Story Corp Project
Interview Transcript
Interviewer:
Malak Koptan
Narrator:
Firas Al-Atraqchi
Date:
27 September 2011
Place:
Marriott Gardens, Zamalek
College:
American University in Cairo
Professor:
Kim Fox
Date Completed:
28 September 2011
Firas Al-Atraqchi
Born in Beirut in 1970. He is a Mid-east based Canadian Journalist and a
professor of practice in journalism at AUC. He holds an MA in mass
communication and journalism and has had eleven years of experience
covering Middle East issues.
This person was worth interviewing for this project because my main focus
was to interview a professional foreign journalist with a lot of background and
experience on Middle East reporting, specifically Egypt. Professor Firas AlAtraqchi fit the description very well. His insight and perspective on Egypt in
regards to it’s education, before and after the revolution and living as a
foreigner in Egypt is quite interesting and worth taking into consideration. He
has worked with Egyptian students as well as Egyptian professors therefore he
has a very good understanding of how the system works.
Topics discussed during interview:

Al-Atraqchi’s previous occupation, Al-Jazeera.

Education in Egypt as a whole, education in AUC.
Malak Koptan
Firas Al-Atraqchi Interview

Egyptian students at AUC

January 25 revolution.

Aftermath of revolution

Future of Egypt

Future plans for Al-Atraqchi.
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Malak Koptan
Firas Al-Atraqchi Interview
27 September 2011
Persons Present: Malak Koptan
Firas Al- Atraqchi
Koptan: So doctor, tell me a little bit about yourself… your name, your age,
your hometown and nationality?
Al- Atraqchi: Ok, my name is Firas Al-Atraqchi. I am about to turn 41. My
hometown I don’t really know if I can say I have a hometown. I was born in
Beirut so probably that comes closest.
Koptan: So you’re Lebanese?
Al- Atraqchi: No. I am of mixed Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish origin.
My nationality is Canadian.
Koptan: So where did you grow up?
Al-Atraqchi: I grew up in Lebanon but then I haven’t been back in more than
35 years so I grew up in Lebanon for 5 years and then I grew up in the U.S
and then I grew up in Yugoslavia and then most of my adult life has been
between Egypt and Canada. I spent six years in Qatar working for Al-Jazeera.
Koptan: So you’ve been everywhere?
Al-Atraqchi: well a lot of places yeah yeah. I don’t really identify as one
particular place as a hometown. I guess its in my blood because I get restless
after a short period of time like after a year I start to get restless and feel like I
need to move on so in my thirties I never was able to hold a job for longer
than 7 to 9 months because I would feel like ok I need to move somewhere
else now. Now I am able to hold a job for at least two years.
Koptan: That’s stable?
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Firas Al-Atraqchi Interview
Al-Atraqchi: (laughs) yeah that’s stable for me, it’s it feels like I’ve
accomplished something.
Koptan: So tell me about your previous occupations? I know that you were a
Mideast based Canadian journalist.
Al-Atraqchi: yes yes. I worked at Al-Jazeera for six years as a senior editor on
their website and then when the TV launched in 2006 I was working for them
on a free lance bases but they called me back so I went back and I basically
was in charge of insuring convergence between the web, TV, social media that
kind of stuff.
Koptan: What made you leave Al-Jazeera?
Al-Atraqchi: I didn’t like the politics of Al-jazeera plus you always feel like
there is something not right about it. I find it to be an extension of Qatari
foreign policy so probably worst than some of the independent news networks
in the U.S.
Koptan: So you feel like they were biased?
Al-Atraqchi: They were biased, they definitely had an agenda, you could feel
it. Also they’re hiring practices were a bit suspect.
Koptan: So it didn’t feel right working there?
Al-Atraqchi: No it didn’t feel right. People who have no journalism skills are
hired as editors or as managing editors and it just baffles the mind and then
they also had a policy of not hiring people with professional journalism
degrees, which is really weird.
Koptan: Why?
Al-Atraqchi: I have no idea, because they feel threatened by them or
something I don’t know.
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Koptan: OK. So now you’re a professor of practice in journalism at AUC?
Al-Atraqchi: Yeah
Koptan: What brought you to Egypt? What brought you to this job?
Al-Atraqchi: Well first of all, what brought me to Egypt? When I was at AlJazeera I told the senior administrator there you know the people who decide
where to open a new bureau. I told them you have to increase not only your
coverage of Egypt but you also have to open a office, a bureau for the English
section and Arabic had one because Egypt you know 85 million people the
most populous Arab country. You know Al Qaeda basically started here
thanks to Ayman Al Zahawry, you know the only country that has fought and
made peace with Israel on a significant level (Jordan doesn’t really count).
What happens here affects the rest of the region and you only have like
occasionally you have one or two reporters here that are not enough, so I
always felt like the story was here. You saw last year since January 25 the
story has been here so a lot of my reporting you know it says Mideast based
Canadian journalist is because tons of stories here people in the West want to
read about so that’s what brought me back here you know working at AUC is
because after working at Al-Jazeera I would like to influence a new generation
of journalists, teach them the right things. I saw a lot of bad practice at AlJazeera so that’s basically why I returned to AUC.
Koptan: And you feel like your fulfilling that now?
Al-Atraqchi: Yeah, I’ve come across so many good students that make it
worthwhile. I mean I would say like 30 percent of the students that I have
taught over the past year and a bit are really talented really bright would go
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very far if that’s what they want in journalism so that is what motivates me to
keep going.
Koptan: Yeah I was just going to ask you, what do you think of the students of
AUC? Are they devoted to becoming journalists?
Al-Atraqchi: Yeah some of them are very very devoted; some of them have
been working all summer even though they’re juniors. They’ve been going out
getting internships, learning, asking questions, they just they have a hunger
and I would hope if Egypt really frees up it’s media system here and there is a
lot of private media companies that start up here some of my students would
end up as major players in these endeavors. Al-Jazeera should have been
started in Egypt not in Qatar, it doesn’t make sense right. So I am hoping there
is a significant future.
Koptan: So what do you think of the education in Egypt as a whole not just
AUC, the education in Egypt?
Al-Atraqchi: Oh very bad. Memorization is stressed and even barely at that,
there is no real understanding of the concepts, which would have led to critical
analysis. It’s critical analysis that’s the foundation; you know scientific
accomplishment and research so I find the Egyptian education system is very
behind. There is no innovation, there is no production, there is no significant
output it’s just as if your creating an army of drowns. It’s only I think in the
university system that Egyptians start to really feel like their learning
something but you know the foundation of their learning should come you
know in middle school high school and so on… I read several reports in the
past few weeks actually that say that the Egyptian education system needs to
be completely overhauled; they need to sit down and write it from scratch.
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Koptan: It does.
Al-Atraqchi: Because to create a competitive society you know with trade and
everything you need to be able to match what’s being produced in Europe,
North America, and Asia. Even Asia, Asia is growing really quickly so for
Egypt to survive and to be able to compete it needs to overhaul its education
system.
Koptan: That leads me to my next question, what do you think as a foreigner
of the revolution? Do you think it’s successful or unsuccessful?
Al-Atraqchi: Well I’ll tell u something and this is something I’ve been telling
people a lot in the past week. The real revolution is in the labor movement that
we see going on right now the teachers’ strike, the people forming unions. I’ve
heard a figure that you know during Mubarak’s time there were 2 unions and
now there is 300. Pressing for the rights of works, pressing for the rights of
labors, I think that’s the real revolution I think it came about several months
after the other supposed revolution. I am not very happy with the January 25
revolution as it’s being called because it had no sensual command structure, it
had no figure, it had no face that people could identify with and say this
person represents us, this person motivates us. You know keeps the morale
going and that was unfortunate. Every revolution needs a leader and this one
didn’t have a leader so what you ended up seeing by the end of February was
that several people and several groups who were out in Tahrir grew apart and
even started to compete with each other that is a hug failure because if they’re
trying to overhaul the system, the system is very unified because it has
interests at stake so you have to be just as unified if not even more. If you
have different demands some of which even might clash then nobody is going
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to take you seriously. I think the popular uprising the popular revolution has
run its course basically its come to an end now, the next stage is basically
what I believe is to be the real revolution which is I am happy to see the labor
movement.
Koptan: If you were a journalist during the 25th revolution working for a
broadcast station, what would you have done differently? Would you have
done anything differently than all the other journalists?
Al-Atraqchi: Well yes very much. First of all, when there is a lack of
understanding of the history of this country, what happened on February 11th
was people were cheering that Mubarak had resigned that they had thrown
Mubarak out. The things is Mubarak had resigned but his regime remained in
tact because he is a product of the military establishment that runs this country
and it has effectively run this country since 1952 and again since 1954.
Second, the army is a national institution. Nobody is going to go up against
the army; nobody in their right mind would go up against the army, people
say, “oh the army won the 1973 war they got us back Sinai”. Half the male
population has served in the army or is serving in the army so you know
unless you have a really really good cause and good command structure you
can’t oppose the army there is no way you’ll fail. None of these challenges
were looked at. I remember saying on February 12th when people were like
cheering and everything the military had taken over, I was saying military
rules means military courts, because the military doesn’t know any other way
of administering to a country, they use the system they employ on a daily basis
the military system so there is going to be a military court. Now you see
people complaining about military courts and military trails and all that stuff,
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why did you not think all this was going to happen? So I see, what I would
have done is that I would have reported about the challenges that lie ahead and
how these were overlooked.
Koptan: After the revolution, do you think living in Egypt has changed for
you? Are you still enjoying it?
Al-Atraqchi: Oh I still enjoy it, yeah definitely. (Laughs) The people in this
country are something else, they’re fun. I loved, I lived in Maadi on and off
since 1987, it’s gotten more crowded it’s not like it was but there is still great
stuff to do. You know Egypt is the heart of the Middle East, no matter what
happens you can’t take that away so yeah it’s just now there is some security
issues you tend to look over your back a little bit more than you used to
before. There is a sense of uncertainty, there is a sense of instability but I think
within 1 or 2 years Egypt will be back on track.
Koptan: Let me ask you my last question
Al-Atraqchi: Okay
Koptan: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Al-Atraqchi: I fantasize about retiring early so to speak. Maybe sitting down
writing a book or a couple of books certainly the things that I have seen the
people that I’ve met in Egypt you know I’ve met ministers, I’ve met movie
stars, you know famous musicians so I’ve seen a lot in this country a lot has
happening in this country. Maybe something a long those lines so in 10 years I
possible could be teaching possibly I don’t know but I think the next few years
I’ll dedicating to taking care of family stuff. That’s my priority.
Koptan: All right, well good luck and thank you so much doctor.
Al-Atraqchi: Thank you, your welcome.
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