The Egyptian authorities in Egypt decided to ban the book “Inside Egypt : The land of the pharaohs on the brink of a Revolution”. I hinted about this important book by John R. Bradley before. The
newspapers in Egypt like Al-Masry Al Youm,Al Dostor and Al Badeel spoke about it over and over from three months ago.I wonder why suddenly the Egyptian regime remembered it and decided to ban it.The Egyptian regime is proving how stupid it is. First of all as if we , the Egyptians do not know how corrupted and how dictator this regime is and we are waiting a British book to tell us so. This book is not for the Egyptian reader but for the Western reader who does not know much about Egypt. For God Sake Bradley came and interviewed Egyptians to do his book !!
Of course I do not expect them to think in that way.
Already anyone with a brain in his or her mind in Egypt knows very that sooner or later a revolution will take place in the end. And the revolution of 1952 will be nothing compared to it , taking in consideration that the people are really suffering more than in 1952.Bradley expects that the revolution will be MB green Islamic revolution due to the rise of the religious trend in Egypt and I expect that it will be a socialist one for the terrible economic conditions we are suffering from. We are not like Iran. Religion is not isolated from the state like what was happening in Iran before the IR.
Egyptians always move when they feel hungry ,they can keep it in themselves if they feel that it is worth to ,but it does not worth anymore.
Anyhow back to the banned book,we can’t buy it in Egypt but you can buy it abroad through amazon.
 Amazon.com: Inside EgyptISBN: 1403984778 ISBN-13: 9781403984777 |
Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI'll be getting this book isa! Even though I'm already an egyptian and know quite well how the situation is.
i have a copy already ;)
ReplyDeleteWael Abbas
@Lujee,you will be surprised from what is in it from details about the sex trade in Luxor , this is something many Egyptians ignore
ReplyDelete@Wael,you are a lucky man :)
Great post, late comment on my side though. I haven't been checking this blog for a while, but its good to be back!
ReplyDeleteI, too, have a copy of this book. Its a page turner from the very beginning. I know more or less of everything that is there, but its hard to believe that the domestic situation in Egypt is having such an international echo.
I read in the Daily News that Anas el Fiki (I think) said that the book is not banned, and that only books that touch upon religion, or any other "taboos" are banned. I think that this book is a big taboo for them. Please read this paragraph from an interview conducted with John Bradley the author of the book:
" Inside Egypt shows that all the problems in the country can be traced back, directly or indirectly, to the 1952 coup that overthrew the British-backed monarchy and brought to power Gamal Abdul Nasser and the Free Officers. Before the coup there was a constitutional monarchy and a functioning and democratic parliament; after the coup Nasser banned all opposition parties. Before the coup there was a vibrant and free media; after the coup Nasser nationalized the newspapers and appointed his lackeys as the editors in chief. Before the coup Cairo was wonderfully cosmopolitan; Nasser then expelled the foreigners and his rank xenophobia then ruled supreme. Then there was the curse of his pan-Arabism, a fallacious dream that evaporated once it encountered reality, and which brought the Egyptian people nothing but defeat and despair."
This paragraph summarizes our 56 years of downfall- he might be a bit harsh in his use of words, but what he says does not possess any element of lies.
I would love to see whether this book will be available in Egypt soon or not.
Below is the link to the above paragraph.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8D51E68E-FB9D-4FEA-BD51-554742EC61C4
Please accept my kindest regards,
Aes
@Aes , thank you so much for sharing , yes Anas El-Faky after a huge noise aboard came with this comical statement
ReplyDeleteI wrote about it here
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/07/egypt-denies-banning-of-revolution-book.html
about this introduction for sure it is true despite I disagree on the word xenophobia ,it is not a matter of history but Nasser was ready to cooperate with the west and already he backed up by the U.S , the C.I.A technically built his intelligence , everything was fine till they have to choose between us and Israel , we did not any to choose ,we just wanted a fair treatment , Nasser went to the soviets as natural reaction he could not keep his neutral attitude too long
Xenophobia is a wrong word here
and pan arabism is not that bad,on the contrary
what people need to understand that many people believed in Nasser not only for his captivating charisma but his ideas he was promoting were not bad at , but unfortunately they were only ideas not action
they were only means for others thing
they were the right thing promoted to do the wrong thing
The revolution was not bad at all ,it was needed , grandma always tells me since 1951 Egyptian people felt that something was in the air just like now , but now is even worse than 1952 because people were not suffering like now ,they just got stick from the status que ,too many cabinets in less than 3 years , occupation they did not stand and a king who lost hope in his own life and did not give a damn
Mubarak is not a legitimate child of the revolution but of the Nasserite era, the revolution died in 1954
the nationalisation and confiscation of foreign owned businesses was nothing more than a short sighted reaction to years of occupation and subjugation. the consequence is the corrupt, failing economy egypt has had for a generation and economic policies forever trying to play catch up and leaving egypt open to exploitation and ridiculous strategies, both imposed by the IMF and the desperate ones adopted by the government.
ReplyDeleteoccupation had a stronger influence on any xenophobia; it was one of the less harmful effects of nationalism, and a charismatic leader who became drunk on his own personality . yemen and the "six day war" are two results of that, pan arabism created the israel of today.
@Scribbled , Nationalization was not applied in Egypt alone and I can't put all the blame now on one leader and one policy because that leader died along with his policies ,Sadat Came and then Mubarak Came ,you can't dismiss the occupation forces like you are doing now simply you do not know how it feels like to be controlled by a foreign force or how it feels like that most of your resources owned by foreigners , but of course you put them against dictatorship
ReplyDeleteboth are not acceptable and both should be fought and both are not tolerated not justified
it is like comparing hell with another hell