Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 

A Political Salon with Thanassis Cambanis
Moderated by Patricia DeGennaro

May 5, 2011
This event is by invitation only.

With special thanks to the Heinrich Böll Foundation for supporting the Political Salon.

Since the euphoric days when millions of Egyptians massed in Tahrir Square and forced Hosni Mubarak to resign, Egypt has been ruled by a military junta bent on preserving the dictatorship's privileges, just without the old dictator. With little international notice, political activists have been arrested and sentenced by closed military courts. Peaceful demonstrators have been beaten, detained, and allegedly tortured in custody by the same military establishment that sided with them to overthrow Mubarak. The nationalist January 25 movement is struggling to remain unified in its fight against the "deep state," the complex of military, police, business and ruling party interests that has dominated Egypt through a brutal police state for half a century. What are the possibilities that this broad movement, spanning Islamists and secularists, intellectuals and the working class, can force the still-strong regime to dismantle the institutions of control and allow independent civil institutions to grow?

In this Political Salon, Thanassis Cambanis and Patricia DeGennaro discuss whether and how the revolutionaries of Tahrir Square can defeat the deep state.

This Political Salon will be on the record.

Related Resources:  World Policy Blog on Egypt

• Michael Downey, “Egypt’s New Crisis: The Economy”
• Sulome Anderson, “What Will the New Egypt Look Like?”
• Revisiting Eltahawy’s “Generation Facebook”
• Simon Baker and David Nelson Black, “Tahrir Chronicles: A Sigh of Relief, Perseverance, Digging In”

About the Speakers:

Thanassis Cambanis has covered the Arab world for a decade, as The Boston Globe bureau chief in Baghdad and the Middle East and since 2007 as a regular contributor to The New York Times. He is the author of A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel and is currently writing a book about the Egyptian revolution for Free Press at Simon & Schuster. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. He lives in New York with his family and teaches at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and the New School's Graduate Program in International Affairs.  

Moderator:
World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Patricia (Tricia) DeGennaro is an adjunct assistant professor at New York University's Department of Politics where she teaches a course on international security. DeGennaro capitalizes on over fifteen years of experience as an independent analyst and consultant in international security and civil-military relations. Earlier this year, she visited Iraq, where she analyzed the military transition to civil authority. She has also spent much of the last five years working in Afghanistan on provincial governance and capacity building, parliamentary reform, public policy development in the Office of the President of Afghanistan, and joint interagency, intergovernmental and multinational coordination.

About the Sponsors:

The Political Salon - organized by Steve Sokol since 2003 to promote dialogue among the next generation of leaders in business, policy, and the media - regularly convenes a diverse group of young professionals to discuss a range of foreign policy issues and global affairs. Attendees are diverse in terms of nationality, profession, and political persuasion.

The World Policy Institute and World Policy Journal engage fresh ideas and new voices from around the world to address critical shared challenges. We provide a forum for solution-focused policy analysis and public debate toward an inclusive and sustainable global market economy, effective and fair governance, and collaborative approaches to security.