The business columnist writing under the pseudonym Newton penned an ode to capitalists in Al Masry Al Youm. Nasserist policies have just pitted one faction of society against the other, leaving both (the rich and the poor) worse off. “We’ve committed atrocities under the name of ‘social justice’,” he says.

Leftist Al Shorouk columnist Abdullah El Senawy says Egyptian media has managed to extinguish itself. The idea that Egyptian media is “dominant” is long over, he says, with more international news organizations setting up Arabic-speaking offices. Between a severe lack of professionalism and a scramble to the bottom to offer boasting cheap entertainment, Egyptian media can’t earn the respect of its people, yet alone influence them or call for their unity in tough times.

In a surprisingly poignant critique of the Construction of Churches Act, El Watan’s Emad El Din Adib argues that the key tenet of the law that passed on Tuesday were the very same ones to which the Coptic and Evangelical churches had objected. These include granting governors the final say on licensing churches and making the size of Christian houses of worship proportionate to the size of a district’s Christian population. He notes that the law continues to anger Coptic Christians both within the House and outside Egypt.