Irtiqa Conversation: Mohammed Yahia on Science, Democracy, and the Unfinished Revolution in Egypt

by Salman Hameed

There is a lot going on Egypt right now and much of it is deeply troubling. Yesterday, I had a chance to have a conversation with Mohammed Yahia, the editor of Nature Middle East. He lives in Cairo and, inHouse of Wisdom blog. I don't want to spoil the interview, but I do want to say that he represents the new generation of young, dynamic, and electronically connected Egyptians, and is wonderfully eloquent about the hopes and fears regarding the future of his country. As per the complexity, he participated in anti-Mubarak rallies, then he voted for Morsi (not in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, but to keep the military backed candidate out of power), participated in anti-Morsi rally, and feels that the current army crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood counterproductive. Hope some of this complexity comes out in our conversation.
addition to his day job, he has been actively participating in political demonstrations of the past two years. I first met him in December, 2010 (about 2 months before the Jan 25th overthrow of Mubarak) and we had a great conversation about the political situation in Egypt at the time. I wanted to get his take on the current political situation as well as the status of science projects in Egypt. He also runs the wonderful

Here is the video of our conversation (about 30 minutes long):