I am writing this article during the final preparations for opening the new Suez Canal, which is considered as the second pyramid of the modern Egypt. The first pyramid of the modern state was building the High Dam and the second is opening the new Suez canal, which is the second ecological surgery to subdue the nature by man. Both projects have been performed and supervised by the Egyptian armed forces. The first hero was Abdel Nasser, former president of Egypt, and the second hero is president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the current Egyptian president.
I did not write this topic during Al-Fitr feast since the Egyptian people were celebrating the feast. The title of this article is "Dates" that were exploited by some people to incite sectarian strife between the sons of one homeland. I think we live in a country that grants freedom of worship and allows Christians to raise their crosses on the churches and to hold their religious rites with the exception of some few places that have hateful intolerant spread by some ghosts that live among us and their goal is to destroy the national unity.
After several Egyptians have been killed in Warraq accident, Giza governor decided to grant families of the dead 20.000 LE for each and 5.000 LE for the injured. This is repeated very often in several accidents in which Egyptians are killed because of negligence. Let the Egyptian people die for several reasons, and the compensation is known: 20.000 LE. This compensation is paid by the masters in our country to the slaves, I mean the poor.
I understand that supporters of former President Nasser want to make a hero of the president. Yet, such attempt is totally rejected when it comes against Egyptian history. Last week, Egypt celebrated the 63rd anniversary of the July 23 revolution. This revolution started as a movement inside the Egyptian army, then a military coup, then a revolution by the Free Officers, not certain officers like Nasser or Mohamed Naguib. At this occasion I used to write about the mistakes of Nasser at this revolution and after that. Yet, I stopped doing so after the Muslim Brotherhood came in power as they used to wrong him. I even started to defend the man against their lies as I don’t accept such lies.
Last week with the end of the holly month of Ramadan there is officially a three (3) days feast celebration the month end, but unofficially celebrations extend for a week or more depending on the start official day best case scenario when the first day is an official day off ex-presidents and some national enterprises used to give an additional day off to replace the day off of the first day plus a day to replace the before feast stand by celebrations that makes 3+2 days = 5 day 2 days away from the full week off that were taken any way extending celebrations to a full week! Good opportunity for workers in summer time to have a week off away to the coast for feast and summer holidays; however this year no additional days were offered specially that on Thursday 23rd July was the memorial of the 23rd July revolution 1952; another official day off!
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.
The ambassadors of America, UK, Germany and other countries are living in our country and see how we live. They know much about our problems and how we solve them. Yet, they deny many facts when they meet with their agents and receive their money. Then, they write fake reports about the situation in Egypt claiming it’s not safe over here and terrorism is everywhere.
Egyptians are eagerly watching the football matches between Al Zamalek and Al Ahly. Fans of the two big Egyptian teams are eagerly expecting their matches. These matches should be role models and good examples for tolerance, renounce violence and good morals. Therefore, fans of the big teams should start accepting the others and showing their tolerance in order to teach children about this tolerance.
After terrorist attacks in Egypt, we usually hear in media that blood of Muslims was mixed with blood of Christians who died in the attack. This may refers that we are proud to die together. I don’t really understand why people people like to die together when they can’t live together. Does this mean that we can’t find peace, tolerance and respect in our country and we seek it in another life! This is how we think, even if we don’t realize it. If we think that dying together is an achievement, we should rather find a way to live in peace. We should appreciate one another and accept our differences. This is the real achievement.
Tolerance and doing good may lead to prison. This is true if you live in Egypt. How can young people trust their country and belong to it any more after three Coptic youth were accused of proselytizing in Alexandria for distributing food on the Muslims after they wrote “God is love” on the food bags! The prosecutor who ordered the arrest of those Coptic youth have committed a great mistake and must be punished for his ignorance of Egyptian law. It’s so sad that the state is offended by some ignorant and fanatic people who punish young people for doing good and leave millions of thieves and murderers free.
The holly month of Ramadan the fasting month of Muslims has come to an end and feast is due celebrations includes all Egyptians regardless of their religions. The good thing beside the joys of feasts is that the endless cues of soaps and serials had come to an end and I’m not a fun of those serials I like to watch a movie 1 or two hours and done I have no patience to follow or keep track of a serial, I.m not going to interrupt something I started to watch for a serial that will start elsewhere! However, due the the huge amount of serials some of them popped up forcing me to watch them as I had no other option! I and I decided to hint about some of what I had noticed as general comments without names, majority of the stories are nothing more than thugs, drugs, police officers chasing criminals, or corrupted police officers, killing and more killing! Bottom line where is the morals from such stories? Just to attract the attention of people or a new way to teach more ways for corruptions?
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.
Terrorists who carried out the recent attack outside the Italian Consulate in downtown Cairo last Saturday proved to be very stupid. The attack was carried out in the morning during the holy month of Ramadan when most of the Egyptians sleep late. The streets were apparently empty and the casualties were very limited. What were the terrorists aiming to achieve by the attack? It was unsuccessful attack by all measures. The explosion killed one civilian and 10 others were injured in the blast. Some people claim that the attack comes to fulfill the promise of ISIS to attack Rome. However, they should have attacked the Italian embassy. Don’t they know where it is located, or do they fear security forces securing the place? Do the terrorists aim to destroy the good relationships between Egypt and Italy? If so, they have completely failed, since Italy has sent its foreign minister to announce the support of the Italian government to Egypt in her war against terrorism.
Linda Burnett, American Judge, has resigned from her judiciary position in a protest to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to legislate gay marriage. However the new law was welcomed by gay associations and the US President Barak Obama, who described this matter as a victory for America, but also has faced a lot of controversy and objections from many people in America and all over the world. I congratulate the America judge on her dictions to obey God rather than the people. Her courage and purity decided to choose her eternal life rather than a vanishing office.
There was a terrorist attack last Saturday in front of the Italian Embassy in Egypt that caused huge damage in the consulate, houses, shops and cars around it. Several terrorist attacks happened in Egypt while people were fasting during the holy month of Ramadan putting the government, security services and all Egyptians under pressure and fear. Our police need to wake up and stop dealing with the crimes this way. Terrorists are given golden chance to escape with their evil plans as police takes too much time to move.
Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of St. Mark See, has been recently receiving increasing criticism and attacks from several people including his spiritual sons. Two weeks ago, a group of attendees of his weekly sermon started talking loudly at the beginning of the sermon. Arguments quickly broke out among attendees before the Pope cancelled the sermon. The protest has been based around restrictive personal status laws. On the next week, the pope surprised everybody by his decision to cancel the meeting for three years. Wednesday's weekly meeting at the cathedral was the last until 2018, Pope said. Of course, this was linked to the criticism he had received by some people of his congregation. This raised many questions as well as the anger of many Copts. They demanded the Pope to cancel this decision and deliver his weekly sermons as usual.
Before I start what I have to say, I’ll ask a vital question:- Is there a normal person that can LOVE his Father and HATE his Mother or vice versa Love his Mother and Hate his Father? Let me be more specific, I do not compare your Love to either parents I just asked if it was possible for a normal guy to love one and hate the other. Again I’m talking of normal regular parents, not a rude or careless father or mother! Well, if a normal person loves his parents, even if he had some bad memories with them but he tends out of love to forget and forgive those bad moments he had to face!
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?
After long debate with homosexuals, United States of America has legalized same-sex marriage. Such marriage is not acceptable by most Muslims, Christians and Jews; however, passing a law for gay marriage in America was easier than passing a unified law for building houses of worship in Egypt. For years, Coptic Christians have been suffering discrimination based on religion in their own country. They faced several hardships each time they decide to build a new church. Such suffering is likely to last for years before they are able to build a new church and perform their prayers.
I do not allow anyone to discuss my intentions or manipulate them. Everybody should be free and responsible. Yet, in our country, such freedoms are granted by the constitution, and manipulated by anti-terrorism law. The government fear articles more than booms. In our country, there are rivers of blood that need justice, but can’t find them. Here, it is important that we shut our mouths and accept that anti-terrorism law. How does he who drafted such law think? I know that the upcoming parliament should be able to cancel that law. This is nonsense. In fact, I am lucky that this article was written before the law is passed, or else I should have been considered a unique terrorist who carry exploding articles.
After the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak' regime, Egypt couldn’t confront the fundamentalist terrorist attacks. Countries in the Middle East have been suffering from real setback since the beginning of the Arab spring, simply because they need a real change, and not just a fake one. The problem is that peoples in the Muslim countries such as Iraq and Tunisia don’t have an idea or a complete theory about modern and democratic regime that enforce the law and protect the freedoms. They simply live in a state of religiosity that considers such regime kind of blasphemy. Therefore, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood found a fertile ground in the region and spread their destruction.
Others
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.