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6 Ayman Nour Sentenced

So Ayman Nour was finally sentenced to five years in prison today for falsifying signatures to register the Ghad Party. Most of my friends went to the trial. I pled work commitments and stayed away. Really, the only reason for me to go would have been sheer voyeurism. Shoot, the Washington Post called me today looking for a comment on the trial I was contractually bound not to give.

Just as well. I don’t like giving statements. I feel creepy taking an official line at the expense of what I really think just to get my name in the paper. So what do I really think? First, some coincidence Nour was sentenced on Christmas Eve, eh? More evidence the Egyptian government is getting more media savvy. It didn’t stop the U.S. government from noticing, of course, and Scott McClellan issued a very strong statement soon after the sentence was passed.

Second, I’m not too worried about Nour and his hunger strike. He’ll be well treated in prison and be released after a year or so. Then he can go the route of Saad Eddin Ibrahim and live off the New York and Washington think-tank lecture circuit, maybe even lose whatever local credibility he has and join Benador Associates. It would be a fitting third act to the “American candidate’s” career. Nour never had much popular support here outside his neighborhood. And he lost a lot of support even in his neighborhood after his payola dried up.

His entire platform seemed calculated to appeal to the Americans, and in that he was useful to the government for a time. His program would have been a disaster and disastrously unpopular if implemented. Drastic privatization, closer ties with Israel (this last point was never part of the public platform, granted, but it was part of the platform a senior member of his circle outlined to me after six or seven glasses of ouzo at a downtown restaurant one night): This all sounds very good in Washington. And probably at the editorial boards of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But consider that government bloat is what keeps much of the country’s urban population from starving to death or revolting. Consider that most of this country would go to war with Israel tomorrow if they thought they could win (or even if they didn’t, but had a leader who’d let them). Suddenly the program makes a lot less sense.

For the Hizb al-Watani, the Nour banners hanging around town and the Kifaya activists chanting in the streets lent the necessary trappings of democracy needed to satisfy American pressure. He and his wife Gamila were adept at working the western media. Now that the election is over, he’s no longer useful—except perhaps as an example to any other rich, secular, opposition figure who might think about running an independent presidential campaign. The same western journalists who write “on message” stories about Nour roll their eyes at Gamila’s overblown text messages while getting drunk and talking about who’ll be the first to seduce her while Ayman’s away.

It’s almost as vile as the blackmail and state media character assassination campaigns carried out against him over the past few months.

Poor guy. First he falls off the podium, literally and figuratively, then crying on national TV backfires, and now this. Shoot, he deserves the cushy lecture circuit.

Right, enough on that for now. It’s Christmas.

[tags]Ayman Nour, Egypt[/tags]

5 Comments »

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1. Wait, from what I understand, you are not condemning the trial just because you do not agree with the person, his ideas and his movements? I mean, i feel strong sarcasm in your post, It leads me to think that as long as he is going to get out of jail after one year and as you said probably give lectures or whatever, you do not feel the need to condemn or at least tell us if you think the trial was fair or not. Maybe I misread, but that’s what I felt from your post.

   Comment by Zied — December 25, 2005 #

2. eh you are nasty.

   Comment by Alaa — December 25, 2005 #

3. Of course the trial was wrong.

   First, let me just say that, particularly so soon after the parliamentary elections, the idea of the Hizb al-Watani government bringing anyone up on charges of electoral fraud is patently hilarious.

   I have no idea whether Nour forged those signatures. Given that 400 people turned out in front of the Hizb al-Watani headquarters today to protest his detention, I doubt he would need to resort to fraud to register the party. Second, from everything I hear, the trail was not fairly conducted. It was clearly politically motivated. That seems so clear as to not bear mention.

   I do feel a bit guilty for kicking Nour when he’s down. My sympathies are with him, his family, and his friends and supporters at this difficult time. I may not be sold on his platform, but obviously choice is itself a virtue in politics and no one should be thrown in jail on politically motivated charges.

   Comment by Elijah Zarwan — December 25, 2005 #

4. […] Back from vacation in Jordan and Upper Egypt now, overwhelmed by work. Since Ayman Nour was sentenced, I’ve had time to reconsider my initial cynical post on Ayman Nour’s prison sentence. I’ve asked people to challenge me when I’m being an idiot. They have and now I must confess I may have been a tad too cynical for a man who had just eaten a sumptuous Christmas Eve feast. Blame my tone on indigestion. […]

   Pingback by The Skeptic ?????? » Ayman Nour, Continued — January 7, 2006 #

5. […] It’s like the NDP is methodically taking revenge on everyone who submitted it to the indignities it bore in 2005. Ayman Nour: jailed. The Ghad Party: smashed. The Brothers: 43 arrested today, following Rose al-Yousef’s (smear?) campaign against supreme guide Mohammad Aakef earlier this week and dozens more arrests over the previous weeks. Bad news for The Judges’ Club today (See also Al-Jazeera’s piece…I’m waiting for Baheyya’s comment). They’ll be a harder nut to crack after the reformists swept the club’s internal elections in Cairo and Alexandria, but this is just another shot over the bow. Coverage on terrestrial TV news tonight (women ululating as the decision was delivered) confirmed we can expect more over the coming weeks. […]

   Pingback by The Skeptic ?????? » Sauron’s Wrath — April 18, 2006 #

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