November 28, 2001

9:33 PM

Culture clash.A pilot's investigation of the crash of EgyptAir 990, and the cultural reverberations of a seemingly straightforward airplane crash. Truth as political expediency.
posted by semmi (3 comments total)

"Memory says, I have done this. Pride says, I couldn't have done this. Eventually... memory yields." -Nietzsche
posted by clevershark at 9:41 PM on November 28, 2001

Wow. The most interesting part of the article is about how there were three groups of people in Cairo: Hard-line officials, deniers, and people who believed the truth about Batouti. The third group was by far the smallest.

I'll bet you'd find a similar stratification if you took a survey of Americans and asked about the recently passed anti-terrorism bills.
posted by Potsy at 12:30 AM on November 29, 2001

"They will keep their jobs, because they towed the party line. But in the long run, Egypt as a country loses."

Being "righteous and prissy" about spelling, I was bothered by the use of "tow" (instead of "toe") in the Atlantic transcription. But, to my bemusement, Googling revealed that both* spellings have their uses. In a situation like the Egyptair crash, the party line does take its followers in tow!

"Both* tow the party line and toe the party line make sense. One could carry along the party line to share with others, tow it along, in other words. The other spelling makes sense as well. People might be expected to move precisely, as on a tightrope. But according to Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary (1994), the phrase 'toe the party line' originated from the idea of runners being required to put their toe on the starting line--conform to the rules, in other words."
posted by Carol Anne at 5:56 AM on November 29, 2001