Smile and the World Smiles With You?

Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia — demonstrations, riots and sit-ins have been everywhere. Time magazine was so very spot on when it chose The Protestor as 2011’s Person of the Year. “As it has for the past 84 years, the weekly newsmagazine selected the person (or sometimes group, or thing) that its editors deemed had the single greatest impact during the past year, for better or for worse,” announced the magazine’s editor.

Right now, with demonstrations breaking out seemingly every day around the globe, it’s becoming very hard for us all to understand which it is, “better” or “worse.”

Here in Egypt, many had envisioned that 2012 would see the struggling, bloodshed and perseverance herald a new beginning for the nation, but with clashes erupting sporadically, demands still unmet and a salvation government that doesn’t know if it’ll still be in office tomorrow, the year is off to an extremely rocky start indeed.

For this month’s cover package, Amr Hamzawy — political science professor, outspoken activist and heartthrob holder of the Heliopolis parliamentary seat — talks to Senior Writer Randa El Tahawy about the challenges facing the new People’s Assembly and why it’s not going to be easy opening up dialogue with a predominantly Islamist house. Hamzawy’s “Man of the People” interview leads into a series of question and answer sessions with experts and analysts who look ahead to 2012 in politics, religion, media, e?onomy, society, sports and culture. The series starts on page 36.

The past 12 months have also seen women more in the spotlight too. And not necessarily in a good way. At press time, viewers the world over were still outraged by images of violence and brutality against women at the hands of Egyptian security forces and military personnel. With videos of US-based Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy speaking about her ordeal still making the rounds in cyberspace, fresh footage of what have become known as the “girl in the red jumper” and the “woman in the blue bra” are shedd?ng light on a festering problem in Egypt: violence toward women. Starting on page 58, our two-part feature “Women’s Turn” explores abuse of female activists and protesters as well as other challenges faced by female journalists in the field.

Our Faces slot also features a woman in the media. On page 32, Staff Writer Hana Zuhair sits down with prominent Nile TV news personality Shahira Amin for a frank talk about her trials and tribulations at the state-owned channel.

At press time and with one final round of voting to go, everyone was still closely following the elections, even our resident naturalist.

Injecting his own sense of British humor, Richard Hoath queries why political candidates never thought of using symbols inspired by our own Red Sea in their campaigns instead of the inexplicable blender and other household items. “We have a myriad fish species rendered instantly recognizable by bold patterns and dazzling colors a campaigner’s dream. […] The Salafis could?have had the Bearded Scorpionfish and Amr Moussa could adopt the Moses Sole as his own. Those still besmirched by the discredited NDP might hide behind the Greasy Grouper or after reinvention the Mimic Blenny.”

Even in the hardest of times, you’ve just got to smile.

— Noha Mohammed
editor@egypttoday.com