The Teflon pharaoh

Brian Whitaker
Guardian (UK)
May 19, 2006

As the crackdown on freedom of speech continues in Egypt, the US is once again sending out the wrong signals.

Despite all the hoo-ha from President Bush about promoting democracy, the deal - at least where Egypt is concerned - is to criticise the Mubarak regime (politely) in public while fending off any threats of more serious action from Congress.

On the one hand, this placates Americans who are concerned about the recent turn of events in Cairo; on the other, it reassures the aged pharaoh that nothing untoward will happen if he carries on arresting, beating up and torturing people as usual.

Sections of the American media seem to be falling into line, too. I love the delicate way the Houston Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury and other subscribers to the Knight Ridder news service began their reports today: "Egypt's uneasy path to democratic reform received more setbacks Thursday ..."

Poor Mr Mubarak: he is trying to so hard to reform, but after 24 years it's not getting any easier.

There was also an interesting line in the BBC's report. Referring to the five-year jail sentence imposed on Ayman Nour, who was Mubarak's main rival in the presidential election last year, the BBC says the Egyptian prosecutor general "has denied any political motive" for Mr Nour's imprisonment.

This is what is known in the trade as adding "balance" to a story, and obviously it's necessary to give both sides if there is a genuine dispute about something. In Mr Nour's case, though, this looks like balance just for the sake of it, and it's misleading. I don't know any observer of Egyptian affairs who seriously believes Mr Nour's imprisonment was motivated by anything other than politics.

With Washington soft-pedalling over Mubarak, now would be the ideal moment for al-Jazeera, the free and fearless satellite channel, to show its mettle. But al-Jazeera, along with its main Arabic-language rival, al-Arabiya, seems reluctant to tackle the story with all guns blazing. Abu Aardvark (aka Marc Lynch, one of the best-informed commentators on the Arab media) writes:

I had heard many complaints from Egyptian activists that al-Jazeera had sold them out, presumably in exchange for the release of their correspondent who had been arrested over his coverage of the Sinai bombings. I had seen some coverage on al-Jazeera of the protests, and thought that this might be changing.

Evidently not. Having learned well the lessons of the potential power granted by Arab satellite TV, Egyptian security forces have been engaging in rather savage repression of television cameras attempting to cover the protests, attacks on journalists and intimidation of others.

But that repression of journalists on the ground isn't enough to explain the relative silence of al-Jazeera. Not a single episode of al-Jazeera's key nightly primetime news/interview programme Behind the News has been devoted to Egypt: issues deemed more important include the Kuwaiti parliamentary showdown, Somalia, the fourth European-Latin American summit, the war of words between America and Russia, American public diplomacy efforts and the Syrian opposition ... only two of which (Kuwait and Somalia) are even arguably of more pressing concern to Arab viewers than the Egyptian protests.

None of the other major programmes seems to have touched Egypt over the last couple of weeks.

That is not particularly surprising. There is a general reluctance in the Arab media to dwell on the internal problems of Arab countries (unless, of course, they are caused by external forces, as in Iraq and Palestine). Anti-government disturbances in Arab capitals are especially sensitive because there is always a chance they might give other people ideas elsewhere.

At least we still have the bloggers (apart from Alaa, the one in an Egyptian jail). The Arabist blog has a fine set of pictures of Mubarak's thugs in action yesterday.