{"id":1004,"date":"2006-06-11T20:37:15","date_gmt":"2006-06-11T20:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2006-06-11T20:37:15","modified_gmt":"2006-06-11T20:37:15","slug":"2006-6-11-inverting-the-flag-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/?p=1004","title":{"rendered":"Inverting the flag"},"content":{"rendered":"
An interesting phenomenon indeed\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The Egyptian bloggers are circulating inverted Egyptian flags<\/a> on their websites and mailing lists.<\/p>\n

The initiative was launched, it seems, shortly before the May 25 pro-judges demo, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s picking up now. Several blogs have posted the picture including:<\/p>\n

-Wael 3abbass put the inverted flag on his front page of this week’s issue of MisrDigital<\/a>, with a caption: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve inverted the flag, because the country is in a catastrophe. We will not correct it, till the country itself is corrected.\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd<\/p>\n

-Al-Shawakish Qademoon<\/em><\/a>, (the Hammers are Coming), the website of the \u00e2\u20ac\u015330th<\/sup> of February Organization-Retards for Change\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd also ran the icon. The 30th<\/sup> of Feb Organization is cyber-joke launched by the bloggers in March, following the attacks on Coptic churches in Alexandria<\/a>, for which the interior ministry blamed a “mentally retarded” suspect. The bloggers were mocking the security services\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 constant blaming of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153retards\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd for terror, homicide, and whatever crimes they couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t solve, like the massacre in Bani Mazar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

-3amr 3ezzat<\/a>, another prominent Egyptian blogger, ran the poster following the assault on Sharqawi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The flag has always been a taboo in Egypt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political culture, both left and right.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard across the years all sorts of jokes on how Americans are flag-waving patriots, but honestly, I think (or at least used to) Egyptians are worse in that regards. And probably what happened to the Sudanese refugees in Mohandessin <\/a>last December was a strong evidence of that.<\/p>\n

Even at the height of Egyptian leftist radicalism in the 1970s, flag-burning traditions, like those pictures we saw of the US anti-war demos, never really took off in Egypt. The flag was extremely sacred. I remember sometime in the late 1990s, the media went hysterical when Muslim Brothers students at Dar el-3oloum raised the flag of Egypt, but with the Quran and the two swords (the MB’s symbol) replacing Saladin’s Eagle.<\/p>\n

I always felt the opposition was in a constant competition with the regime over who is more “patriotic”–and as an internationalist that sickens me, and I hope the latest cyber-campaign might be a departure from this narrow chauvinist view.<\/p>\n

\"Inverted<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting phenomenon indeed\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The Egyptian bloggers are circulating inverted Egyptian flags<\/a> on their websites and mailing lists.
\nThe initiative was launched, it seems, shortly before the May 25 pro-judges demo, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s picking up now. Several blogs have posted the picture including:
\n-Wael 3abbass put the inverted flag on his front page of this week’s issue of MisrDigital<\/a>, with a caption: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve inverted the flag, because the country is in a catastrophe. We will not correct it, till the country itself is corrected.\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd
\n-Al-Shawakish Qademoon<\/em><\/a>, (the Hammers are Coming), the website of the \u00e2\u20ac\u015330th<\/sup> of February Organization-Retards for Change\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd also ran the icon. The 30th<\/sup> of Feb Organization is cyber-joke launched by the bloggers in March, following the attacks on Coptic churches in Alexandria<\/a>, for which the interior ministry blamed a “mentally retarded” suspect. The bloggers were mocking the security services\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 constant blaming of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153retards\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd for terror, homicide, and whatever crimes they couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t solve, like the massacre in Bani Mazar<\/a>.
\n-3amr 3ezzat<\/a>, another prominent Egyptian blogger, ran the poster following the assault on Sharqawi<\/a>.
\nThe flag has always been a taboo in Egypt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political culture, both left and right.
\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard across the years all sorts of jokes on how Americans are flag-waving patriots, but honestly, I think (or at least used to) Egyptians are worse in that regards. And probably what happened to the Sudanese refugees in Mohandessin <\/a>last December was a strong evidence of that.
\nEven at the height of Egyptian leftist radicalism in the 1970s, flag-burning traditions, like those pictures we saw of the US anti-war demos, never really took off in Egypt. The flag was extremely sacred. I remember sometime in the late 1990s, the media went hysterical when Muslim Brothers students at Dar el-3oloum raised the flag of Egypt, but with the Quran and the two swords (the MB’s symbol) replacing Saladin’s Eagle.
\nI always felt the opposition was in a constant competition with the regime over who is more “patriotic”–and as an internationalist that sickens me, and I hope the latest cyber-campaign might be a departure from this narrow chauvinist view.
\n\"Inverted<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[227,6,153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}