Nerves on edge

摘要

"We wish to inform our dear viewers that we don't understand what is happening either, that nobody knows what is going on, and nobody has a clue what the hell is coming next." This was not a real broadcast but a caption in a recent newspaper cartoon, picturing a perplexed Egyptian family huddled in front of a television. Yet the message, descending from high classical Arabic to pithy dialect, did capture something painfully real: the state of hapless befuddlement Egypt finds itself in, two weeks before a presidential run-off election that offers what many find a deeply discomfiting choice.