The West always likes to appear as experts in everything, even in matters they are clearly not. In the latest Russian airplane crash in Egypt, all of the UK, the US, and France started to suggest that the airplane was bombed from inside. They are trying to say that our Intelligence Agencies figured out this fact without waiting for the investigation’s outcome.
No one can deny the importance of the media in any society. However, this shouldn’t be taken as a reason to tolerate the media when they are going in the wrong direction. I don’t want to focus on the last episode introduced by Riham Saeed. I completely am against what she did, and I believe she should go to the court for her actions. Having said that, Riham Saeed is just an example of the turmoil we live in nowadays. Facing terrorism doesn’t mean hiding all the problems and mistakes that the executive authorities do everyday against its citizens. Everyday I read a new story about a prisoner dying due to their torture and abuse in the custody of the jail. If we go back to the 25th of January 2011 revolution, we will remember that parliamentary elections in 2010 and the increase in the torturing of prisoners were the reasons the revolution was sparked. I believe that we have a similar situation now as we had before.
If we step back and take a look, 2 countries were going through elections at the same time. We had just recently the Parliamentary elections in Egypt. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Canada, they were holding the voting and 11 week campaign for Prime Minister Elections. I want to take a moment and compare how unbelievably different these two nations participated in this democratic right.
Last week there was a lot of statements made by the Al-Nour Party proving that without a doubt, that they are a religious party, not a secular one. The Al-Nour party proclaimed that they would allow Copts to be candidates under their reign just because they want to respect the law. This means that in their own belief they don’t think that the Copts are citizens, or that they have the same rights. The Al-Nour Party confirmed that Copts are not considered citizens and they are just doing them a favor by putting them in their elections list. However, I can say that many Copts are the reason of giving Al-Nour party the chance to withdraw their rights and consider it as a favor.
I now read every day about the argument by the Al-Nour party, and also add to that, the clashes between the Minister of Culture and the Salafist. All of this pushes me to focus today about those exact events. If we go back to the revolution of June 30th, we can see that the Al-Nour party was a part of the political process at that time. We all remember the most famous picture at this time of the gathering between Pope Tawadros, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, and the Salafist leader Remembering that day will lead us to understand why the State and the Ex-Defense Minister decided to contain the Salafists and put them in the political scene. I believe the Ex- Defense Minister was very smart to include the Salafists because at that time he wanted to show the world that the political power was included in the political environment and they were not excluded.
In my last article I spoke about the parliamentary elections. I had mentioned that ex NDP members and the Al-Nour party will mostly compose the next parliament. Today, however, I want to talk about the position of the Copts in the next parliamentary elections. I believe that after 2 revolutions, nothing has changed regarding the Copts. Meaning, these 2 revolutions have not resulted in a push for Egyptians to vote for a Coptic man rather than a Muslim. You may be curious and ask me why I am pessimistic about the future of the Copts in parliament.
While we are close to the parliament elections, we need to shed light on the importance of this upcoming election. There is no doubt that the ex-members of the NDP will try to get back into the political life. Also, we should confess that the businessmen will also try to be involved in this election at least to protect their interest in the next coming years.
I firmly believe that all great things come from a balance of constructive criticism and positive reinforcement. A lack of balance will put anything and anyone at risk of not developing their full potential, and stunt any type of hopeful growth. If I am someone who is trying my best to achieve a dream, or achieve growth, or achieve change, it only makes sense that positivity will encourage me to move forward, and negative criticism will most likely cause me to give up. Constructive criticism is beneficial when given in small amounts. I mean to say, for every 1 negative thought put forward, 2 positive thoughts should also be put forward to balance out. Consider a small child. Or even someone in secondary school. Constant words like "you are doing this wrong" "I can't believe you don't know this" "look at how badly you did this" "you are not smart" "you are not taking anything seriously"will really damage a person.
America has almost a million negatives, when I look at it as a negative. I can even be so bold as to say, so does any other Western country. Americans are for the most part, money hungry, power hungry, capitalists. America is a consumer based society, where the thirst for power seems to be never satiated. Having said that, however, there is one thing that we can see from looking at any Western country, and hope to achieve this one day, and this is devastation shock and the strength to rebuild. The events of 9/11 were horrendous. So tragic that hundreds lost their lives due to fanatics and their distorted actions. I’m ok with anyone believe in anything, but when it affects the people around you, then it’s time to reflect and adjust accordingly. The beliefs of these sick animals affected hundreds of people and changed their lives forever. Even look to Canada and the terror attack on Pa
Because I have experience working for the government for such a long time, I wanted to talk about the new Civil Law for the governmental employees today. Lately, a lot of governmental organizations declared that they will organize a demonstration against the law.
The last visit to the president Sisi to Rusha is absolutely dramatic change in Egyptian foreign policy. Sisi visited Rusha 3 times in about 2 Years which give us a clear indication that Egypt is no longer keen only on its relation with US and neglect other historical allies. No one can deny that president Al-Sisi has a view and a plan for the Egyptian foreign Policy. That plan depends on Independency in Egyptian Policy and not accepting any pressure especially from the United States. After 30 years from being sub-ordinate to the united states now Al-Sisi adopt different approach in the Egyptian foreign policy.
I want talk today about one of the paradox that we live in this life without paying attention too. One of these paradoxes is that the countries they call it developed countries are developed by people they came from developing countries.
The western media focus so much in the Middle East more than focusing in their countries itself. The last report that published in CNN about the security situation in Egypt explains that truth. The west concerns about the problems in Egypt and neglect the fact that the west was the main reason of the problems happens now in the Middle East.
I assure after the latest accident and the violent from the police against normal citizen that the police didn’t learn the lesson from 25th of January 2011. Regardless of how the police right now is under a lot of pressure because of what Muslims Brotherhood do against the police and bombs thy explode everyday everywhere.
Over the course of time, I have come to realize that there are still many obstacles that are preventing the moving forward for Egypt. Terrorism is the obvious problem at the moment. It even seems overkill to mention bombs, explosions, murders, abductions etc...It happens just way too much. And it’s even to the point now where it’s not a shock anymore, just a sad reminder that we are living in an unsafe, unstable environment.
There are many things we wish we could change. Our body is not up to our standards, the clothes we wear is not in style anymore, we get upset and lose our patience too quickly. These are all examples of things we wish we could change about ourselves. When I think about how Egypt has changed over the years, I try to imagine why, and if it's possible to change back. People are not as nice as they used to be. You used to be able to have women walk by themselves at night, that has now changed. There used to be days where it was seen as ok if women smoked, and wore "fanillas" and clapped and made noise just as men did. Then, fundamentally, something changed. Something inside of us changed, for the worse I may add. Women and men alike began to fall on hard times. Work shortage, rising food prices, lack of resources. People began to lose who they were, and began to be easily stressed, easily annoyed, easily judgmental.
I recently saw a documentary done regarding the women of Kurdistan. Why did it catch my attention? They were in the fight against ISIS. This self defence group called themselves YPJ. These women had the blessings of their whole family, to go and join this military group in the front lines against ISIS. This is something that amazed me. Here, Egyptian women are seen more of the caregivers of the home. The ones who cook, clean, take care of the children etc... The women in Kurdistan are of the same. ISIS, however, had pushed the whole society to change rebel against their own upbringing and belief system. It was the first time for me to hear that the men of ISIS believe that if they are killed by a woman then they will die. The women of Kurdistan are taking advantage of this belief and trying to claim back land that is rightfully theirs. Girls of 16, 18, 20, were all joining this group and training with machine guns, and bazookas to be ready in protecting their civil liberties.
I want today to talk about something may be some will see it as if I'm pessimistic, however, I believe what I will talk about could happen. After the assassination of the general prosecutor in Egypt, we have to pay the attention or find an answer to that question which is what if they assassinate Al Sisi?
As we are close to open the New Suez Canal, we have to take this event as Example of what we can achieve in short time. The new Suez Canal give us hope that Egyptian can do more than they can imagine.
Last time we were trying to understand and analyze more if the developed countries are actually developed and we could find out that in the economic meaning they are developed but in social meaning they are completely not because of the discrimination they have in their society as well as they claim they defend human rights but only human rights in their countries.
We always in the media, universities or our communitites hear these sentences " we are not like the developed countries", In deveoped countries they are better in this field or that field, but we never asked ourselves this question are developed countries are actually developed? or we are just trying to minimize from ourselfes because we always fell Inferiority.
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An Arabic language teacher from the Qabaa school in the Nozha district flogged a Coptic pupil ten years old named Bibawi Faragallah 40 times with an electric wire last week.