382 Non-Event News Story of the Year

Al-Masry al-Youm wins first prize for its story on what didn’t really happen, much, yesterday (See, also, the normally insightful Baheyya‘s breathless endorsement). In its way, Al-Masry‘s news piece is more revealing than Dr. Ibrahim’s reflections on the 55 years since the revolution from the same edition.

My personal experience of the country today, 55 years and one day after the revolution:

  • An old lady throwing trash at two veiled (Saudi-style) women and insulting them. They giggled. A Dudley Doright type interceded on their behalf.
  • A fight over cutting in the line/throng at a window at the Mugamma that actually came to blows (or headbutts, anyway). As the closest non-involved male to the action, I was eventually compelled to play Dudley Doright, though secretly I was glad for the entertainment. The guilty party eventually repented and put his arm around the guy who’d just given him a fantastic dressing-down, brought him next to him, and let him thrust his money through the window first. This is why I love Egypt.
  • Computer systems down at the Mugamma. No one doing anything about it beyond sleeping on the keyboards in the heat. Around the corner, electric typewriters working just fine.

Business as usual… as, alas, with the recent arrests of Brothers in Marsa Matruah and Agami. Poor Brothers can’t even go to the beach. Didn’t I read the same story almost word for word last year around this time? As one wire reporter memorably quipped sometime maybe six months ago, “I’m going to write a ‘No Brothers Arrested Today’ story. Now that would be news.”

In fairness to the government’s continued dynamism, I should note Al-Ahram‘s top story today: new investment zones! More capitalist repression, Hossam will say. More environmental degradation, Amr will say. More jobs, more development, more investment, Mubarak will say. More favors to be bestowed and received, everyone will agree. God bless them all, I say.

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