Muchas gracias Spanish government and EU : Sincerely Mideast government

On Sunday, the people of Catalonia held an independence referendum in defiance to the Spanish government in Madrid and the current Spanish constitution.

Police arresting voters in Catalonia "AFP"

The referendum was held at the same time the Spanish police attacked voters at polling centers dragging them out as well taking the ballot boxes in a scene that shocked many people including myself.

According to Catalan authorities, not less than 900 people were injured including elderly.
It shocked me because that scene was too familiar for us in the Mideast, in Egypt in particular.
It reminded me with the violence of the Egyptian police during the 2010 parliamentary elections which considered by many as one of the trigger for the 25 January revolution.

It shocked me because that was happening in Europe. It shocked me because that was happening in Spain , a country that I and other Egyptians look to a successful example of democratic civilian transition.
Since the ouster of Mubarak in February 2011 and many Egyptians looked to the Spanish democratic civilian transition as an example to follow despite the difference between the two countries. Needless to say , I believe that one of the weakness of our Egyptian revolution is the lack of figures like  Adolfo Suarez.

Anyhow it seemed that the legacy of Franco is still deep-rooted in Madrid or at least in the Spanish police as the World has seen in the past two weeks.
Just as I and others felt sad to see that scene of Spanish police attacking Catalan voters and activists, others were happy in our sad miserable part of the world.

Egypt's First woman governor : Do not be so happy

On Wednesday the world celebrated the International Women's Day worldwide and as the usual, our Egyptian media reminded us with all women's achievements especially in the time of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in a silly cold cliché.

Governor Nadia Abdou 

One of those achievements was in February when Nadia Abdou was appointed as the governor of Behaira governorate.
Abdou is the first woman to be appointed as a governor in the history of modern Egypt.

It is important thing indeed and the media is cheering up for the historical milestone.
As much as I know this is a historical thing but I can not get past the fact that Nadia Abdou was a member of Mubarak's former National Democratic Party "NDP" and that she won a seat in the People's Assembly in one of the most corrupted elections ever in 2010.
Abdou does not deny the fact that she was a member of the NDP. 

In fact, she claims that "three-quarters of Egypt" was NDPian during the Mubarak's role.
Either way, the NDPians are having a strong comeback whether in the parliament or government or media as we have seen lately.

When Good Middle Class boys become Bad and Join IS !!

And once again Islam Yaken is back to the news and media in Egypt. Last week the New York Times published an interesting profile and video report about ISIS hipster Egyptian spokesperson Islam Yaken and his life in Egypt featuring two of his friends and once again the debate on why the good Middle Class boys join the Islamic State militant group is back.

Yeah we are back to this old debate.

Of course it did not stop at the NY Time’s feature as IS’ PR media machine could not waste this opportunity. From couple of days ago Yaken announced on his twitter account that one of his close friends in Egypt  joined him in ISIS.

Islam and Mahmoud , Now and then
2010 in Cairo and 2015 in Levant 

That friend is yet another good middle class boy 24-years old Mahmoud Ghandour who joined Yaken in their pseudo-caliphate.The faculty of law graduate and the former football referee in the second degree football league in Egypt appeared in the NY Times video in the 2:97 minute where he and Yakan spoke about women.

Interestingly El-Ghandour was known to journalists who were doing profiles and reports about the ISIS social media face Yaken as he had a contact with his friend.

Despite he appeared not to having a problem in speaking to journalists at first, he said he did not want to speak later to them. He even warned and advised them to stay away from him and from Islam.
A quick bio about Yaken based on his social media profiles , he used to be a normal Egyptian Middle Class young man who loved music and women till Mid 2013 when he began to share Pro-IS views.

Regarding that Ambitious Religious Revolution Starting in Cairo

Following the Paris attack tragedy and what happened on Friday , suddenly the West began to pay attention to Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s call inside Al-Azhar for a religious revolution when it comes to Islamic thought and discourse. Some even began in Egypt and outside it to consider El-Sisi , a former military man as the Ultimate religious reformer and Islam’s Martin Luther too.

I do not know if those hopes and bets on El-Sisi to reform Islam and Islamic thoughts are just hopes or jokes to be honest with my due respect.

Religious thought revolution needs a true freedom of thought and expression to take place not under censorship and repression. Do I need to speak about the situation of freedom of expression in Egypt right now !? Do I need to speak about the situation of freedom of though in Egypt now when we are not allowed to comment whether on unjust legal verdicts or dare to discuss the military or security situation in Sinai !? Bassem Youssef’s show was shot down and no critical voices are allowed on TV.

Personally I believe El-Sisi’s words in Al-Azhar were more of a PR stunt to show the West how he stood against radicalism and extremism to Islam unlike Morsi. For his luck comes Charlie Hebdo’s tragedy and now he has become Islam’s Martin Luther in some sick joke. Ironically both Mohamed Ibn Abdel Wahab , the founder of Wahabism and Hassan El-Banna , founder of Muslim Brotherhood were considered as reformists ironically.

Regarding El-Sisi's speech on the 10th of Ramadan

Just like any other president preceded him , Abdel Fattah El-Sisi addressed the public on the 9th Ramadan about allegedly the 10th of Ramadan anniversary aka the anniversary of the 1973 war according to the Hagri Calender.
As expected it was not about the war but about the latest economic decisions taken this week to lift up fuel and energy subsidies.
These are my remarks about the 25 minutes recorded Televised speech : 
1- Extreme emotional speeches do not work every time especially in hard economic times. It may work with certain classes especially among the Upper Middle class ladies and Upper class ladies but it won't have the same effect now among the working class that will pay the price for real for such cuts. Already such classes have been paying the price in the past 30 years
2- As he spoke directly in informal Arabic in Egyptian accent , I wonder for real who wrote for him this speech. That speech with this arrangement of ideas can not be improvised , at least the points and their arrangement should be outlined before recording. I real wonder who wrote and honestly I do not think that the usual suspect "Hassanein Heikal" is behind that speech because Heikal is an expert in sophisticated political speeches.

Voting Girl 2014 : Presidential Elections

To vote for Hamdeen or to nullify my vote or to boycott the whole process. This is what I had been thinking about for many weeks. I know it is a farce just like the days of Mubarak but I used to vote during Mubarak’s era and said NO.

It is not about giving legitimacy to a certain regime through the ballot box but it is more about that feeling that someone will open your ballot paper within thousands of Yes Papers and find the big NO.

Despite I believe it is a farce I felt that I have to vote because honestly I do not want El-Sisi to win by 99% of the votes or even 90%. If he wins 70% “He won’t” , this can help the revolutionary opposition to stand and to rebuild itself politically. The Pro-Mubarak/Pro-ElSisi supporters are always repeating that the size of the opposition will be determined by the percentage Sabahi gets in the elections.

One must try all routes and ways for change. I want to be from the very few that did not choose El-Sisi in the elections in the ballot box despite all the media brainwashing since last July 2013. Why I did not choose El-Sisi , well I think you should my previous posts in the blog to know why.

Now after the Presidential Elections Commission’s decision to extend the elections for an extra day , I feel angry. We know that El-Sisi is dying to increase the turnout in order to make equal or near the one Morsi/Shafik elections scored “51.%” but in vain with three major blocs absent from the scene : The Islamist bloc , The Youth bloc , The Sofa bloc “The apolitical class of people who watch what is going while sitting on its Sofa”.

I voted on Tuesday. Now my experience in voting was quick. The polling station was empty at 2 PM  as it was extremely.Couple of middle age/middle class ladies were there along one middle age man was there casting their votes. It took couple of minutes. It did not feel like previous elections for real.

I write this now when me and others are calling Sabahi to withdraw from the elections. It is a play , we know that for sure but it is getting sillier and sillier each minute. He will continue in playing his role till the end as it seems despite the Popular Front Current Youth and the Revolutionary Youth are begging him to withdraw.

And as you can see in the picture , I got a pinky finger.

The search For a leader whether #Mandela or King or Even Gandalf is still on in #Egypt

I am really sorry that I do not blog politics as before. I will not deny but sometimes now I feel tired , sad nearly depressed and sick to speak about what is happening in Egypt. It feels heave to write now about a scene that no sane person sees and feels that we are going to have soon a healthy civilian democratic state or we are even on the correct path in the transitional period. You can not stop the feeling that we are returning to 24 January 2011 and that day does not want to seem to end , it is endless and the 25 January had never happened.
Now when I look to what is happening , I see lots of anger , lots of disapproval on what is happening from the current government. That anger as well rejection are among the same youth class that led the original 28 January and it still has no leader to organize it in order to become a real force on the ground.
The media attacks those revolutionary youth day and night spreading lies about them and somehow it pays off as the people , older generations are dying to the return of the old days regardless of the corruption , poverty and decay of the Egyptian State in the past decades. The older generations are not looking for a leader but rather they are looking forward to the return of the Just dictator , the myth we have been living in Egypt for decades in order to justify police state.
The death of Mandela stroke a nerve , it is not about anti-apartheid  reconciliation hero rather it is about the realization that we need a true leading civilian figure to promote democracy in the lands of mighty pharaohs and kings.

A Stolen Revolution Indeed

The statements of John Kerry about how the Muslim Brotherhood stole the January revolution from the Tahrir kids echoed strongly back in Cairo. It is most powerful statement condemning and slamming the Muslim Brotherhood since the 25 January 2011 not even since 3 July 2013.

Now I have two remarks about that statement.

Well the first remark is that I am afraid that the Brotherhood was not the only thief in town that stole the revolution from those kids in Tahrir. In fact all the grown ups stole it along with the Muslim Brotherhood whether the army or the deep state or the pseudo political parties or media or Islamists or even global and regional powers. They are even fighting over the booty now.

Those kids in Tahrir square have spent the past three years between the morgue and funerals fighting the worst despair where as their revolution has been stolen over and over in front of their own eyes.

Those kids do not have anything to do except see their friends in coffins not to mention being demonized in the eyes of the public at the same time they are trying to fight fairly in a dirty war without any foreign aid or deep state aid. Those kids are the best personification of Don Quixote. 

#Oct1973War : The lessons We Failed to learn after 40 years !!

Thousands headed to the streets allegedly to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 6 October War by the orders of the interim president , army , Muslim brotherhood , the Church , parties to the end of that to get the party on or accurately to get on with their own political agendas.

None of them tried to learn from the political lessons Egypt learned in a very expensive in 6 years of war.
I am afraid we are repeating the mistakes we have committed in 1967 and forgot all the reasons on why we made it in 1973.

Let’s start with the media, we got the same Ultra-hypocrite lying propaganda machine of 1967 working effectively in 1973 !! Joseph Goebbels would be impressed by the amount of propaganda this nation has produced whether in 1967 or in 2013 to be honest !!!

When I look to the headlines of the newspapers on 7 October 1973 and the headlines of the early editions of the newspapers on 6 June 1967, I see that someone had learned a tough lesson.

Do you know that people did not believe the Egyptian radio and TV news on 6 October 1973 and had to hear the news from Israeli radio Arabic service as well Monte Carlo Arabic radio service !? Do you know that for 6 years Israel seized this to send its poison propaganda in its radio service !?

How the #Oct73 war Anniversary is ruined for me in #2013 ?

Next Sunday Egypt will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1973 war aka Yom Kippur war , supposedly it should a day of remembrance for the heroic actions and sacrifices of those men who fought this important war.
Unfortunately despite it is a huge event , it is overshadowed by the on going war between the Muslim brotherhood from one side and the military from another side where the people are stuck between the two parties.
The Muslim brotherhood and its allies are heading to the street in order to end the military coup and bring back Morsi as well to restore the army’s dignity along legitimacy to the end of that talk.
The Pro-military supporters and parties as well groups are heading to the street allegedly to celebrate the days but actually they are going to the streets to stand against the Muslim brotherhood supporters who dared and start to enter Tahrir square. 
Bunch of NDPians groups and campaign urging El Sisi to run as a president already announced that they are going to the streets on that day in order to fight the Muslim brotherhood and to convince the general to run for the upcoming presidential elections.
The day is ruined !! I wish everybody stays at his home and uses God’s gift to the humans aka reason for once instead of that group thinking epidemic.

Regarding the NYTimes Map Dividing 5 Arab countries in to 14

NY Times published a op-ed about how 5 countries in the Arab world can be divided in to 14 countries by Robin Wright. The graphic representation of the op-ed as a map became a viral in the Arab social media especially in Egypt.

It spread like fire as if that map was a reality , not the visualization of some analyst’s views that may happen and may not. It spread like a fire as if that that was going to happen for real. As Big Pharaoh said on twitter this map in the New York Times would fuel debate and conspiracy theories in the region especially in Egypt for the upcoming 825 years.

This is not the first map of its kind where American Middle East analyst says something similar, if you remember some American Magazine published another similar map during the invasion of Iraq about possible divisions and unlike Wright’s map Egypt was among those unlucky countries that were going to spilt.

I know that what I am going to say now won’t appeal to many people now as fascism is the fashion nowadays along with waiting for the strong just dictator Messiah to bring order and stability to the country that suffers from foreign plots from here and there. We will not have those maps and those predictions if there are true democracy and equality that does not differentiate between any citizen in those countries.

All those countries mentioned in that map scaring the people in their dream do not and did not enjoy freedom or democracy or justice except may be for short times from long time ago.

“The Divide conquer” policy will not vanish by dictatorships in fact it becomes a true reality through dictatorships that spread hate and fear as well racism through religious nationalism , ideological nationalism and ethnic nationalism.

This map can turn in to a reality if the people in the Arab world do not wake up and admit that they got huge problems when it comes to religious sect and ethnic minorities. Of course I do know how many alarms the Arab world has to hear to wake up since the first spilt of Yemen and the first civil war in Lebanon in 1950s !!

Interestingly at least for me that Sudan is being neglected from Wright’s map when actually both Darfur and Kordofan have their own woes thanks to El Bashir regime considering the fact that like South Sudan they were independent from Khartoum and had their own rulers.

The Pro-Military supporters think that Egypt was saved from that theoretical map and won't be divided thanks to the 30 June and the army , well I have to say that it is more complicated than that.

Regarding the Military’s loyalty Oath

I do not think that it is too late to discuss this matter that made controversy and headlines all over the world.
Interim President Adly Mansour issued a presidential decree late last August to remove a very interesting part from the armed forces’ oath of loyalty.
That part concerning the allegiance to the President of republic does not exist anymore. That part was “to be loyal to the president of the republic.”
I was surprised when I had heard the news. Of course all the world consider that move was another example on how the Egyptian armed forces will not obey any civilian president enforcing the military state and political power in Egypt.
Still no one had paid attention to the  history of the armed forces’ oath of loyalty  before.
It turned out that the original military loyalty oath had not had this part before ousted Hosni Mubarak. Yes it turned out that Mubarak added this phrase to the loyalty oath. Some say that Mubarak added to the oath after getting rid from his rival defense minister Abu Ghazla.
As you may know Abdel Halim Abu Ghazla was popular not only among the army but also by the public and Mubarak got rid of him in a big for fear that he would lead a coup against him. “Of course some say that Program T was behind his dismissal”
The oath continued after the 25 January 2011 revolution and of course Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi would not think to change it.

#9/11 : What We Fail To learn as usual from history

Today is the anniversary of the 9/11 attack that changed the World upside down. Of course I can not get over this anniversary when we are having the infamous “War against in terrorism” in Egypt. Unfortunately we refuse to learn from other people’s experiences nor to learn from history .. even our own history.

These points below I believe we should know in Egypt especially now , they are lessons learned in a hard way from 9/11 and what followed it.

• Force will not beat terrorism and the evidence is in front of us , almost after 12 years of the 9/11 attacks and before it the World Trade center attack , the terrorists are not defeated !! In fact why we take an example from the U.S when we have our own experience with the bitter terrorism in the 1990s which I still remember very well. Using force and police state techniques did not stop radical thinking and terrorists.
• Terrorism based on ideology can not be defeated only by force but I will dare to say that you need counter ideologies more than force to fight the radicalism in ideologies that lead to terrorism.
• Fighting terrorism for real should start by admitting the root problems causing it from social, economic , cultural and above all political problems and try to solve it in order to prevent any radicalism in the future.
• Discrimination against others will not stop terrorism , in fact it may breed a new class of radicals who may resort to terrorism to make that society that rejected them suffer.
• History proved that “War of terrorism” was used by the Bush administration for certain political, economic and military gains that used fighting terrorism for a cover and the Iraq invasion is a good example.
• Shutting down media and forcing journalists to shut up in these times of so-called War of terrorism mean that there is something wrong and you do not want the public to know it.
• Do turn monster while fighting monsters. There are human rights according to religion and laws that should not be broken under any circumstances.
• McCarthyism always fails in the end

BY the way this year marks the 40th anniversary of Chile’s infamous coup supported by the CIA. I look to what happened in Chile and I know that there are many lessons should be learnt :

• The West has no problem with military tyrannies as long they serve their political and economic interests.
• Justice will prevail in the end in a way or another.
• Killing and torturing thousands can not be justified under any circumstances.

I am creating fighting terrible fall flu so I am not in mood for long posts to explain each point.

In the end I will quote what Ben Franklin once said :

Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

My two Cents on The Military intervention in #Syria and Its impact on #Egypt

So it seems that there will be a foreign military intervention in Syria so soon , may be with in days or even days.
I believe that a direct foreign military intervention in Syria is the last thing Egypt really needs now. Oh yes the direct foreign military intervention in Syria will make the public demand a military rule willingly to protect Egypt from the foreign conspiracy going after the strong Arab armies in the region. “Yes there is a deliberate misleading info in the media that the Syrian Arab army is extremely strong army and that it is the second strongest Arab army in the region after Egypt”
Thanks to the Egyptian media people began to support Al Assad and his regime as well his army against the Islamists above them the Muslim brotherhood and Al Qaeda. There is a deliberate misinformation when it comes to what is said and how it is said about Syria in the Egyptian mainstream media.
The Nasserites already support El Assad despite their idol Nasser used to curse his father and Baathist altogether. Of course these are the Neo-Nasserites.

Regarding the Myth of Bad Egyptian liberals

I am really tired today. From two days I went to bed after knowing that 38 detainees “From Muslim brotherhood supporters” arrested last Friday were killed in prison transportation vehicle in vague circumstances “Contradicting ministry of interior’s reports” then today I woke up to know that 24 Conscripts were executed in cold blood by unknown militants in Al Arish “No group claimed responsibility and personally I think it has to do with the crackdown currently taking place against Jihadist groups in North Sinai”.

My Facebook’s timeline has become an obituary page for photos of deceased friends of friends whom the later swear that they are not terrorists. At the same time my timeline has become a nationalist political tabloid page full of rumors on how Obama’s brother is a member in the MB , how ElBaradei is secret MB leader and Germany is controlled by the Muslim brotherhood. This is besides the hate and ignorance that make me wants to smash the laptop. I am sorry for this introduction but this will make you know how I feel now.

The Speech and the New 48 hours deadline

Ok these are my remarks about general El Sisi speech in the graduation of the Navy and air defense academies in Alexandria on Wednesday. I could not post it yesterday because I was extremely tired for real.
First here is the speech translated in to English 
Now I do not believe that the army or the police needs a mandate to do its job in fighting terrorism and violence. I do not believe either the justifications that he needed that this mandate in the populist way because there is no parliament to ask for such mandate from !!!! 
Already that term “War on terrorism” is open and vague as well dangerous when it comes to human rights abuses. Just apply the law and do your job accordingly.Taxes are already paid to the government so the army and police to do their work.
I believe that El Sisi is trying to push harder in the negotiations with the MB as according to all leaks it reached to the dead end as the MB is insisting on having Morsi as a president once again !! You must know if the MB leading figures step back on this particular demand they could be killed by younger supporters.
It is a deadend indeed especially you got highly polarized two teams , one religiously radical and the other nationalistically radical and here I am not referring to the army, but rather the public that backs up the army.

My Two Cents about #Femen and Their #Jihad !!

This twitter message summarizes what I want to say about Femen and their Topless Jihad.

#Femen #muslimahpride #toplessjihadday "I do not need patriarchal states or eurocentric feminists to dictate to me!" twitter.com/sofiaahmed1/st…
— Sofia Ahmed (@sofiaahmed1) April 4, 2013

By the way Aliaa El Mahdy is the not the biggest symbol of freedom for the Arab women and she does not represent me. 

How has the #MB become the biggest challenge to #Jan25 Revolution ?

I wanted to write this post from a long time but as usual I was lazy enough to do it but my dear friend Bassem Sabry’s latest column in Al Monitor made me to write it. 

 4/20/2012 protest One hand to build the nation

I began to believe that the Muslim brotherhood has become the biggest challenge to the 25 January Revolution and its biggest liability ever. I am afraid that the famous group that nobody can deny its participation in the revolution is hurting and even jeopardizing it in the worst ways ever especially with their policies and plans the whole idea of 25 January revolution.
Of course here when I am speaking about the Muslim brotherhood as in Presidency , Freedom and Justice party and the  Muslim brotherhood.
The intelligentsia in Egypt know that the Muslim brotherhood took over the rule breaking all the promises they gave to the fellow revolutionaries whom for years stood to defend the group against Mubarak regime. The intelligentsia also know very well how the MB and their policies are completely opposite to what the 25 January revolution called for from principles “Bread, Freedom , human dignity and social justice”.

The problem of Muslim Brotherhood “2” : Pawns or Kings !!

This is my attempt to understand what is wrong with the Muslim brotherhood now in Egypt. You can read the first of the series here. Warning : This is not an objective analysis , this is what I think now regarding the Muslim brotherhood.

The Muslim brotherhood got a goal it wants to reach , it wants to revive the Islamic Caliphate. It is not a secret or something hidden as their own hierarchy of power inside the brotherhood. It is in their literature and books.It is in their speeches and talk. Here was Safwat Hegazy speaking about it in 2012 on TV.

He spoke about over and over causing controversy when he screamed in one of Morsi’s rallies saying that the Islamic Caliphate will return on the hands of Morsi and its capital will be Jerusalem.

Aside from the capital , the dream of Caliphate is in the teachings of Hassan El Banna who believed that the New Caliphate should be centered in Egypt and not in Turkey or Saudi Arabia.

Regarding the Declaration that Cancelled the Declaration

And after some fake national dialogue with bunch of Muslim brotherhood’s close friends , Morsi decided to issue a new constitution declaration to the cancel the constitution declaration he issued from 16 days ago !!

Morsi cancelled the Constitutional declaration but the draft constitution’s referendum is still on time after 6 days !!

Now personally I believe the draft constitution should be delayed for several reasons above them what happened last Wednesday was something beyond our boldest evilest imagination to happen. There is a gap now between the revolutionary youth “and they are so many” and the Muslim brotherhood and to be honest I will dare and raise the bar and say the Non Islamists and Islamists in Egypt.