For 23 years, Egypt’s cultural scene was in the hands of Farouq Hosny. One can write volumes on the man, rumours mixed with truths until his reputation was completely ruined. What we do know though is that he was a lousy painter; he painted like a six year old and yet he was able to “sell” his paintings to officials of the Mubarak regime and other Arab and foreign figures. He was also known to be very close to Suzanne Mubarak; some say he was her “stylist” and “fashion consultant”, some say they partnered in trading Egyptian artefacts. For 23 years, Farouq Hosny ran the Ministry of Culture, and the arts and culture scene in Egypt hit rock bottom save a few departments within the ministry that were lucky enough to have good management, like the Cairo Opera House.

It’s been a rough few weeks for heads-of-state the world over. In America, Obama faces a growing list of infractions, any one of which would have been campaign killers nine months ago. In much of the Europe, administrations continue to struggle to justify austerity that has yet to fully jumpstart most economies, and more often than not, appear to have quite the opposite effect. Here in the UK it seems like it is only a matter of days before the government is further entangled in America’s biggest political fiasco, the PRISM scandal, which has already implicated the US government and numerous top tech multinationals in a massive, legally dubious intelligence data mining programme.

The phenomenon of violent political action has figured prominently in key events of the past year. These events include the second anniversary of the 25 January popular uprising that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak, the 22 March demonstrations in front of Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Moqattam, and, importantly, the expected protests on 30 June marking the first anniversary of the swearing in of President Mohamed Morsi.

The first time I heard of Sasho Bistro (6G El Adel Abu Bakr St., across from the HSBC building) was at this spring’s Taste of Zamalek food fest at the Fish Garden. Having opened in late December 2012, the new Zamalek eatery was only just then hitting its stride. Ahmed Harfoush performed his jazz standards on that lovely Saturday afternoon, and hence it was fitting that the first time I walked into the restaurant itself, it was also with Ahmed. “You have got to try the salmon fried egg,” he said in his usual mischievous manner. “I’m addicted.”

A farce. That is all I can say about the NGO trial verdict that was delivered on 4 June in post-Mubarak, present-Morsi, still-not-revolutionary Egypt. Here is the verdict, plain and simple. Guilty. Didn’t hear that right? Guilty. Every single defendant on trial in the NGO court case that has been dragging on for more than a year has been found guilty. No one is innocent. Not on a technicality, not on the facts; nothing. They’re all guilty.

Between 1990 and 2010, nearly 1 billion people were pulled out of extreme poverty globally. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving global poverty between 2000 and 2015 has been achieved five years early, surpassing the progress seen in achieving any of the other MDGs. This week, key politicians and officials from governments and international agencies will meet to set new targets for the global fight against poverty. In this time of great progress, Egypt has failed where other nations have succeeded.

An acquaintance several weeks ago was in shock, “I got my daughter a bicycle which she parks on the street. Last night I found an old man trying to break its lock. I couldn’t believe it!”

I had had enough of talk about politics, polarisation and media tirades among different political groups in Egypt that go unchecked or pay no heed to media codes of ethics aimed to rein in these distortions. So I decided to withdraw and not participate in these discussions that destroy more than they build.

On a relatively hot summer night, in lieu of nothing, a bunch of revolutionary friends were discussing the state of gloom that has befallen the majority of the population, and came up with a theory: We have all gone through the five stages of grief throughout this revolution. The Denial phase started with the first army attack on the square in March; the Anger Phase started at the 8 April attack until Mohamed Mahmoud Clashes in November; the Bargaining Phase started with the parliamentary elections (vote or boycott) until the presidential elections (vote for which loser/boycott/invalidate) and ended with the constitutional declaration; and then the Depression Phase started in earnest. The debate centred on whether we have entered the Acceptance Phase or whether that will happen if the military commits a coup. I stayed out of the debate, since I was already at stage six, and been there for a while: Moving on and enjoying life. How come? Well, weirdly enough, it all started with President Mohamed Morsi.

Political Islamist movements, at their heart the Muslim Brotherhood, embody sections of society that are mostly found in its middle class. These are also known as “intermediary classes” which usually fall between the upper and lower classes. Remarkably, people belonging to these classes are not socially homogeneous, meaning they are not at the same position in the production process, jobs or income. Political Islamists include merchants, professionals and artisans, but we will not find all of the members of the previous categories.

There is not one political faction that wants to hold parliamentary elections nowadays, except maybe the Salafis.

Economic austerity kills and makes people sick, according to David Stuckler, a leading sociology researcher at Oxford University, and Sanjay Basu, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford Prevention Research Centre.

Before midnight on Friday, 17 May 2013, I decided to go to Tahrir Square to sign the "Rebel" campaign's petition, which asks for the withdrawal of confidence from President Mohamed Morsi El-Ayat. This was not an arbitrary decision, nor was it a product of the moment. It was the result of deep reflection as well as an appreciation for the importance of this campaign and what it calls for.

The news item read: “Hussein Salem decided to hand over 75 per cent of his wealth inside Egypt and 55 per cent of his fortune abroad in return for his name being removed from the wanted list and ending the legal pursuit of him and his family.”

I have mentioned before that the political life in Egypt can be divided in many ways. In an attempt to analyse the political map, I divided it into three major movements: the political Islamist group, the democratic group and the supporters of a hegemonic state. I went into detail regarding the third group, which is also known as feloul (remnants of the former regime) or the supporters of a nationalistic state, as they call themselves. I concluded that this group presents itself as a strictly conservative one given that will restore the old state. It also presents itself as a revolutionary group since it will renew the nationalistic state project, and will be an extension to the era of Muhammad Ali or Gamal Abdel Nasser. It promises to restore the advantages of the nationalistic state, but will get rid of its flaws. Generally that the most prominent figures of this group joined the Mou’tamar (Conference) Party led by Amr Moussa, and the Egyptian Patriotic Movement led by Ahmed Shafiq.

“After three months, I received the passport with a three-page letter in French rejecting my visa,” Ramy says bitterly. Like many Egyptians, 25-year-old Ramy planned to apply for a visa to the Schengen area (a scheme that permits internal travel between a large block of European Union countries) after he had been accepted into a master’s programme in Belgium for 2012. He gathered the acceptance letter he received from the university in Belgium, his visa application, and the required fees and applied for a student visa at the Belgian embassy in Cairo.

“The journey seeks to dig a canal in a desert covering thousands of miles to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea, which would make Europe the neighbour of India and shortens the distance to it. This is the task Father Prosper Enfantin wants to accomplish with men of great destiny even though they are short on financial resources.”

As the satirical comedy show Al Bernameg returned to the CBC-TV network May 17 after a three-week hiatus, many Egyptians were shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. While host Bassem Youssef, known as the Jon Stewart of Egypt, has received much praise for being a witty, sarcastic provocateur of Egyptian political events, for some Egyptians he has crossed the line of propriety and respectful sarcasm.

Suddenly, and in the same week, three of the largest Islamist movements started talking about transitional justice, demanding its implementation at once. Spokesman for the Salfist front, Hisham Kamal, asserted, "Mubarak should have been tried for all his crimes from the start, not only for killing protestors." Political consultant to the El-Benaa wa El-Tanmia (Building and Development) Party, the political army of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, and member of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) Ossama Roshdy, said that the NCHR has set out to form a specialised committee for transitional justice. And member of the parliamentary bloc of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political army of the Muslim Brotherhood, Saad Emara said, "Torture crimes are not subject to a statute of limitations, and we cannot limit retribution to the previous regime alone and not its predecessors, even if they are no longer alive."

The rocket strikes that a militant Islamist group recently fired from the Egyptian Sinai into the Israeli city of Eilat served as yet another reminder of how delicate bilateral relations remain two years after Egypt’s revolution. Terrorist activity could easily cause a crisis on the border, with the potential to trigger an unwanted confrontation that would threaten the peace treaty that normalized bilateral relations in 1979. To avoid such an outcome, Israel and Egypt must take convincing action now to uphold the treaty.

There were variations in the application of this tradition. The difference between the Ottoman massacre of the 800 Christians at Otranto and, let us say, the Crusader massacre of thousands of Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem, is that women and children were enslaved at Otranto instead of being put to the sword, as was the case in Jerusalem. The men of Otranto were offered the customary opportunity - according to the Muslim rules of warfare - to save themselves by converting to Islam.