MESC NEWS

MESC NEWS
March 2009
From the Director
Malak Rouchdy
The route to AUC takes a
turn from Tahrir Square to the
6th of October Bridge, passing
the outskirts of Cairo and
through the cemeteries to reach
our final destination, alTagammuc al-Khamis and the
new campus. It is a quiet environment with standardised
urban architecture, surrounded
by an unpolluted desert, and
covered by a clear sky.
We are no longer entertained by the sounds of the
streets of Cairo, or worried to
cross a street during rush hour.
We stopped being regular customers of kiosks on Muhamed
Mahmoud and Falaki streets
and are gradually forgetting
our friends, the vendors and
street children. We interact less
and less with the heart of
Cairo, a location that we took
for granted for many years.
Some of us felt that the
move was a sad necessity. Others were frightened by the isolation. It took everybody a little
while to adapt. MESC students,
administrators and faculty
members gradually realized
that the state of the art facilities
offer new possibilities for
teaching as well as a promising
atmosphere for student life.
These benefits are not a substitute for the advantages of
AUC’s historical integration in
downtown Cairo and the Egyptian intellectual community at
large. In fact, we finally understood that both locations and
university contexts comple-
ment each other to create an
environment where past and
present resources co-exist in a
symbiotic relationship.
The move has generated
the need to revisit the potentials
offered by MESC in the new
location in order to sustain its
comparative advantage internationally. In light of this, MESC’s
immediate objective this semester is to further integrate the
program into the intellectual
and academic map of Egypt.
We are hosting a number of
events to maintain the links between MESC, other academic
departments, and the cultural
and academic institutions in
Cairo. These include visits to
Cairo University, the Supreme
Council of Culture, and the
Women and Memory Forum—
one of Egypt’s leading NGOs in
gender studies.
We are also organising a
series of talks by a number of
locally
and
internationally
based scholars whose specialisations cover historical linguis-
tics, sociology, comparative literature, and political science.
These attempts will not be
sustained and developed without the devoted efforts of students and faculty members,
who are profoundly committed
to the principles of liberal education and critical thinking. This
commitment was put to test
recently when Philip Rizk, a
MESC student, was arrested by
the Egyptian authorities for
protesting against the atrocities
of the Israeli army and expressing his solidarity with the Palestinians. His colleagues and
many faculty members joined
hands in an international campaign calling for his release,
which ultimately bore fruit. In
this instance, they proved that
the voice of academics could go
well beyond the walls of the
university and reach for the
oppressed and marginalised.
The move is a turning
point, which will bring with it
more challenges and, sure
enough, more opportunities.
In This Issue:
From the Director ………………………………….. …………
1
Meet New MESC Graduate Students.….……...………………
2
Q & A with Elna Sondergaard ……………………………..…..
4
Time for Trial
Elna Sondergaard…….………………………………………
5
Obama and the Arab World
Charles Blake………………………………………………….
6
MESC Faculty Seminar Series….……………………………….
7
Thesis Summaries, 2008 ….. ……………………………………
8
Thesis Highlight: Gendering Worker Contestation in Egypt
Francesca Ricciardone ……. ………………………………
10
The Abduction of Philip Rizk
Catherine Baylin………………………………………………… 12
Middle East Studies Center ● American University in Cairo ● New Cairo 11835 ● http://www.aucegypt.edu
MESC Welcomes New
Graduate Students
Laila Agily
Dallas, Texas USA
Laila graduated from George
Washington University in 2007
with a degree in Middle East
studies. She spent 2005-06 in
Tunisia studying Arabic.
Laila's academic research involves subaltern groups
within the labor force, the influence of regimes on educational systems, and Libya.
Charles Blake
Washington, D.C., USA
Charles graduated from the
University of Pittsburgh in
2003. From 2003-05 he was a
US Peace Corps volunteer in
Tanzania. Charles also worked
as a research assistant at the
University of Maryland where
he studied foreign language
learning. He is currently pursuing a graduate diploma in
Middle East studies before
returning to the University of
Maryland, where he is working on a PhD in international
education policy.
Barbara Bishay
Bad Homburg, Germany
Barbara graduated from
Philipps-Universitaet Marburg in Germany with a degree in Oriental studies. She
wrote her undergraduate thesis on democracy and Islam
and her academic interests
include the relationship be2
tween the West and the Middle East, as well as Coptic and
gender issues in Egypt. Barbara is returning to Egypt after spending 2004-05 in Cairo
studying Arabic.
Katherine Talley Cross
Charleston, South Carolina
USA
Katherine graduated from Sewanee: University of the South
in 2003 with a BA in Religion.
From 2005 to 2008, she worked
as an Executive Assistant to
the Managing Partner of Buist,
Byars & Taylor, LLC in
Charleston, South Carolina. In
addition to her studies, she
works with the Anglican
Church in Cairo to support its
interfaith programs between
Christians and Muslims.
Julia Foley
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA
Julia graduated from Temple
University in 2007 with a dual
degree in history and political
science. She has studied Arabic for three years and studied
abroad in Istanbul, Turkey in
2006. Her intellectual interests
include political economy and
social movement theory in relation to the Palestinian territories.
Hazel Haddon
London, England
Hazel graduated from the Uni-
versity of Oxford in 2006 with
a degree in ancient and modern history. She has also interned at Amnesty International in London and at the
British Parliament. Her main
research focus is the interaction between Christians and
Muslims in Muslim-majority
societies, particularly Egypt
and Sudan.
Nicole Halbert
Chase City, Virginia USA
Nicole graduated in 2008 from
James Madison University
with a BA in international affairs. She is currently working
on a dual degree in Middle
East studies and political science, and her primary academic interests are the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the
role of the American media in
shaping public opinion and
foreign policy in the United
States.
Andrew Heiss
Orem, Utah USA
Andrew graduated from Brigham Young University with a
dual major in Middle East
studies/Arabic and Italian.
His research interests include
the comparative history of Italy and the Middle East, especially the role of orientalism in
Italian literature.
MESC News ● March 2009
Jessica Hoffman
Midland, Michigan USA
Jessica graduated from the
University of Michigan in 2008
with a degree in political science and Middle Eastern &
North African studies. Her
research interests include
modern political movements
and the effect of media coverage on American foreign policy in the region.
Justin Hoyle
Mt. Pleasant, Michigan USA
Justin graduated from Central
Michigan University with a
double major in history and
political science. His primary
research interests are political
Islam, Shi'ism, and spatial history.
Kerry McIntosh
Bennington, Vermont USA
Kerry graduated in 2007 from
Georgetown University with a
degree in international politics
and security. She spent last
year living in Damascus, Syria,
where she taught English and
volunteered with World Food
Programme. Her academic
interests include the relationship between political stability
and authoritarianism in Syria
and public perceptions of government in the Arab world.
Sunyoung Park
Seoul, South Korea
Sunyoung graduated from
Johns Hopkins University in
2007 with a degree in international studies. After graduation she worked in Washington D.C. for the Korean EmMESC News ● March 2009
bassy. Her interests include
economic development in the
Middle East, the role of international organizations in poverty reduction, and how perception and misperception
affect international relations.
Kevin Pruyn
Portland, Oregon USA
Kevin graduated from Montana State University in 2007
with a degree in liberal studies
and a focus on the Middle
East. During the summers of
2007 and 2008 he was a Program Assistant in the Middle
East Partnership Initiative
(MEPI) with the U.S. State Department. His academic interests include Middle Eastern
politics and Arabic literature.
Sunita Rappai
London, England
Sunita graduated from the
University of Warwick in Britain in 1991 with a degree in
film and literature. Since then
she has worked as a public
relations consultant and, most
recently, as a journalist. Last
year, she traveled the world,
including to Egypt and Jordan.
Ahmed Saad
Fayoum, Egypt
Ahmed graduated from the
University of Fayoum in 2007
with a degree in teaching English as a foreign language.
Since then, he has worked as
an English instructor and
translator. His academic interests include the political and
education systems, and social
activities in the Middle East.
Vladimir Serrato
Sacramento, California USA
Vladimir graduated from the
University of California,
Berkeley in 2008 with a degree
in linguistics. He attended
AUC's Arabic Language Institute in 2006-07. His research
interests include contemporary gender politics and colloquial Arabic literature.
Ross Worden
Dallas, Texan USA
Ross graduated from the University of Georgia in 2008 with
a master's degree in political
science. His undergraduate
degrees were in psychology
and international studies. His
interests include political and
cross-cultural psychology.
Abdallah M. Zihni
New York, New York USA
Abdallah graduated from the
Queens College campus of the
City University of New York
with a degree in Political Science. After graduating he volunteered with a communitybased organization dedicated
to assisting resident of New
Orleans. Abdallah's interests
include gender and the formation of nationalism in Egypt.
MESC also welcomes Samia
Aboul Ela Ahmed, Brandy
Castanon, Cynthia Okerfelt,
Paul Williams, Yong-Ki Jin,
Brian Henry, Chiang Lee,
Talib-Din Nashid Mustafa,
and Almir Tahirovic. ♣
3
Question & Answer:
Professor Elna Sondergaard, IHRL
Elna Sondergaard, director of
the international human rights
law program at AUC, sat down
with MESC News to discuss
her work and research. Ms. Sondergaard teaches Human Rights
in the Middle East, which is an
elective in the MESC program.
She received her Bachelor in
Philosophy and French and a
Candidate Juris from Copenhagen University, and a Master’s
Degree in European Community Law (LLM) from the College of Europe.
Why did you decide to become a human rights lawyer?
It gives me the opportunity to
share my commitment for justice and truth with a huge
number of amazing, wonderful and unselfish people.
What are your primary research interests?
International Human Rights
Law, International Humanitarian Law and International
Criminal Law. I focus particularly on the situation for individuals and their ability to
seek remedies when fundamental rights have been violated by national authorities,
occupying forces and others.
Such remedies might be
within domestic courts, or at
the regional or international
level (e.g., within the UN).
Which organizations have
you worked with professionally? How have these experi4
ences shaped your teaching?
Before joining AUC, I worked
with the United Nations in
Gaza and with a Palestinian
NGO in Bethlehem (Badil Resource Center). Earlier I had
worked as a lawyer with a
large commercial law firm in
Denmark. My work is constantly a source of inspiration
for my lecturing, during which
I ensure a combination of theory and practice. For example,
I organize small moot courts
where students are required to
apply legal tools to an actual
case from the real world. I
strongly encourage students to
do internships and field work
while studying and to choose
research topics which would
bring together personal experience and theory.
Why did you decide to teach
at AUC?
I have always enjoyed a strong
interest in philosophy and social science. This previously
led to university training in
philosophy and law at various
European institutions. After
ten years of professional field
work, I was keen on pursuing
my theoretical interests.
In conflict situations, such as
the recent hostilities in Gaza,
what is the role of international law? How do legal
remedies interact with political and military solutions?
In times of armed conflict, international humanitarian law
(IHL), supplemented by international human rights law,
sets the standard for how the
civilian population should be
treated and how warfare
should generally be conducted. IHL stipulates, for example, that armies and soldiers should at all times make
a distinction between combatants and civilians and between
military and civilian targets.
When such basic standards of
justice are not respected, it is
the responsibility of the international community, and the
parties of the conflict, to restore compliance with IHL
and to ensure investigation of
the most serious violations.
Legal remedies supplement
political negotiations. The language of politicians remains
insufficient to address atrocities on the scale of what we
have recently witnessed in
Gaza. It is the responsibility of
the international community
to provide appropriate remedies to the Palestinians.
What do you think is the
most pressing issue facing
the Middle East today?
Ensuring effective protection
of basic civil and political
rights is a challenge which
most Middle Eastern countries
have yet to meet. Hopefully
the recent adoption of the
Arab Charter of Human
Rights will pave the way for
human rights to become a core
value in the region. ♣
MESC News ● March 2009
Time for Trial
By Elna Sondergaard
The brutal and indiscriminate Israeli attacks on the Palestinian population in Gaza during the last weeks have entailed
numerous violations of basic
norms of international law.
Military acts, such as intentionally targeting schools, UN installations and other civilian
facilities are considered violations of international humanitarian law in relation to which
the state of Israel bears responsibility – but they also constitute
serious crimes under international law (e.g., war crimes) in
relation to which individuals
should stand trial.
The international community agreed to this principle of
individual responsibility for international crimes in the wake
of the Second World War; genocide, crimes against humanity
and war crimes were considered totally unacceptable. Individuals committing such crimes
should be held accountable. The
rational behind the Nuremberg
Tribunal in 1945 was clear:
without a trial, justice and peace
would never prevail. This idea
of individual accountability has
subsequently been implemented in the case law of the
ad-hoc tribunals for Rwanda
and the former Yugoslavia, and
the International Criminal
Court (ICC) in The Hague will
develop it further.
Applying this standard of
justice to the hostilities in Gaza
leads to the conclusion that the
language of politicians remains
insufficient to address the latest
atrocities. The time has come for
MESC News ● March 2009
a trial of individual Israeli soldiers, commanders of the Israeli
Defence Forces (IDF) and other
high ranking IDF officials. More
importantly, the Israeli Prime
Minister, Ehud Olmert, the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, and
the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, should be held responsible
for the disproportionate military operations in which thousands of civilians, including
many children, have been killed
and injured.
The crucial question is: to
which courts of justice can Palestinian victims bring their
claims? There are Palestinian
courts in Gaza, but they have no
jurisdiction over criminal cases
involving Israelis. As statelesspeople, Palestinians have no
state which could sign the
Rome Statute with a view to
seeking the adjudication of the
ICC, or which would be entitled
to bring a case to the International Court of Justice as Bosnia
and Herzegovina did concerning the massacre at Srebrenica.
Without a state, Palestinians are
also denied the legal protection
offered by classic interstate diplomacy.
Initiating criminal prosecution against Israelis within the
Israeli criminal system would
be a matter for the public
prosecutor to decide. Since the
beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
in 1967, most breaches of international humanitarian law
have not been investigated by
the IDF, let alone been the subject of prosecution.
The likely denial of proper
domestic criminal investigation
and prosecution leaves Palestinians with the option of seeking justice in other countries on
the basis of universal jurisdiction. Due to several political,
legal and practical hurdles associated with adjudicating
cases in foreign countries, these
fora will probably not be available for the vast majority of
Palestinian civilians from Gaza
who have lost loved ones, been
injured or displaced, or have
seen their houses destroyed.
All this implies that Palestinians from Gaza rely solely
upon the international community to provide proper remedies. The international community, through the United Na-
Publish Your Work!
The MESC newsletter is seeking submissions for its next issue. We
accept research summaries, analytical pieces, and opinion articles.
Submissions should be 500-800 words. MESC welcomes submissions from current students, alumni, faculty, staff and outside contributors from all disciplines.
Please email [email protected] for submission guidelines. Submissions must be received via email by April 5.
5
tions, may seek such accountability either by referring the
matter to the ICC (as the Security Council decided in the case
of Darfur) or by taking the initiative to establish an ad-hoc
tribunal with the mandate to
adjudicate serious crimes committed by Israeli authorities in
Gaza during the last weeks – in
addition to those committed as
a result of the blockade of
Gaza. The tribunal should also
have the mandate to adjudicate
crimes committed by Hamas
when firing rockets into Israel.
A proper trial would provide the victims with the opportunity to tell their stories
and to present their evidence to
independent judges. Palestinian and Israeli victims would
be equal. The disadvantage
statelessness and the power
imbalance between the two
parties would no longer exist.
Testimonies of thousands of
Palestinians would finally be
heard – voices of people who
have already suffered tremendously from the illegal Israeli
occupation during which they
have been deprived of basic
human rights for over 40 years.
Putting perpetrators on
trial would cost the international community nothing, but
a lack of such individual responsibility and accountability
would cost the civilians in
Gaza dearly, leaving them
without remedies and hope,
while politicians and soldiers
would again be encouraged to
think that they are exempted
from the law and that they can
get away with anything. ♣
A longer version of the article was
published by the Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle and alAhram newspaper.
6
Student Opinion: Obama
by Charles Blake
and the Arab World
Although much of the
world has caught a case of
“Obama Fever,” the response
in Arab countries has been
cautious.
While President
Obama has reached out to the
Arab world, his contradictory
comments during the campaign and his administration’s early decisions support
many Arab pundits’ doubt
that American policy will seriously change.
Obama’s inaugural
pledge to form a relationship
with the Muslim world
“based on mutual interest and
mutual respect” was bolstered when he spent his first
full day in office calling regional leaders. His decision to
close Guantanamo Bay within
the year was also highly regarded. His appointment of
George Mitchell as special
Middle East envoy has been
praised because of his role in
brokering the Good Friday
Agreement, which ended sectarian violence in Northern
Ireland. His half-Lebanese
ancestry and role in producing the 2001 Mitchell report
on Israel-Palestine are also
considered assets.
Despite these efforts,
Obama made several statements during his campaign
that justify skepticism. He
originally supported an immediate withdrawal from
Iraq, but subsequently called
for a ‘cautious and thoughtful’ withdrawal on a flexible
timeline. He later advocated
an undivided Jerusalem.
Also, while he originally advocated dialogue with Iran
without preconditions, he
later said that ‘preconditions’
differ from ‘preparations.’
Even with Obama’s recent actions, we should not
expect a serious shift in US
policy. Mitchell’s 2001 document, while considered fair
among most in the West, is
viewed as partisan by many
in the Arab world because it
does not address Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian
territories or its past atrocities. There have been no signs
that Mitchell’s current mission to the Middle East will
yield better results than did
the failed “road map.” Indeed, like the Bush Administration, Obama continues to
exclude Hamas and Syria,
two parties which are intimately tied to the conflict.
Additionally, even if the
United States closes Guantanamo, torture and other
Bush policies may not end.
The early days of
Obama’s presidency reflect
his determination to improve
relations with the Arab and
Muslim worlds, but are more
talk than action. His policies
may have more in common
with those of his predecessor’s than first meets the eye.
If so, America’s standing in
the region is unlikely to improve significantly. ♣
MESC News ● March 2009
MESC Faculty Seminar Series
Hanan Kholoussy, assistant professor of history and
Middle East studies, kicked off
the Fall 2008 Faculty Seminar
series with her presentation on
“The Marriage Crisis and the
Making of Modern Egypt.”
At the turn of the twentieth century, marriage was
seen as both an obstacle and
an important catalyst for modernity. Perceived increases in
bachelorhood among urban
middle-class men fostered
heated media discussions of
an Egyptian “marriage crisis.”
Using discursive methods to
analyze media and archival
resources, including court records, Kholoussy examined
the actual rate of marriage
from 1898 to 1938 and found
that, although there was increased media attention, marriage patterns in Egypt remained fairly constant
throughout the supposed
“crisis.”
The significance attached
to marriage went beyond anxi-
ety concerning individuals.
Marriage was used as a metaphor through which Egyptians
critiqued larger socioeconomic
and political issues. Through
the institution of marriage, a
largely nationalist media
voiced its concerns about
Egyptian society within a political and economic agenda.
Within the colonial context
marriage, gender, law and nationalism became intertwined
as political independence was
sought and idealized.
Michael Kagan of the
Center for Migration and
Refugee Studies discussed the
evolution of “exceptionalism”
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He argued that both Israelis and Palestinians encourage and use their exceptional
status as a justification to free
themselves from moral constraints.
Israel combines its sense
of past victimhood with current military superiority,
while Palestine emphasize its
moral superiority and vulnerability.
Palestinians have always
been treated as a case apart
from other refugees because of
the establishment of the
United Nations Relief and
Work Agency (UNRWA),
which handles Palestinian
refugees separately from all
others who are served by a
single UN agency.
Recently, more Palestinians have questioned the utility
of their exceptional status. The
divided jurisdiction of the UN
agencies means that Palestinian refugees in some countries
may fall through the cracks.
UNRWA is also far behind
other UN agencies in promoting protection for children and
ending formal discrimination.
More broadly, many Palestinians now base their claim to
right of return on the principle
of repatriation, which is based
in studies of comparative international law that normalize
the Palestinian experience.
Joel Beinin, professor of
Middle East history at Stanford University and former
director of MESC, concluded
the Fall Seminar Series with
his talk, “The Contemporary
Labor Movement and Social
Movement Theory.”
Beinin argued that contemporary labor strikes in
Egypt did not begin as a response to events in the
broader Arab world but arose
from particular circumstances
within Egypt. Specifically,
they began when the government started promoting privatization in the public sector.
These labor movements
were largely organized on a
grassroots level among people
who lived in the same areas.
Because of this, contemporary
Egyptian labor organizing has
largely been conducted in an
informal manner based on interpersonal relationships. The
local nature of these move-
ments prevents various labor
movements throughout Egypt
from fostering larger networks
of organization. Contemporary Egyptian labor movements have yet to develop a
communication system capable of transforming the small,
local movements into one cohesive force. As long as Egyptian labor movements continue to rely on neighborhood
interaction, they will be fragmented. ♣
MESC News ● March 2009
7
Spotlight On Graduate Theses
Ten students fulfilled the requirements for completion of a Master’s thesis in the calendar year 2008. The
following are short synopses of their work.
Kurds in the Mosul Province
1918-1932
Kristen Alff
Advisor: Joel Beinin, MESC
Kristen used British archival
sources and memoirs to challenge the narrative that dates
the failure of Kurdish nationalism to the signing of the 1923
Treaty of Lausanne. She argued that Kurdish nationalism
did not arise before World
War I in tandem with the
growing prominence of a
Kurdish ethnic identity in the
Mosul region. Instead, many
different expressions of the
constructed Kurdish identity,
with often opposing goals,
arose as responses to the
changing structures within
Iraq in the early 20th century.
The Constitutive Role of Torture in the Modern Egyptian
State
Jack Brown
Advisor: Hani Sayed, Law
Jack investigated the historical
role of torture in Egypt by surveying the published memoirs
of a range of politically active
Egyptians, mostly members of
the Muslim Brothers and
Communist Party, as well as
works examining the experiences of imprisoned leftists
and Islamists. He concluded
that torture is a complex and
multivalent institution that
can be understood as both an
8
imperfect method of interrogation and a disciplinary tool
that can help a weak state control its population.
Rote Learning in the Egyptian
National Education System:
Possible Roots and Consequences
Deena Douara
Advisor: Russanne Hozayin,
School of Continuing
Education
Deena explored the common
assumption that the national
education system in Egypt
promotes rote learning over
critical independent thinking,
despite government rhetoric
for reform. Her research was
based on questionnaires, interviews, and discussions at three
private schools and one university. Students had many
positive comments about their
classes and teachers, but many
reported that they could succeed in school without understanding the content of their
classes. They also complained
that they forgot everything
after exams despite, or because of, excessive rote drills.
Regional Integration, Capital
Investment and the Cultural
Context of Egyptian TV: The
Case of MBC and OTV
Sahra Gemeinder
Advisor: Joel Beinin, MESC
Sahra argued that Arab televi-
sion facilitates the spread of
neo-liberalism and globalization similar to the way universal schooling promoted a new
version of modernity in the
colonial era. She compared the
Saudi-owned MBC group with
the Egyptian channel OTV and
finds that OTV subscribes to a
European liberalism with a
secular touch while MBC promotes an American liberalism
with Islamic morals.
Holocaust Education in Egyptian Secondary Schools
Marisa Jones
Advisor: Joel Beinin, MESC
Marisa conducted textbook
analysis, teacher interviews
and classroom surveys to determine how the Holocaust is
taught in Egyptian secondary
schools. Marisa found that private school students have a
better understanding of the
Holocaust than those in public
national schools. She argued
that this discrepancy probably
results from the inaccurate
and distorted image of Jews
and Jewish history in the history curriculum of public
schools, which culminates in
an open denial that the Holocaust occurred.
Saudi Arabia: Remodeling Authoritarianism for the 21st
Century
Kira Jumet
MESC News ● March 2009
Advisor: Maye Kassem,
Political Science
Kira analyzed political reform
in Saudi Arabia during the
past two decades, arguing that
the primary purpose of the
Saudi political reforms was to
increase the economic, political and social status of the
business elite.
Biblical Myths in Israeli Society and the Construction of
Margins: The Transformation
of the Palestinian Territories
Mareah Peoples
Advisor: Sharif Elmusa,
Political Science
Mareah argued that Biblical
myths governed the transformations in the Israeli cultural
landscape east of Jerusalem.
She discusses the relationships
between the new Israeli settlements, which marginalize Palestinians, and how myth governed Israelis’ connections to
the landscape in the occupied
Palestinian territories. She conducted archival research in
Jerusalem and interviews in
two Palestinian villages.
Oil Concession in Qatar:
1922-1935
Ivan Rosales-Montes
Advisor: Mona Thakur,
Political Science
Ivan identified and analyzed
factors that shaped Qatari external policy during the first
land-based oil concession negotiations in the 1920s and
1930s. This study was based
on research conducted at the
archives of the British Petroleum and the Iraq Petroleum
MESC News ● March 2009
Companies. By using a constructivist theoretical framework, Ivan questioned the
supposition that oil companies
acted as state proxies. He concluded that the negotiation
process illustrates a complex
triangular relationship in
which oil companies, parent
governments and local political figures sought to maximize
political and economic gains.
The Gender Ideology of the
Muslim Brotherhood Members
in the Egyptian Parliament
Sigrun Valsdottir
Advisor: Mariz Tadros,
Political Science
Sigrun analyzed the gender
ideology of Egyptian Parliament Members elected from
the Muslim Brothers in 2005 to
understand the impact a
Brotherhood regime might
have on the rights of women.
She asked fifteen elected
Brothers about their views on
the gendered rights and roles
of men and women. She found
that they did not seek a radical
change to the current rights
allowed to Egyptian women,
but that their agenda does not
seek full equality between
men and women.
From Brothers to Partners:
The Evolution of China’s Foreign Policy to the Middle East
(1949 – 2008)
Shuang Wen
Advisor: Joel Beinin, MESC
Shuang used a historical analytical approach to argue that
China’s foreign policy towards
the Middle East has changed
from ideology-oriented to economic-oriented, idealist to
pragmatic, and reactive to proactive during the last 59 years.
She relied on secondary literature in English and Chinese as
well as interviews with Chinese scholars and diplomats.♣
MESC students Rana
Saad El
Dein and
Kerry
McIntosh
feed a cow
on the department
trip to the
Desert Development
Center.
Photo courtesy of Catherine Baylin
9
Thesis Highlight: Gendering
by Francesca Ricciardone
This thesis analyzes labor
struggle in the Egyptian textile
industry as an opportunity to
explore the gendered social
politics of the historical moment. There is a clear connection between the effects of a
disjointed, unregulated
“l iber alizi ng ” e co nom y,
marked by a privatization
push since the late 1990s, and
the rise of worker contestation
in Egypt today.
Anchoring female workers at the center of a discussion of the labor movement
facilitates a fuller understanding of privatization’s economic, social, and political
effects and how responses to it
are being formulated. This
gendered analysis focuses on
the experiences of women
working in both the public
and private sector of the formal textile industry.
Egyptian workers, female
and male, have been ill-served
by Egypt’s economic transitions. The labor actions at Mahalla al-Kubra and MansuraEspaña are two high-profile
examples in a wave of civil
unrest. From December 7-11,
2006, more than 20,000 work-
Worker Contestation in Egypt
ers staged a sit-in at the Misr
Spinning and Weaving Company (or Ghazl al-Mahalla) in
Mahalla al-Kubra.
The strike marked the
intensification of labor discontent, which had been simmering since the fall of 2004. It
also began a stage of heightened labor activity across cities and industries.
In the
spring of 2007, the 284 workers of the privately owned
Mansura-España textile company rejected the management’s move to sell the company through a sit-in that
lasted 60 days. The following
September, the workers of Mahalla went on strike again in
pursuit of their unfulfilled demands. Thorough journalistic
coverage at each of these
events documented the struggles between workers, union
representatives, company
owners, and the government
of Egypt.
The media also featured
and often championed the
presence and involvement of
women workers. The textile
industry in Egypt and worldwide is considered a
“feminized” industry. An esti-
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of MESC News, the editors, or the Middle East Studies Center.
Faculty Advisors:
AbdelAziz EzzelArab, Hanan Kholoussy, Malak Rouchdy
Student Editors:
Catherine Baylin, Caitlin McNary
10
mated 3,000 of the Mahalla
employees are women, and
about 75% of the employees of
Mansura-España are female.
The women of Ghazl alMahalla were credited with
instigating the 2006 strike activity, and international media
reports highlighted the specific social challenges to
women protestors in MansuraEspaña .
By documenting and analyzing two highly publicized
labor strikes, this thesis addresses the following research
questions: Why did women
workers participate in these
strikes? At what cost did they
participate and for what
gains? How did women take
part in the organization and
implementation of these
strikes? How do women inside and outside of the factories view the results of these
strikes? Finally, what can we
learn about the dynamics of
gender and labor in Egyptian
society through an analysis of
labor contestation?
Much of traditional economic theory emphasizes the
promise of the free market,
ignoring the social disruptions
produced in pursuit of this
neoliberal model. Since 2004,
Egypt has renewed its push to
privatize state-owned enterprises and to expand the private sector. Such measures
have boosted Egypt’s GDP but
the benefits have not been felt
by Egyptian households. As
understood by Widad, a feMESC News ● March 2009
male worker at Ghazl alMahalla:
The Egyptian economy is
better but not for us; [it is better]
for the businessmen. All the statistics from outside say that we
have progressed a lot. But on the
ground, the situation is clearly
different. The businessmen are
the ones benefiting from the
higher prices. Because of this, the
women went down to work to
help the men. After a man graduates, he looks for a working
woman to marry to help him in
this hard life. Now, no one sits at
home.
Widad’s comments connect Egypt’s macro-economic
transitions to the experience of
Egyptian workers who are
paying inflated prices, earning
deflated salaries, and adjusting to a changing labor market.
Female participation in
the labor force is an explicit
development goal of the
World Bank, which associates
this indicator with increased
average household income, a
return on the investment in
women’s education, and increased GDP growth. However, this indicator does not
represent the character of the
labor market these women are
entering. The participation of
Egyptian women in the labor
force is driven largely by economic need. Women are increasingly (and disproportionately) represented in small to
medium size textile production enterprises in the private
sector. These jobs are less secure than jobs in the public
sector and offer fewer (if any)
benefits. The working condiMESC News ● March 2009
tions are poorly regulated.
There is also a greater wage
gap between male workers
and female workers, which
stands in troublesome contrast
to the economic reality that
women’s salaries are increasingly important to maintaining the Egyptian household.
The cases of Mahalla and
Mansura-España show that
women have been prominent
and fundamental participants
in defending their rights as
workers.
In the MansuraEspaña sit-in, the female employees sustained the factory
occupation while their male
co-workers took leave to earn
wages at their supplemental
jobs. Some of these women
bore harsh criticism from their
families and their communities for spending the night outside the home.
The women in Mahalla
who were instrumental in instigating and sustaining the
two week-long strikes viewed
these strikes both as an expression of collective power important for obtaining demands
and as an education for
younger workers. According
to Amal, who has worked at
Mahalla for over twenty years,
one of their greatest accomplishments was showing the
younger women workers how
they could defend their rights
when faced with an uncertain
economic future.
Discussing women’s participation in the labor market
and their participation in labor
contestation emphasizes that
Egyptian women are important economic and political
actors at home and in the
workplace. It also helps discourage the tendency to view
labor strikes as either economically driven or politically
militant. Workers are negotiating new economic realities,
and these dynamics affect hierarchies of power in the family, communities, and the
state. ♣
The author is a 2008 graduate of
MESC and presented this paper
at a panel organized by Dr. Abdelazziz Ezzelarab at the Middle
E as t S tud ies A ss oc ia tion
(MESA)’s 42nd Annual Meeting
in Washington, D.C. in November 2008.
In Loving Memory
Maha Gabr
Maha graduated from AUC in 2006 and worked in the
MESC office from 2007 to 2008. Her cheerfulness and
smile brightened the lives of everyone who knew her.
We will miss her dearly.
11
The Abduction of Philip Rizk
by Catherine Baylin
On February 6, MESC
student Philip Rizk, a dual
Egyptian-German citizen, was
taken by Egyptian state security to an unknown location
after he had participated in a
peaceful march to raise awareness about events in Gaza. As
reported in The New York
Times, Philip was kept blindfolded and handcuffed, and
he was constantly interrogated
for more than four days before
he was released. There was no
explanation given as to why
he was arrested or why he
was eventually released.
Philip’s
abduction
touched off a wave of protests,
media coverage, and activism
which stretched from the AUC
campus across the globe to
Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
News spread through text
messages, email, blogs and a
Facebook group started by
Philip’s family, which had
more than 7,500 members on
February 14.
The morning after his abduction about 50 of Philip’s
friends, classmates, and family
members gathered outside the
al-Quadaa’ al-Ali, the Egyptian Supreme Court, in downtown Cairo. There they held
signs
asking “Where is
Philip?” in English, Arabic,
and German.
At the same time, officials
from AUC and the German
Philip Rizk, on
the February 6
Solidarity
March for
Gaza, hours
before his detention. His
sign reads,
“We are fed
up. Open the
Rafah crossing.”
Photo Courtesy of Per Björklund
12
Embassy were working to
secure his release. The following day, about 150 people
gathered on AUC’s new campus to call attention to his detention and deliver a letter to
the Board of Trustees asking
for its commitment to helping
free Philip.
Protests continued both
at AUC and downtown, as
well as in Washington DC,
Chicago, and London. Most
major news outlets, including
The New York Times and The
Washington Post, Der
Spiegle, and the BBC covered
Philip’s disappearance. This
outpouring of international
support may have contributed to Philip’s release after
four days of captivity.
In a message posted on
Facebook after he was returned to his family, Philip
described, “the incomprehensible contrast between absolute freedom and absolute
confinement“ and then called
attention to the continuing
plight of the Palestinians in
Gaza. Philip also highlighted
the case of Diaa Gad, an
Egyptian blogger from the
Delta who was seized on the
same day as Philip. Gad, and
several other Gaza activists,
still remain in custody. Their
whereabouts and wellbeing
are unknown. Many of the
websites and networks established to help Philip have
turned their attention to Gaza
and other arrested activists. ♣
MESC News ● March 2009