has little, if anything to do with the repression of women in the society. While men do have a disgustingly misogynistic take on the roles of women, what is more significant and what in part creates this is the strict separation of genders in society and the sexual repression that exists within this context. I feel just as much pity for Arab men as I do women. They live in a very "look, even gawk, but don't touch" society where they will harass and grope women all they want, but that's largely because, frankly, they won't get anything more than that until they get married. Men here have this nutty idea that marriage is their first desire, and I don't even really know what women think on it. My roommate is currently getting text messages from an Arab man she mistakenly gave her number to that in the same sentence call her a "bitsh" for not texting him back and told her he loved her. Mind you, they talked for literally two minutes, and apparently this man knows he loves my roommate.

It is unnatural. A man's sex drive is peaking around the time he is 25. A female's most ripe age for child-rearing is around 18. There is a biological reason for these urges, and a society that resists them the way Egyptian culture does invites nothing but the problems we see highlighted constantly in Western media. I don't like that we've tried to define it within our terms, because the problem is so much deeper than gender repression. It has everything to do with the wholesale sexual repression of a society by its culture, which enables the segregation of men and women and thus allows the two to be treated as different groups in society.

The tourist-Egyptian relationship can be really bizarre sometimes. In general, I love Egyptians. In spite of our various communication barriers (slang being by far the biggest one), most Egyptians thoroughly enjoy Americans and are madly in love with the idea of America. While some will talk to you on the street telling you they have a cousin in Minnesota (universally, Minnesota. There is no other state they mention) and they have a business card to give you, only to attempt to sell you things, the vast majority are just glad to talk to you and hear about how you are doing, where you are from, and how you like Egypt. The most commonly heard phrase on the streets of Cairo by a clear margin is "welcome to Egypt!" These are the Egyptians I love.

There are also those that are willing to take advantage of the lack of structure in the society to screw over tourists. I recommend anyone that comes here to have a good idea of what they are doing before they do or have someone to show them around. Otherwise you'll risk paying an arm and a leg for something that you never should pay for. The other night I went with Phil, Kiki, and Ben to an Indian restaurant in Zamalek, an island in the middle of the Nile. A cab ride from Zamalek to Downtown on a normal metered cab costs 7 pounds. I flagged down a cab on the way back, got in, and the guy asked me if I wanted to use the meter. I was a bit of a bonehead and said yes. If a cabbie has a meter and is going a short distance, they will drive you in circles to drive up the rate, which he did. We could have gone straight across the island to the 6th of October bridge and from there straight to Downtown. Instead, he drove all the way to the bottom of the island, back up, and then across the bridge. I knew this, but I didn't anticipate paying more than ten pounds. We arrived at our desired location, and from my vantage point in the front seat relative to the low-sitting meter, it looked like 11 and a half LE, which is expensive, but I wasn't going to argue. When I give the driver 12 pounds, he looks at me like I'm crazy and asks for 17. I sure as hell knew that wasn't a 17 pound cab ride, so I gave him the money and walked away (standard practice when you know you're getting screwed). The guy gets out of the cab and starts walking toward me, screaming for his five pounds. I yelled back, and fought the guy down. It probably helped that there was a cop down the street, but there was no way in hell that man was going to get my pound.

Looking back on the incident, it seemed pretty ridiculous. I felt bad when I realized the meter had said 17 instead of 11, but the guy deliberately screwed us in driving a long way. I threw a fit over one dollar, in public. So when I put it down like that, it sounds like the stuff nightmares are made of. I remember when Yury, my real estate agent, would do the same thing, and how it was awkward to watch because I didn't want to be associated with his diatribe. But after having lived here for a while, thinking in terms of LE, and feeling less like a tourist and more of a resident, there is nothing in the world I have come to hate more than when people try screwing me, no matter how much I think something should cost. It has become a matter of principle. I honestly hope the trend keeps itself in the US, because I didn't stand up for myself enough in the states. It's funny, though. If someone tried doing this to me in the states, I would freak out on principle, even if it was over a marginal amount of change. It has a lot to do, I think, with the sensation that the country is somehow yours, and you are thus entitled to be treated as anyone else in it. I get that feeling here, and it is in a really weird way home. I'll be glad to get home, but I'll miss Cairo a lot.

Palestine and Anti-Semitism

I'm generally really, really reluctant to make any sort of commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Arguing about it is like arguing about moral issues, where there is very, very little ground for compromise because of the ideological underpinning of both sides. I consider it a policy issue, and do not consider myself pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. The concept of being pro-either side is fairly repugnant to me, since the two notions are convoluted and add to the bipolarity of the debate. But one thing that has really troubled me since being here are the numerous, blatant examples of anti-Semitism I've seen within Egypt, and more within the broader Arab world.

I walk to school every day and pass a few booksellers on the side of the road. In addition to copies of the Qur'an, a few technical know-how guidebooks, the occasional children's book or translation of a popular American novel, and a book or two about Che Guevara or a famous figure in Egyptian history, nearly every bookstand has a copy of Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Arab world is one of the few places in which being anti-Semitic is a state-endorsed activity. I do understand the base logic behind this: Israel has identified itself as a Jewish state, Arabs hate Israel and what it has done to the Arab sense of self, thus Arabs hate Jews (of course, this is absolutely not universal, and I speak more about social elites than your average person). It's a weird transitive property application in real life. Every Egyptian I ever talk to about politics will say, "I do not like your country's politics, but I love Americans." They are very, very good at delineating between politics and a people. However, I don't sense this at all when they speak about Israel. It has always been identified as the Jewish state, and thus people dislike Jews. People don't talk about actions by Israelis in non-academic contexts; they talk about acts by "the Jewish." This identification has very, very dire implications for the long-term health of Arab-Israeli relations.

Israel and Yemen probably have some pretty solid strategic interests in common, particularly as far as their navies are concerned in way of protecting access to crucial sea lanes. One would think that this might be enough to forge at the very least a modicum of cooperation. However, Yemen recently disbanded its chess team after allegations that it played a match against Israel's team. A chess match. This isn't mind-bending stuff, folks. Even during the Cold War the US and Russia played chess matches, and that was a globe-consuming conflict. This conflict is so entrenched in the Arab social elite psyche that I don't know what it will take to move past it, and I don't know that finally recognizing Palestine will do this.

Let's suppose there is an ideal situation, where Israel returns to its pre-1967 borders, ends all settlements, and maybe even adopts a formal constitution protecting the rights of its Arab minorities. The animosity between Israel and Palestine runs so deep at this point that the formation of the Palestinian state isn't going to create some beautiful, friendly alliance between Israel and the Arabs. Anti-Semitism will persist, and anti-Arabism within Israel will persist as well (though Israel has a far better track record in way of non-discrimination law). At this point, anti-Semitism is an institution that will merely propagate itself. Part of a peace deal between Israel and Palestine isn't going to be, "We'll give you land if you stop hating us."

As long as political movements in Palestine and Israel persist to become elected on the grounds of resistance or protection of ethnic interests, these groups will persist in mobilizing public opinion against the other so as to legitimize their underlying ideology and validate their own existence. This isn't going to do peace any favors, let alone mutual understanding.

Pre-Election Thoughts

While there are hugely important elections coming up soon in the United States, parliamentary elections are right around the corner here as well. Slated for November 28, the elections exist essentially to reinforce the power of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) via the creation of a sham legislature. While the legislature constitutionally has some power, the executive typically promulgates vast majority of legislation, and even that which is passed by the legislature is typically a simple rubber stamp of a preexisting NDP policy.

Taking this into account, why do we care about Egyptian elections? Why not boycott them, like Muhammad Baradei has chosen to do? There are two sides to the story for both the state and party itself. First and foremost for the state, elections serve as a sort of safety valve for dictatorial regimes. In times of stress, such as those in the late 1980s in Jordan or in between 1990 and 1994 in Yemen, regimes undertook a moderate loosening of their typically rigid stance on political parties and parliamentary authority in general and allowed more parties to run, enabling the IAF in Jordan and Islah in Yemen to attain more in way of political sway. This sort of stalled liberalization enables regimes to tout the changes they have made in recent years while denying access to the political process to peripheral movements (or, in the case of Yemen, using the election to make winning parties dependent on the state for relevancy). In the case of Egypt, parties such as Wafd, Tagammu', or Ayman Nour's al-Ghad have accept a rather non-confrontational role relative to that which we typically assign to the Muslim Brotherhood here in Egypt. These parties continually question the actions of the NDP, though they do not put forward many candidates in elections out of fear of losing their status as a recognized party (an understandable fear when these parties lack the grassroots organization the Ikhwan possesses). In addition to serving as a safety valve, elections serve as a means by which the state can provide a sort of moral legitimacy to policy. Even though the executive essentially rules by decree, the parliament still serves as a means by which patronage is disbursed to those fortunate enough to receive it among the general population and thus assure continued elite support for the regime.

So taking into account the relative inefficacy of the parliament and the risks posed by running for office, why participate in the first place? For many parties, past decisions to boycott have led to borderline irrelevance within Egyptian political discourse. No one considers al-Ghad to be the default opposition in spite of Ayman Nour's relatively successful run (meaning he obtained 7% of the vote) against Hosni Mubarak for the office of the presidency (and subsequent jailing on trumped-up charges) in 2005. The dichotomy people talk about is the NDP versus the Society of Muslim Brothers. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Ikwan won a shocking 88 seats in the parliament, the most won by an opposition in years, and far more than the NDP wanted the opposition to maintain. The Ikhwan is not allowed to run as an official party; all of their candidates must register as independents, which requires them to obtain 250 signatures from members of the People's Assembly (parliament), Shura Council, and various municipal councils. In spite of this, likely electoral fraud, voter intimidation, poll access denial, and mass arrests leading up to and following the election, the Ikhwan performed far beyond expectations. While limited in their ability to do anything in the People's Assembly, it gave them an element of respectability even in Western arenas they did not have previously and made them a focal point for opposition to the regime. If these are the types of benefits one could accrue from performing, why not run?

Personally, I never expected to be in favor of boycotting elections, though I increasingly find myself seeing it as a wise decision for political parties. For most movements, it allows them to avoid the massive arrests most movements are subjected to before elections. This year, there is a fairly wide-held anticipation that this year's crackdown will be particularly brutal, and 12 were killed and 500 injured on election day alone in 2005. Arrests have begun, communications are becoming far more restricted, and opposition advertisements are hard to find in spite of the prevalence of NDP posters advertising their candidates strewn across Cairo and cities around the country (I've never seen as many political advertisements as I did in Marsa Matrouh). Most people I have talked to have said this seems worse than in years past, though I obviously have no way to verify this based on my limited time here. So political movements can guarantee that they can live to fight another day rather than fight for a post in a toothless parliament and maybe hope to gain some of the international or grassroots support necessary to their survival on Egypt's highly controlled political scene. Furthermore, an election in which the NDP wins 518 out of 518 seats would look far worse to the international community than one in which a minority party actually wins a sizable chunk of the electorate. It could draw international attention to Egypt's political flaws in a way even a legitimate parliamentary election never could. Whether or not it actually would is questionable at best, though when we're thinking on the margins in terms of what is a preferable choice between a crackdown and international involvement, the latter seems more beneficial in my eyes.

One way or another, a lot of attention will be drawn onto the Emergency Law this year. The Emergency Law is a clause of the Constitution that can be activated in the case of a threat to the state. Activated in 1981 following the assassination of Anwar Sadat and still active today, the Emergency Law essentially reemphasizes preexisting restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly and provides for a broader range of police activity. A copy of it can be found here (and one of the Constitution here). Many have called for its repeal since its activation in the '80s, though nothing has happened or is likely to happen in the near future. It is incredibly easy to focus in on the Emergency Law as the source of many of Egypt's problems. But what worries me about such activities is their tendency to idealize the pre-1981 status of Egyptian political culture. While Sadat moderately liberalized society during his reign, Egypt was by no means a competitive democracy. It was a one-party state in which just as much legislature was passed via the executive, where the courts were just as dependent on the executive for authority, and in which political crackdowns were just as likely to occur. Focusing on the Emergency Law ignores the crucial issues that exist within Egyptian legal culture and absolutely must be fixed. Much of what the Emergency Law allows for is already on the books, and it will take far, far more than winning a parliamentary election and somehow miraculously repealing the Emergency Law to fix Egyptian government.

For a really, really solid primer on the 2010 elections, 2011 presidential election, and background on Egyptian government, I strongly encourage you all to check out the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's briefing on the elections. It's a quick and dirty read that will leave you pretty fluent in Egyptian political culture upon reading it.

I'm entering midterms, so this may be my last post for a little while, though I'll hopefully have a lot more to blog about next week when folks from AU start visiting. I haven't explored anywhere near as much of Cairo as I would like to, and I'll have a great excuse to go out when I have people to show around. So expect a lot more travel blog-esque posts in the near future instead of all of this heavy stuff :)

My Steady Drift Toward Calvinism

I've been in the midst of a bit of a theological crisis since arriving here, where I've been drifting all over the board. It's been a little bizarre. I've always considered myself a mild Calvinist insofar as it has made logical sense to me that God would have some idea of who was and wasn't "saved." If you accept He is omniscient, it's about the only conclusion that makes any sense. However, since arriving in Egypt I've found myself more sympathetic to Calvinist notions of sin, which I didn't expect in the least.

I've read quite a bit of Reinhold Niebuhr since arriving. For those unfamiliar, he is the one who came up with the serenity prayer that is displayed prominently in many hospitals around the country nowadays. I find him fascinating as an intellectual because of the radical changes he made within his belief systems over the course of his life. He went from a communist to a fervent supporter of Israel and the American use of power abroad, which has mirrored (though to a far greater extent) my own shift from far left to moderate left (though with moderately hawkish foreign policy views), so I feel an element of kinship with him in that regard. I started with reading The Irony of American History, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It challenged the notion of American exceptionalism, which I've always had my doubts about, and argued that it can be outrightly dangerous to the maintenance of American power. But on a personal level, Niebuhr has had a profound effect on my beliefs about mankind.

At least since arriving at college, I've been very distrustful of notions that assume humans will act with anyone in mind but themselves. I've moved from being sympathetic to the Lockean tabula rasa view of mankind, which states man is only corrupted by society, not innately, to believing there is something fundamentally "wrong" with mankind. Fromme identifies the fundamental struggle of mankind as being rooted in the realization all men experience that there is a dichotomy between the mind and instinct that causes them to ponder their existence in a way no other species does. Our inability to reconcile our human and animal natures complicates our lives beyond all compare and makes it near-impossible to find grounding in the real world. Having personally struggled with this disconnect between my mind and the reality that surrounds it, I tend to be sympathetic to Fromme's view. And deriving from this is the notion that the only way I can mentally reconcile these twin natures of man is via something that exists outside the self, whether it be God or a sense of purpose. In spite of my professed faith, I do not feel as though I have bridged this gap and still feel a disconnect between myself and the world around me. Thus, I have accepted the notion of "religion," again in Fromme's sense that religion constitutes devotion to something outside the self that may not be divine and may not require faith, as a fundamental facet of my existence.

This Frommean notion of religion has combined with the classical Calvinist notion of man's nature that has led me to believe in God more strongly than before. I believe man is evil, though not always intentionally, and not always in a way that is "evil" in the sense we traditionally think about it. Lars Svendsen argues in A Philosophy of Evil that because of events like the Holocaust, we are prone to differentiating between "bad" and "evil" so as to absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions. While not advocating a black-and-white perspective on evil (in fact, doing the opposite), Svendsen seeks to provide us a context in which we can discuss the evils of daily life. By accepting that I can behave evilly, I can thus seek to expunge said evil from my life by acknowledging it for what it is and struggling against it. This notion I do not dispute at all and have fully accepted it as a part of my daily life.

What I am currently struggling with is Niebuhr's extension of this acceptance of evil, that being that man is fundamentally evil and incapable of good. Niebuhr does not argue as Calvin did that man is incapable of good acts. Niebuhr instead argues that man can perform good acts, though these actions lead to pride, which is the loftiest of sins. Thus, even acts of charity can devolve into sin when they lead to excessive self-confidence, which he argues they inevitably do. While I do not necessarily think on the individual level these actions lead to pride, within institutions they can evolve into a sort of culture that is dangerous. This is alluded to by Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and the plethora of critiques of empire. A sense of exceptionalism, which is developed in any organization that feels it is doing a particularly divine good within the world, leads to decline and immorality. Thus, institutions are incapable of true moral good (in the long-run). Human existence is thus rendered brutal, and only via God can true morality be attained, and even then not necessarily (or at all) in daily life. God is thus solely a means to salvation in this sense. While I absolutely agree with Niebuhr's critique of hubris, I do not yet know if I believe that institutions cannot do any good in the moral sense of the word, and even if I accept this notion, if I believe institutions are incapable of practical good.

This blog post came out of nowhere and is basically just me sorting out thoughts on a topic I'll probably never sort out and will probably think differently about tomorrow. So in sum, I have no idea whether or not I believe good men must gird themselves against evil at every turn, perhaps committing evil to do so, or whether or not man himself is fundamentally evil. I suppose I'll have a better idea when I finish up Moral Man and Immoral Society.

The Media, the "New Right", and Democracy

The rise of the Tea Party has come about via the massive mobilization of conservative elements in American society in reaction to perceived "attacks on democracy." What I find most ironic about the candidates themselves is how, well, undemocratic their campaigns have been.

In my mind, the essence of a competitive campaign is the full scrutiny of all aspects of the lives and views of candidates. Yes, the media will typically rip candidates to shreds, some more than others. And yes, they will often make issues where there are none in the interest of ratings. The media certainly has no interest beyond making people watch. However, that interest, just as many other selfish acts, can have positive externalities. Having lived in a repressive government for a while now, I've come to understand how important the media is just for keeping public officials honest. And I've seen far too many candidates in this election foreswear the media so that they might improve their odds of election.

What got me thinking about this subject (and conveniently doubles as an example) was an interview question posed to Sarah Palin about Jewish settlement in Palestine. Palin provided her ardent support (rather blandly) for settlements, arguing that because the Jewish population was expanding they ought to settle. When asked if this support extended onto settlements in Palestinian territory, she responded, "I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to expand." While she is implying that yes, she believes this extends into Palestinian territory, what she fails to do is say as much. It reflects a fundamental unwillingness to deal with the consequences, good or bad, of her desired actions. It is reflective of her broader attacks on the "lamestream media" who have skewered her time and time again. If the media were ripping her to shreds unjustly, as happened to Shirley Sherrod, I would be nothing but sympathetic to her cause. But faulting the media for your inability to name a newspaper is just stupid.

This extends to much of the rest of the "new right." Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and now Joe Miller refuse to show up on any national media. Angle is now known for bragging about her ability to fundraise by appearing on friendly media. And I can't sit here and claim she's wrong for that. She's running a campaign, and she must do what she needs to do to win. But to pretend that she's a vanguard of some democratic revolution, as the Tea Party is wont to do, is absurd. Limiting her exposure criticism will help her poll numbers, but it is remarkably autocratic for a "champion of liberty."

This sort of behavior is indicative of the ideological demagoguery that terrifies me about the Tea Party. We sit here and buy into the absurd slogans they use to typify their campaigns and don't even stop to ask if what they are calling for is feasible or even healthy for our nation. It makes me increasingly buy into Niebuhr's thesis in Moral Man and Immoral Society: human collectives are brutal, and only via individual morality can social immorality be overcome.