Reuters At It Again - AKA The Army Loves You

[Hafiz]

Reuters at it again.

Every once in a while Reuters does a large and detailed article on what is wrong with Egypt.

This time it’s the press media, TV news, soap operas and general drama that have to accord with Sisi’s puritanical and self serving view of the world. ‘The Army loves you and the Army is good for you’ – or similar rot that has continuously failed since 1952 as Egypt has slipped economically, socially, militarily and diplomatically.

The truth has nothing to do with what is manufactured for consumption – or bodily expulsion - but Dr Goebbels would have a lot to agree with.

Worth a read, 10-12 minutes. It suggests that Sisi deals with censorship in a very hands on way – almost obsessive. I’m reminded of the comedically awful way in which some brutal dictators have been portrayed – eg Rushdie’s ‘Shame’ or the satirical madness of the great Czech authors.

The pro-Hitler movies of Leni Riefenstahl are the other side of the coin and some mad Egyptian majors could remove Hitler's head from the film transparency, replace it with the Egyptian midget and run them as Egyptian 'genius'..

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egyp ... SKBN1YG1BB

Of course the strong anti-Semitism of the Egyptian ruling class would 'point out' that Reuters is a Jewish world domination plot and established by Jews – (but owned by a Canadian anglo family).

The key message in this story is that Sisi runs this hands all over the propaganda task using his own values – not the cabinet, not the ruling military class, not the ruling commercial class. The propaganda agenda are the values of one. Experience says that this restraint/conformity will lead no where except to eat away at his shriveling popularity.

Propaganda can work as in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia but you may need to kill a few million (11-21 with Stalin) to create an atmosphere of fear to get your message accepted. Bring on the gulag's.

[newcastle]

“The key message in this story is that Sisi runs this hands all over the propaganda task using his own values – not the cabinet, not the ruling military class, not the ruling commercial class. The propaganda agenda are the values of one. Experience says that this restraint/conformity will lead no where except to eat away at his shriveling popularity.”

How very true!

Egyptians have a finely tuned nose for the absurd and no amount of whitewashing of bureaucracy, the police and others aspects of civil society will fool them. In fact, I’m sure some of the sanitised soap operas have them rolling on the floor laughing.

It’s a shame, of course, for the talent around. Much of it has already voted with its feet.

You have to be extraordinarily dumb to think you can control the mindset of a 100 million by censoring TV......particularly when so many have access to the internet. Most of the Egyptians I know have their TV’s tuned to Hollywood movies and Western soaps......or the interminable daytime cookery programmes and mind-numbing chat shows.

Then there’s the diet of copycat Western shows like “Egypt’s Got Talent”. It should come with a health warning. Abysmal doesn’t come near to describing the toe curling embarrassment of its content.

For obvious reasons there’s no sign of an Egyptian version of “The Apprentice”.

The wonderful contest between the Civil Service and the Government satirically displayed in “Yes Minister” would have no equivalent in Egypt.

Perhaps we’ll see an Egyptian version of “Strictly Come Dancing”.....with the accent on the ‘Strictly’. And definitely no same-sex couples!

[crewmeal]

Now The DM have got their paws on it:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... peras.html

[newcastle]

Now The DM have got their paws on it:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... peras.html

The only time the Daily Fail publishes anything but crap is when they uplift articles from real journalists.

Now that Boris has been crowned they have nothing of interest to promote....so it’s back to slagging off Egypt.