It is difficult to determine what motivates the editors of
the New York Times to wish being considered journalistic jerks. But for some
strange reason they keep doing the things that make them appear as that, and
nothing more. This time, they published an article by Jack Shenker about whose
background very little is known. I am aware of the book he wrote about Egypt ; but
that's one book I shall not read because, having read some of his articles, I
have determined that reading this book will be a colossal waste of time.
The latest Shenker article to appear in the New York Times
came under the title: “Egypt 's
Rickety Dictatorship,” published on January 28, 2017. To better understand my
reaction to it, I must tell a story that goes back many decades. I was taking a
course in film, and one of the professors was American. This was a confusing
time even for us Canadians, as to what our identity boiled down to. And so you
can imagine what it must have been like for an American that's teaching us
American and Asian films and occasionally African films too.
He liked the essays and scripts I wrote, and gave me good
grades. He also liked that I had a multi-cultural background, and was older
than the others, having registered as a mature student. I visited him in his
office one day, and we got talking about Pierre Berton who was famous for
writing Canadian history, vowing to make it sound interesting and exciting at a
time when the English Canadians among us were hung up on the idea of Canada
being composed of “Two Solitudes,” and the French Canadians among us were hung
up on the idea of “My Country is not a Country; it is Winter”.
At the end of the conversation, the professor asked me if I
would read some of the writings done by the other students, and identify for
him what I see in them as being typically Canadian. I did that, and there was
one thing that jumped out of those papers loudly and clearly. Latin American
unrest and revolutions being in the news at the time, Canadian youngsters took
to them like cultural orphans thirsting to adopt Latin
America as their motherland. They wrote essays and scripts based
on that subject as if they were Castros and Guevaras … saying nothing about
solitudes or Canada 's
Winter months.
I do not know enough about Jack Shenker to determine what he
is missing in life or what he is after. But based on his writings, I am
inclined to believe that he is thirsting to adopt the Egyptian Revolution as
his motherland. This being the case, he does not feel obligated as a journalist
to explain why he can make grandiose statements and definitive projections
about his adopted parent without explaining what lies at the basis of his
thinking.
And so you see him write a 1,340-word diatribe blasting the
“dictatorial” tendencies of the parent he is rebelling against. He does that,
having sided with the revolutionary kids who are indigenous to the land of Egypt Egypt , having befriended only one
Egyptian and his younger brother barely past their teenage years.
Now, guess how much Jack Shenker got out of those two. Here
is his account of the encounter:
“The future seems vague and foggy, Tarek Hussein told me,
but we won't abandon the fight. He was incarcerated under the former Muslim
Brotherhood for opposing the government, and again under Sisi for being a
member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I met him in a cafe with his brother … Our
conversation was interrupted by the arrival of what appeared to be a police
informant. Tarek deftly steered us outside so that we could continue talking …
the future Egyptian capital in the Eastern
Desert , with its neatly demarcated
segments is incompatible with the messy Cairo
from which the Hussein brothers have emerged”.
That being all that Shenker got out of the two brothers, he
found himself exhausted emotionally trying – with the little that he has – to
identify with the children of Egypt 's
Revolution. He now admits that “no one knows what twists and turns will come
next in Egypt ”.
Having thus lifted the burden of being obligated to give the
customary expert opinion as to what may lie ahead for his adopted motherland;
Jack Shenker inadvertently dropped the shield that was keeping the secret of
how he came to identify so closely with the Egyptian Revolution as to make it
his won.
Here is what he says a friend told him once: “For these
kids, the revolution was a new parent, something that brought them into the
adult world and would make them, and which they believed they would eventually
remake in turn. They are the orphans of the revolution, and they will never be
content with life as it stands”.
And neither will he give up on a revolution he wishes to see
unfold at perpetuity for its own sake without seeking to achieve a specific
goal aside from the excitement that it will generate for his entertainment and
that of others.
As to the editors of the New York Times, they too welcome
the entertainment value they see in a revolution that never stops, but they
also hunger to see permanent brakes put on Egypt's development. And that's what
they calculate an ongoing revolution will do for the country.