Kuwaiti newspaper claimed that the Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon that insisted to dine at restaurant in Maadi despite being asked by the manager to leave !!
I suspect this newspaper because it does not make sense to have this news in Kuwait before Egypt also this newspaper claimed that the MB fakes the signatures in their NFC website , already I do not know why the Kuwaiti press interferes in the Egyptian internal affairs and stands with the regime , do they think that Hosni Mubarak related to their ruling family !!??
Again I do not know if this incident was true or not but if it was true then I advise Levanon to have some dignity and to leave when he is asked to leave and not to call the police , he is not welcomed with his body guards.
Anyhow back to the news I just wonder how the Kuwaiti newspaper knew about it before the Egyptian press.
The Israeli ambassador and his security have turned Maadi in to hell whenever they move already.
FYI the glorious past of Levanon's mother has not been fully discussed in the Egyptian media.
Kuwaiti newspapers should concentrate on their own affairs by investigating the wealth of the Sabbah family and it's corrupt ways. Unfortunately they are not able to undertake that task because Kuwaitis depend on imported foreigners to do everything for them, such as drive cars, cook, clean, manage businesses, teach, cure,etc...even when Saddam invaded their country they had to import the US army to fight their war while their rulers ran away and crawled under rocks.
ReplyDeleteKuwaiti newspapers should try their rulers for treason and abandonment of their country during invasion instead they stoop down to report easier subjects that don't matter to them.
So this particular article in a Kuwaiti newspaper has rubbed you the wrong way?
ReplyDeleteWelcome to our world - except that the culprit is...the Egyptian media.
And you want evidence?
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2259843076&v=photos&ref=ts#!/photo.php?pid=2330258&op=34&o=global&view=global&subj=2259843076&id=1421806596
From Aldustour.
@anonymous , the problem if they dare and hint from faraway to their royal family , they will be sent to jail immediately so it is easily
ReplyDelete@Africanist , my dear a silly cartoon from the mad sports media does not represent the whole press in Egypt or even represent 0.01 how the Egyptian people are portrayed in the Arab regional media
look I know that you and your other brothers love to come here to attack Egypt and Egyptians , I know you hate us from the deepest part in your heart and you blame us on all your problems, strangely I do not meet this hate except with love , care and respect to the Sudanese people
One day will come and you will remember a young Egyptian lady once told you online that Egyptians are not the enemies
look I know that you and your other brothers love to come here to attack Egypt and Egyptians , I know you hate us from the deepest part in your heart and you blame us on all your problems, strangely I do not meet this hate except with love , care and respect to the Sudanese people
ReplyDeleteOne day will come and you will remember a young Egyptian lady once told you online that Egyptians are not the enemies
????!!!????????!!!??
The issue is one of 'respect'.
Emotions have nothing to do with it.
Disrespect and arrogance breed indifference.
When did any Sudanese commentator blame Egypt for 'any' of Sudan's problems apart from the illegal military occupation of Halayeb and the inequitable 1959 Agreement????
If you tired to look at things from a rational and non-emotional perspective for a second - you would see that there is a problem in Sudanese-Egyptian relations.
You would see that the sweet rhetoric is not matched by facts on the ground or numbers.
You seem to be enthusiastic about 'change' in many aspects in Egypt - why not in the way Sudanese people are portrayed in the media - including in that stupid cartoon.
IS THE FACT THAT MOST OF US HAVE BROWN SKIN 'THAT' FUNNY????????????????????!
If the disconnect in Sudan-Egypt relations between rhetoric and reality is the fault of politicians then citizens on both sides should make an effort to explore the problems, discuss them and try to address them...
Do you know anything about the Sudanese media? The 'only' time it mildly attacked 'the attitude' and policies of Egyptians was during the 3 days after the Egypt-Algeria match in Omdurman and that was after the slanderous, insulting tirade led by Amr Adib on live sattelite tv - and all the evidence is available on youtube.
0.01% ?!
What percentage of the Egyptian media insulted Sudan and the Sudanese in the wake of Egypt's loss to Algeria in the match in Omdurman?
The answer is the most influential tv personalities and a senior Ahram columnist who was reprimanded for suggesting that Egyptian military planes contravene Sudanese airspace and evacuate Egyptian citizens.
No one said 'anything' about enmity - but you must 'learn' to respect people - especially those you 'claim' to have a special relationship with.
Ignoring problems will never solve them.
We have diametrically opposing views of history - that doesn't mean there is any contemporary enmity - but don't expect us to share your views.
It's time the discourse, actions and attitudes 'matured' - growing up has been long-overdue for some time now.
p.s. - it's not just me and my 'brothers', there are 'sisters' too.
@Africanist, I am not taking sides in Egypt vs Sudan but I always enjoy your comments.
ReplyDelete@Z, I have mixed feelings about this. Certainly the Ambassador should have called the restaurant beforehand to makes sure his group of four plus six bodyguards was not going to ba a problem. But maybe he did! Since it's a famous restaurant, he probably did. But the article doesn't make it clear.
ReplyDeleteSo I assume that the restaurant knew in advance the size of his party, but not that it included the Israeli Ambassador. In that case, the restaurant manager asking him to leave because he's Israeli seems no more defensible than a Lebanese beach club excluding blacks, which I think everyone agrees is wrong.
One final thought. If a restaurant asks you to leave, do you really want to eat food prepared by them after you refuse?
Jason, where are you from?
ReplyDeleteIf only many, many, many, many, many more of our neighbours North of the 22nd parallel and occupied Halayeb would be so open-minded.
@Africanist, Thank you very much! I am happy that Zeinobia and all of you North Africans and Middle Easterners put up with me. I am an American and I live in Seattle. I became interested in Egyptian Chronicles because Zeinobia linked to this article on my blog.
ReplyDeleteI don't speak or read Arabic so I depend on Google translate. I looked at the comic from Al Dostor. It looks racist to me on the face of it, but Google of course doesn't translate graphics files so I can't read it. An American newspaper would not print it no matter what it says, just because of the picture.
Africanist@ 5:13 PM
ReplyDeleteAs an Egyptian expatriate living in North America my perspective regarding the cartoon is crude,tasteless and of course racist.
A good cartoonist would portray the football player's trade in a humorous way instead, he resorted to use a cheap way to get a laugh.
Knowing Egyptians, their humor can be sometimes offensive but they mean well as they are not always politically correct and are blunt in their approach. For example, in the west we do not ask strangers direct personal questions like what they do for a living, are they married,etc. while in Egypt they consider this normal.
In conclusion, the cartoonist seems to be ignorant and insensitive in his approach but I don't think he is sending a racist message.
As for the restaurant refusing the Israeli Ambassador, the article is not clear, thus I cannot comment about that situation.
The caption reads 'Al-Hadari transfers to Mirreikh'.
ReplyDeleteAl-Hadari is the Egyptian national team's goalkeeper.
Al-Mirreikh is one of Sudan's top two football clubs.
The drawing shows Al-Hadari 'painting his face brown' and saying 'We're all brothers' whilst he's surrounded by sackfulls of money.
It's pretty self-explanatory.
As fate would have it the deal to get Al-Hadari to Mirreikh didn't go through - many Mirreikh fans were outraged at the high-profile deal so soon after the damage that ensued after Egypt lost to Algeria in the final World Cup qualifying match that was hosted in Sudan.
Of course no American newspaper would print it, no European newspaper or any self-respecting media would.
We are preparing a website which documents and displays racist scenes in Egyptian films and the database so far is immense!
@ Z
ReplyDeletein reference to the Kuwaiti press thing,
take it from an Egyptian living in thins Hot desert. they only do that for 2 reasons A)because EVEN their news paper reporters are foreigners !!!!
B ) they have no news to talk about
the SABAH family have an iron grip on thing in Kuwait, they know how to ( BUY ) their nations love through pampering them to the extreme.
but i have to be honest "some" of them that i personally met are REALLY well educated and amazing people.
on a side note, few weeks a go their was a Murder in the Amir palace. one of the shaikh`s who was well knows for his passion for sports,business and STAYING a way from political life (thats why he was loved by a lot of Kuwaiti) was shot died (7 bullets in to his back) by his UNCLE ) NON OF the news agencies WORLD WIDE has mentioned this !!!!!
what a Grip !!!
@Jason: the cartoon is showing one of our famous football players, with bags of $$$ around him and saying something like Egypt and Sudan is one, and besides it a word that he expressed interest in moving to play for one of the Sudanese clubs. The cartoon is clearly implying the player is a hypocrite and thinks about money only. I understand how some with the hateful mentality of Africanist and Sudanese Observer would take that as an insult to the Sudanese or the dark color but I think they over reacted. A good percentage of Sudanese and Egyptians are dark-skinned, with both having different variations of color. So, how is the cartoon off the truth? Also, Are you telling me that cartoonists do not at all use particular features or colors to indicate a character belonging to one part of the World or a certain group?
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of how African-Americans are allowed to call each other with the N word but if a person from another race does then that person is deemed racist. Black is beautiful and also the N race is beautiful and I think those who get angry like that are actually reacting the way those who are racist against their color or race, want them to act exactly.
Also, you said this wont be published in a US paper, fine but the reality is that racism is felt in the US more than in Egypt despite such media controls and of course initial tendency of Americans to be politically correct. As an Egyptian studying, it was the first time I was ever asked if Im African or Arab &when I say I was raised to think and I do feel both, that answer didnt appeal to some. It was the first time I was made to think of my color, esp since in my family we do have the rainbow sort of color complexions. I found it really sad how my African American friends were trying to claim me as coming from a Black ancestors and civilization of the black man (their own term), my white American landlord was telling me how for her she doesnt see traces of being "African" & that I had a classic American face & several other White American and European friends who expressed how for them Egyptians are not "Arabs" (apparently thats something bad) and I shouldnt be fine when someone thinks Im from India (my friend who said that line had a very disgusted facial expression while saying that).
In short, Im trying to say, there might be more gov controls in the West regarding such stuff but the reality of the situation is that the level of actual racism is higher and it seems that color and race are things a good number of ppl do think about there. Though I'd say it varies depending on which city one is talking about. In Egypt, unlike what Sudanese Observer and Africanist would like you to think, actual racism among ppl is less, even if gov controls over the media for such issues might not be as strict.
@Africanist , good for you , waiting for this website and I hope you would reach something from
ReplyDeleteFor all the commentators I would like to hint to something , unfortunately black-face expression is alien to the Egyptian society despite how awful it , this is no.1
no.2 Al Dostor newspaper is from the most respectable , from the most liberal and most unbiased newspapers n Egypt
Al Dostor was from the first newspapers that covered Mustafa Mahmoud square incident and condemned it , it was the few newspapers that exposed the role of Police , the role of UNCHR , the role of media ..etc in this massacre.
Al Dostor has been from the few newspapers that spoke frequently about the image of Africans in the Egyptian film industry
Al dostor has been adopting the Nubian point of view in the Nubian land issue
Ibrahim Eissa , its chief in editor has been vocal about our policies in Africa
so for a silly cartoon in its sports supplement which I do not know its editorial policies and honestly I do not think that people buy the paper for its sports section.
No.3 this cartoon despite being insulting to Africans , it is more insulting to Al Hadri who was been attacked in a way you can't imagine since the day he decided to leave Al-Ahly and play in Europe to the rest of that saga. Al Hadri has been always accused of being greedy and I remember when we read that he was getting the Sudanese passport too. I am not defending the cartoon itself but I am explaining its real background if we have reached to this point 'ignoring the original topic of the post'
By Africanist , you can also contact Dostor to talk about this issue :
through twitter : @DostorNews
Unlike other media outlets these guys do listen
I agree with last anonymous by the way
@Tamer , yes that murder we have not heard anything about , what happened in it !!??
I understand the attractiveness of our news but to speak about our political life like that now makes me feel that the Egyptian embassy is doing more than great job in Kuwait
@ the expatriot Anonymous - you said:
ReplyDeleteAs an Egyptian expatriate living in North America my perspective regarding the cartoon is crude,tasteless and of course racist.
So how can you go back and justify it afterwards?
Racist humour is wrong.
We Sudanese are 'tired' of it.
No other country's media has as much fun at the expense of our skin tones, accents, cultures as much as Egypt's.
Racism in the media is a strict liability crime - it is 'wrong' and the norm should be that is is 'unacceptable' - the actus reus is enough - we refuse to be dragged into mens rea hypotheticals.
The second Anonymous does not really deserve a response.
One knows the other party is completely dodging all objective discussion when they make accusations of having 'hateful mentalities'.
They are in extreme denial, justify something 'wrong' by citing hypothetical, personal examples of it elsewhere and by making baseless, non-objective comparisons.
I repeat:
Racist 'humour' in the 'media' is wrong.
We Sudanese are 'tired' of it.
No other country's media has as much fun at the expense of our skin tones, accents, cultures as much as Egypt's.
And the allegation that myself and literally 'countless' other Sudanese 'over-react' to our rejection and disgust towards 21st Century racist portrayals of us in Egypt's media is actually laughable.
For all those who read this blog, Zeinobia stated that blackface is 'alien' to Egyptian society.
ReplyDeleteAlien means being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the world; "alien customs"
I'll let you all make your own minds up with this home made video by Egyptian youths just before the final Algeria-Egypt football qualifying match that Algeria won.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-U_Yt6gg08&feature=related
I am sorry for bad misuse of words , I mean "alien" as understanding the racist meaning of blackface
ReplyDeleteIf you tell those youth that what they had done was wrong as it is a blackface ,they would not and will not understand it because we do not have that term like in the States for example
@ Africanist ,Oh another thing I am not liar and I do not accept to be called one even if it is indirectly and please stick to the main issue of the post , this post is about the Israeli ambassador
ReplyDeleteIf you tell those youth that what they had done was wrong as it is a blackface ,they would not and will not understand it because we do not have that term like in the States for example
ReplyDelete******************
Blackface is theatrical makeup used in the United States in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, and around the world, where the practice became popular during the 19th century, it became associated with certain archetypes of American racism such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the "dandified coon ".[1] In 1848, blackface minstrel shows were the national art of the time, translating formal art such as opera into popular terms for a general audience.[2] Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right, until it ended in the United States with the civil rights movement of the 1960s.[3] Blackface has become associated with racism worldwide, so that the term may be used in a broader sense to include similarly stereotyped performances even when they do not involve blackface makeup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface
****************************
Blackface is blackface whether in a 1930's Hollywood film or a 21st Century Ahmad Hilmy film.
You're saying those people have no manners and common sense?
They don't know what the rest of the world knows, that it's not nice to make fun of the way people look?
If you don't like the comments of Sudanese visitors to your blog, censor us.
Yes plz Z, censor those two, this is becoming too much. Always posting things that are not relevant to the main post and repeating themselves over and over and over again.
ReplyDelete@Africanist and @Anonymous, thank you for translating and explaining the comic!
ReplyDelete"We are preparing a website which documents and displays racist scenes in Egyptian films and the database so far is immense!" Wow! Keep us posted, Africanist. The blackface video you pointed out, yes that looks racist too though I don't know what they're saying. (You don't need to translate!) I understand being tired of racist humor, but your actus reus rather than mens rea preference (that the cartoon or video alone, not necessarily accompanied by a racist intention, suffices to demonstrate racism) is dangerous as a general principle in free societies, and worries me greatly. As soon as you codify a right not to be offended you invite idiots everywhere to say "I'm offended" whenever they disagree with you, and soon nobody can say anything. Better to let jerks be jerks, and show themselves to be jerks, for all the world to see. Otherwise you give those same jerks the moral high ground of censorship victim-hood.
This is a strong general principle not only for me but for all traditionally liberal Americans and Europeans. It is not about racist portrayals specifically. Many in the Muslim world will disagree strongly, feeling for example, that Jyllands-Posten shouldn't publish drawings of Mohamed, because the cartoons offend them. I don't have a solution to that except advising them not to read Jyllands-Posten, a solution they will mostly find unsatisfactory. Some conflicts cannot be resolved.
The right response to racist cartoons and blackface videos is calling attention to them, as Africanist apparently is planning to do with his database. And pouring public scorn on the authors. If the cases are egregious the public will agree with you and the offenders reputations will be adversely affected; if the public is unimpressed you should develop a thicker skin.
"If you don't like the comments of Sudanese visitors to your blog, censor us." @Africanist, Zeinobia censors very little, to her credit. I wish you wouldn't taunt her like that. She might do it out of spite! ;)
ReplyDeleteDoesn't phase me - or any of us.
ReplyDelete@Africanist: just out of interest, who is "us"? is this the same "us" preparing that web site against our media? Oh, my we "are" scared.
ReplyDeletePoint is, you guys are spamming every Z post with irrelevant comments. You said what you want and then kept on repeating. As a regular follower of this blog spot I find it very rude when someone keeps on ignoring the original post for no apparent reason and w/o even apologizing.
What a juicy scandal about Levanon's mother! But nobody can help it if their mom was a prostitute. It's not his fault. Maybe the Ambassador should be admired for overcoming his lowly pedigree.
ReplyDelete@Africanist, Remember you said "We are preparing a website which documents and displays racist scenes in Egyptian films and the database so far is immense!". If you have not abandoned that project I'd like to see a link.
ReplyDelete