Ministry Of Eccentricity

Media in the time of the Brotherhood 

Egypt has always been known to be an extremely democratic country, at least in relativity to its neighbors. Unfortunately, this has been changing!

Over the past year, The Muslim Brotherhood’s members have nearly taken over all executive, legislative and judicial positions in Egypt. Whether you are a supporter of their core beliefs, views and tactics, it remains a fact that this phenomenon has not been a very successful one seeing the protests that seem to be happening everywhere lately in Egypt. To avoiding getting off point, I would like to address the one aspect that seems to have drastically deteriorated most since the commencement of their time in power… Media.

Although corrupt and fraudulent, the old regime had sponsored media in Egypt greatly as freedom of speech was rarely ever prevented. On the other hand, Dr. Hesham Kandil’s government have gradually and slowly taken steps to aim at extending dictatorship further with the sick excuse that desperate times call for desperate measures. A particularly inappropriate stance was the shutting down of Dream TV Channel which is the first private television channel in Egypt and is a leading news provider. Such an act has never been taken during the dark era of the old regime.

While it is agreeable that pornography is a highly un-recommended substance to view, I find the order issued by ex Secretary General of state, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud regarding the blocking of pornography websites nationwide also inappropriate as it does not eliminate the lack of awareness about the dangers of substance involved but only builds up a feeling of deprivation and leads to perversion (Saudi Arabia is a life example).

The story doesn’t end here. It seems like the government has taken the liberty to start implementing bans on the importing of books of a certain criteria into Egypt. An example is the Fifty Shades Trilogy written by EL James. While the book involves an unconventional story that fails to abide with Egyptian Culture and tradition, I find the import ban outrageously wrong as it is never wrong to be aware of the world’s happenings not necessarily meaning that the reader would immediately to choose to adopt this lifestyle.

I would like to point out that even if you agree to the blocking of T.V. Channels, Novels and websites of a certain caliber, they shall eventually abuse such rights to block all material that fails to contribute to their agenda. If that is what you want, go ahead and be ignorant. It’s a matter of choice.