Never forget for a minute that Egypt is a rotten, impoverished, dictatorship where promotion and longevity in government circles is determined by loyalty to the Man.
And like in all unfree countries, if you’re a gringo who plans to make his career working and studying there you gotta play ball from your first field trip to your last dying breath or you’re persona non grata.
Maybe one of these days an “Anonymous” will write a riveting expose of the whole rotten system but I doubt it. I don’t have to be told to know that everybody knows everybody in the wonderful world of Egyptology and if you’re an academic who drops dime I imagine it won’t take five minutes to figure out who you have to be and if necessary your whole department will be made to suffer.
There’s no getting away from dirty old politics anywhere in the world of mankind. I recall reading a passage from former Soviet-dissident-turned-Israeli-politician Anatoly Scharansky’s memoir “Fear no Evil” where he talks about how he and his fellow Russian Jews inclined towards science and academia to try and insulate themselves from the ugly reality of the system they lived under, without success as events proved...
Lord only knows what revelations will be brought to light if and when the Mubarak Dynasty goes down and something approaching democracy takes its place. There’ll be some embarrassing revelations alright. Imagine a combination of the worst of banana republic politics mixed with the worst of academic feuding and ass-kissing and you’ll have yourself some material.
What it must be like to have to be a female scholar climbing that greasy pole would no doubt make even Bill Clinton do a double-take.
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Never happen - a republic form of democracy in Egypt — will become another strict Islam theocracy. The Muislim Brotherhood - the founders of Al Quada (and incidentally BHO’s Egyptian supporters) will make sure of it, right after they eliminate the Coptic population.
The entire middle east is a rotten, impoverished, dictatorship where ... government ... is determined by ... Islam and Sharia Law.
As long as Islam exists, there can be no other form of government in the Middle East. And what really is the truth in antiquity will remain hidden, since just about everything in antiquity contradicts Islam.
Did you know that the Saudis, for one, regularly destroy all sites and artifacts from Mohamand’s time and before?
The pyramids and other ancient Egyptian artifacts only still exist for one reason: the tourist dollar. Same for the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.