Egyptian media: in the thrall of the state

The media both inside and outside Egypt have failed to really capture the purgatory in which Egyptians dwell.

The counter-revolution is in full swing, confident and brazen. The Egyptian health ministry reports that 18 people were killed and 52 injured on January 24 and 25, including five police officers, in clashes across the country. More than 150 were arrested.

The most evocative of these killings by the state was that of Shimaa al-Sabagh, shot while protesting in Cairo. A picture of this travesty became an instant symbol of the brutality of the counter-revolution.

To add yet insult to the already painful ironies that abound, Hosni Mubarak's sons were released from prison two days later while the sentences of three leading 2011 protesters - Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel - were upheld.

One wonders why a military regime that enjoys wide support is nonetheless so intolerant of any opposition. Why a zero-sum war against a few unarmed civilians is worth the time, resources, and perhaps most of all the political capital it has expended to fight them? It is perhaps this regime's glaring insecurity that should worry its supporters most.

The state seems to need to divide the Egyptian population into two categories: citizens desperate for stability and to have a police force protecting their streets, and anyone who offers any dissent, from Muslim Brotherhood to the leftists, who are now lumped together as "Islamists", "Muslim Brotherhood" or even "Islamic State".

Many in the Egyptian media behave as if they are responding to direct government orders to tailor their reporting and analysis according to certain talking points, boundaries, and most of all, a particular, unyielding world view. Popular presenters such as Amer Adeb and Lamis Haddadi, who remind me of hosts one might find on Fox News in the US, reflect precisely the state's opinions, complete with unflagging dramatic effect - does Amer Adeeb ever stop yelling?

Ibrahim Issa, the respected editor of the Egyptian newspaper al-Dustur, has faced charges of hypocrisy because of a seeming about-face on his stance on those in power. His opinions on the Charlie Hebdo attack called out Egyptians who condemn the terrorism but follow with "wa laakin" (however). Issa's message was delivered brilliantly, but it is a shame that some will not listen because of perceptions.

This is one category of journalist, those whose reportage has mirrored the state's line. However these journalists are sometimes unfairly maligned by critics whose analysis is too strident and one sided.

For example in some corners of western inteligentsia there is a prolonged outrage and confusion (which often strikes one as feigned) about how it could possibly be that novelists such as Sonallah Ibrahim and Ala Al-Aswani could have supported the military generals in June of 2013.

Popular presenters remind me of hosts one might find on Fox News in the US.

But their reasons are imminently comprehensible if one only takes the time to actually listen to them, especially Ibrahim, instead of speak and extrapolate for them. For someone like Ibrahim's part, he correctly surmises a struggle between two very bad choices - the military and the Islamists - and given that choice picks the military.

There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Egyptians of letters who have made this same choice and explained that choice eloquently. At times, therefore, one must be aware that discussions of the "bias" of the Egyptian media and intelligencia is in fact really a discussion of the bias of western commentators, who deny that very
Egyptian intelligentsia agency as they organise rather paternalistic panels about their incomprehensible decisions.

Another category of "journalism" in Egypt is epitomised by Mona Iraqi, whose show al-Mustakhabi (the hidden) recently focused several programmes on a group of men in a public bath allegedly engaging in homosexual activity, a word which Iraqi liberally substitutes with "perversion".

One narrative, one lifestyle, one leader

With cameras rolling, Iraqi ratted these men out to the police and internal security services before filming them bare-chested, wearing towels and covering their faces as they were herded out into a street awash with thugs.

The chance that these sexual minorities will be beaten, sodimised and tortured by internal security and the police hovers near 100 percent, as Iraqi surely knows, but that did not stop her from going to to produce several stories about this "scandal".

One must ask how this "scandal" serves the state. These ritual floggings of the "other" in society encourages narrow-minded views to accept one narrative, one logic, one lifestyle, one religion, one leader.

The military intervention last June was popularly backed by a population that wanted stability and genuinely feared the Islamists, and that sentiment is being taken advantage of to a perverse degree today by the state and by the media.

Understanding this equation however does not produce clarity but more confusion and questions. Egyptians have asked for authoritarianism, they do not feel that they have other viable choices, and a cursory glance suggests that that observation is perfectly rational.

The state and the military are one, and who could replace it? Egyptians needs a movement that has been wizened by both the Islamists who sought to usurp the revolution, and the counter-revolution that strangled it. A communal awareness that this is now the task before Egyptians would give us at least a glimmer of hope.