Tuesday, November 22, 2005

CNN documentary on democracy in Egypt today

CNN will send a documentary on democracy in Egypt today,it seems some portion of the programe will focus on Kifeyya. It´s part of CNN´s Eye on the Middle East coverage throughout this week.

UPDATE

Noura Younis is participating in the debate with young arab democracy activists in CNN connects, right after the documentary
Egypt:Testcase for democracy

UPDATE II

Egypt:Testcase for democracy
The documntary was interesting , nothing new, but all my feelings of anthipathy toward the political system in Egypt that reached its peak on black wednesday, came back when the now al to familiar images reapeared on the tv-screen. Of course what happend on 25th of May, was nothing unique, the scenario has happend both before and after,but to hear and see one of the women bear witness of what happend to her , is something else than reading about it. To see that the regime had no boundaires in it´s approach towards Kifayya on that particular day, when they knew that the whole world was watching, something that was also manifested in this programe by PM Ahmed Nazif, an approach of indifference, while at the same time heralding Egypt´s efforts towards ¨more democracy¨ echoing the state of the union speech of Mr Bush, and also Laura Bush´s words ,while wisiting Egypt just days before the presidential elections.

As usual i was disapointed in the sterotype ,first time protodemocratic elections, while the presidential elections was indeed the first time the egyptians had a multiple choice of candidates to vote for, this was not the first opportunity for democratic elections, the scene where Mr Mann grab a handful of sand in his palm and talk about how youré going to make the land of the desert fertile to democracy reminded me of the poetic words of Safwat Sharif on the eve of the maglis ash Shura vote on art 76. And the notion that democracy is a novelty to Egypt and indeed the region is just dead wrong, altough respected media outlets like CNN and the BBC tend to forget.

For those of you who didn´t have the opportunity to watch it, you will get a another chance on saturday the 26 November.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I didn't find it so lacking.
You can't expect anything other than the American view, can you?

It is good that the happenings of 25 May were documented. No Arab TV did that.

"And the notion that democracy is a novelty to Egypt and indeed the region is just dead wrong"
As far as most living persons can remember, democracy is a novelty in Egypt and the area.

The most lame part, however, was using footage from Hamas power-parades when talking about Islamists in Egypt!

Directly following the documentary, our fellow blogger and activist Nora Younis was being hosted in a talk show among a bunch of Arab youth talking about democracy.

Were you able to find the video on CNN.COM? Or maybe someone with a video card with input can record it for us.

5:12 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

I'm rather desparately searching for the video of this too. Nobody I know here has CNN, so I missed a friend who was interviewed on the show. CNN's video site doesn't seem to have any of the longer documentary stuff from Eye on the Middle East. Am I missing something? jackNOSPAM@JackbrownNOSPAM.usNOSPAM

4:57 PM  

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