Egypt’s Duck Problem

I love the American saying “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and it looks like a duck it’s got to be a duck” for those that don’t get it, perhaps a briefing on the duck test may help. The Egyptian Government and many Egyptians continue to be baffled as to why most of the world outside continues to view the dismissal of Mohamed Morsi from his role as the president of Egypt on July 3, 2013 as a military coup.

Morsi did not want to leave office, he was adamant on staying on as president of Egypt, against the will of the masses and his obvious loss of any mandate. The Egyptian Military gave Morsi a week’s notice and then another 48-hour last chance, but Morsi wouldn’t willingly step down, or call an early election, or a referendum on his remaining in office. Finally, Egypt top generals informed Morsi that he was no longer president and that he was to be taken by the military for safekeeping. It is very hard for any objective person to name the manner of deposing Morsi as anything other than a military coup.

The Egyptian Military and the virtually all Egyptian politicians argued that deposing Morsi should not be considered a coup, because the military only acted to prevent a civil war and that unprecedented numbers of Egyptians were rising against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. There was considerable debate over how many millions of Egyptians actually hit the streets on June 30, 2013 to call for the removal of Morsi from power. Estimates of the size of demonstrations ranged from six millions to over thirty million Egyptians on the streets demanding Morsi’s ouster. Many argued that the mass Cairo demonstration exceeded the previously largest known gathering of protest in human history, the demonstrations in Rome on February 15, 2003 against the Italian participation in the Iraq War.

To western liberal ears, the size of the demonstrations is largely immaterial, in a democracy, the masses get a chance to vote and turf out their leaders. Indeed those mass demonstrations in Rome failed to halt Italy’s participation in George W Bush’s Coalition of The Willing! So while Egyptians kept on saying, it is not a military coup and we have massive support to remove Morsi from power, devout democrats kept hearing military coup to remove an democratically elected president, anger and recriminations ensued. The western liberals accused the Egyptian liberals of being no democrats, sore losers, who are fundamentally ignorant of democracy. On the other hand, most Egyptians defaulted into conspiracy theories and played the jingoistic card to suggest alignment of interests between The West and the Muslim Brotherhood.

As a supporter of the June 30 protest and a participant in the Tamrrod campaign to impeach Morsi, I am baffled by this inability of the Egyptian Government and Egypt’s liberals to communicate their case more effectively. Yes, I do support the military coup that removed Morsi from power! And yes, I do call it a military coup! The removal of Morsi was ultimately a result of his own coup on legitimacy and assuming dictatorial powers to force an Islamist Constitution down the throat of the Egyptian people. The mass protests started against Morsi following his dictatorial and illegal assumption of judicial and legislative powers in November 2012, Morsi had many months to fulfill his promise of compromise and amending the constitution, but failed to do so, failed to commence any serious dialogue and was proceeding deeper down a path of gaining more control of various institutions of the state. Despairing of Morsi moving to return to legitimacy and reversing his own coup, we Egyptians had no choice but to stage our own coup to return the country to democracy. Did the military and various institutions of the state facilitate and aid the campaign against Morsi? Yes, but they only did so, after sensing the deep anger and hatred we, ordinary Egyptians, who had earlier looked at Morsi with hope, ultimately turned against him. 

There is serious risk that the militant struggle between Islamist forces and the state would help usher in a new military dictatorship and Egypt’s War on Terror would wind up being the excuse to suppress freedoms, in the name of security. The anti Morsi coalition that took to the streets on June 30, 2013 encompassed a broad spectrum of views, from those who long to the return to the Mubarak era, to true and genuine advocates of democracy, equality and justice. It helps to call things by their true names to minimize chances of entering an 1984 like era, and hence let’s start out by saying why we support our military coup. Let's all say, I know it's a only coup but I like it! 

AA

August 23, 2013

Ded el Hekomah …What does it mean?

Roots of the January 25 Revolution in Egypt


The powerful Egyptian rap Ded el Hekomah is the anthem of the Egyptian Revolution. News analysts, security experts, orientalists and all types of talking heads have for decades talked of the grim choice the USA and the West have in Egypt; corrupt dictatorships or Islamist western hating, war mongering instability like that of Iran. Pity they did not take some time to look beyond their prejudices and listen to “Ded el Hekomah”. Egyptian Rapper Ramy Donjewan song is a beautiful passionate cry against a brutal government, against injustice, thuggery and torture against the killing of innocents.

Ramy rages against dictatorship and even against the victims of oppression for their silence, for putting up with injustice and for thirty years of dictatorship. Ramy urges people to speak out against the oppressive government …”kefayeeh noam” enough sleep! … “kefayeeh moat” enough death! ... “kefayeeh sekoot” enough silence! ...“kefayeeh zolm” enough injustice … ”ana ded el hekomah” I’m against the government! …”ana ded illi ya’abel yetthan” I am against those who accept humiliation! “ana leya aeemah” my life has value!

The beautiful poetry of Ramy Donjewan speaks to universal values of freedom & justice; the American Founding Fathers would have strongly approved of every word and sentiment in “ded el hekomah”. What a surprise to the western talking heads and policy makers … Egyptian youth share the same basic universal values of other people, they do value their lives, they want freedom of expression, they want justice and opportunity; and guess what, they are not too keen on getting brutalized, tortured or killed. What a surprise! And, it is not just the youth we have seen Egyptians in their sixties and seventies take to the street to support the revolution.

The policy makers and their orientalists advisors failed to see the revolution coming as they projected prejudices against the people of Egypt through a process of generalization and stereotyping; lumping in different countries and cultures. The absurdity continues as “experts” talk of their concerns of Egypt splitting up confusing tribal societies in countries thousands of miles away with Egypt; perhaps the world first nation state with substantially same boundaries for millennia.

The reality, before all of us to see on CNN, BBC and Aljazeera, is that Egypt has a foot in the first world with millions of educated people; heavy users of internet and modern communication; they rap, they tweet, have lots of tweeps and Facebook friends, they work for Google, they demonstrate with iPhones, blackberry and even iPads and many are multilingual. This perhaps is the world’s first revolution led by what we Egyptians call “mistreheen” or the “comfortables”, those with education, jobs and some material wealth, the middle and upper classes of the society. Yet Egypt is a third world country with tens of millions of people living on below $2 a day. Daily tweets remind the pro democracy protestors to help the poor on their way to Tahrir Square.

The Egyptian Revolution is no bread riots; it is the “mistreheen” revolt for dignity, self respect and freedom on behalf of all of the people of Egypt. This is about an old nation waking up; finding its voice and showing the world values of social justice & cohesion, religious tolerance & unity. What may come of the Egyptian Revolution is still up in air, for now silence and wavering in supporting the brave people of Egypt is complicit support of thuggery, brutality, torture and criminal oppression of the will of the people. We should all be singing … ana ded el hekomah .. ded el hekomah … ded el hekomah.


AA
February 9, 2011

Who is more Egyptian?

Egyptians & Identity

In a post colonial world, an Egyptian living in the west suffers from the negative stereotypes attached to Arabs: a feeling of shame and anger at being labeled ‘Arab’, ‘Arab’ with petrodollars and hypocrisy, ‘Arab’ who oppress their women and lust for other women, ‘Arab’ trapped in traditions of betrayal and double talk. Naturally, facing such an ugly stereotype, one would attempt to disassociate from such images as much as possible. This is even more the case given the tension between Egyptians and Arabs under both Nasser (Arabs seen as reactionary) and Sadat (Arabs seen as rejectionist). Yet a better understanding of the negative stereotypes, save for the petrodollars, will show that their roots lie not really in Arabia but rather in Egypt. In his book Orientalism, Edward Said used a huge body of work by Orientalists to discuss Egypt more than any other culture. In fact, Arabia was only referenced in Said’s analysis of the writings of D. H. Lawrence. So much of the negative attributes assigned to the “Arab” are really based on a collective but erroneous Orientalist view of Egyptians rather than of Arabs!

The negative image of the Arab that prevails today in the west is the sum total of a long process that began with Lane’s detailed account of the customs of the Egyptians moving on to the lusty scheming King Farouk and continuing today in anti-Arab, racist movies ranging from Disney’s Aladdin to the Raid On Entebbe. Today, the negative image of ‘Arab’ has deepened to include the terrorism and petrodollars as new chapters in the same old book.

So what does an intelligent and proud Egyptian do in response? Does he go in and fight the unfair negative stereotype and the racist hatred or should he attempt to squash those stereotypes and distance himself from them? Indeed, Edward Said suggested that the process of Orientalism saw the transfer of all of the negative stereotypes associated with Shakespearian Jews to the Arabs in our time. Could a new Egyptian image, free from all of these horrible, negative stereotypes but largely built on Egypt itself be possible? An image dependent on Egypt’s ancient history and borrowing heavily from Christian Jacq’s portrayal of the wisdom and glory of that culture: Egyptians who lived by the Law of Ma’at until they were then invaded and defeated by the horrible hordes of Arabia! The problem now is Arabism, we want out!

Cultivating this image is totally incompatible unless one adopts an aggressive stance towards Arabism and in doing so, the bright young man or woman does not know that Arabism itself is but a product of colonial orientalist discourse. Indeed Arabism is no more than the very same attempt to gain distance from the negative image of Egypt that was painted by Orientalists and extended, unjustly, to cover not just all Egyptians but also other Arabic speaking and Moslem countries. Could it be that Arabism is just the other side of the coin of the neo-Egyptian nationalism?

Alas, we turn and look at Egypt, we find that the people there have many common backward links with the looked down upon Arabs. So what do we do? We de-Egyptianize them! We happily move forward with the concept that these people are Arabs, or at least mixed breed, while we Egyptians are progressive and forward looking.

Regardless of this argument and logic, one or two Million or even ten or twenty million cannot usurp the right to being Egyptian nor are they more Egyptian than the other 65 million who are there now. Egyptian is what Egypt is today and those seeking an alternative definition for what Egypt is today are better advised to look for another label for themselves, not for what Egypt is and Egyptians are today.

We are stuck with our fellow countrymen, poor, prejudiced, backward and suffering the ravages of corruption and ignorance. They are our people, we can’t deny them or de-Egyptianize them because it does not suit our self-image. We have to work to improve their lot in Egypt and we have to confront the stereotypes created by Orientalism. To subscribe to and aid in Orientalist thought is a matter of naive self-gratification, intellectual dishonesty and betrayal, but certainly not treason!

One day an Egyptian identity could remerge. If and when this happens, I hope it will be one that is based on what Egyptians have in common, on what makes them a unique people. If and when this happens, I hope the Egyptian identity will not be built on false, even laughable and defensive self-gratification against Arabs or others. I hope an emerging Egyptian identity would be wider than a narrow religious or ethnic affiliation. I hope for an Egyptian identity at peace with itself, accepting its own people for what they are now, striving for a better future for Egypt and not one stuck with ancient Egyptian glories.

Ayman S. Ashour

(An Egyptian nationalist fighting the superimposition of Arabism on Egypt and an Arab American fighting the negative stereotypes of Egyptians known through Orientalist ignorance as “Arabs”)

Originally Written March 13, 2003

Selling Out in Boston

I am sitting at a large table covered with nice white cloth, laid out for three course dinners for ten guests. Only eight of us are at the table and two empty seats are to my left. A cheerful man comes and sits to my left and introduces himself in English. Even though this is an Arab American gathering, perhaps the vast majority doesn’t actually speak Arabic, many are second and third generations, few are even fourth and fifth generation. We are in Boston, the roots of the Arab American community run somewhat deeper than many may believe; Boston had more Arabic language newspapers in the 1890’s than most cities in the Arab speaking Middle East.

The cheerful man is from Lebanon originally, must have been in the US for at least twenty years. I am never very good judging age but he could be anywhere between thirty five and forty five with graying hair and a constant smile with a very friendly demeanor. We speak of Lebanon I tell him of my time in Beirut as a child pre and in the very early days of the civil war. For three years, I spent my long summer holidays and sometimes also winter breaks in Beirut where my father worked at the time. I mostly have very fond memories of Lebanon. The Israeli sonic booms were scary, the PLO or other factions check points were even to me then as a child not so scary but strange. With my Egyptian Arabic language giving my origin away easily, I felt that I had to bear the brunt of Egypt’s disengagement agreement with Israel in 1974, it got better when I learnt to sound more like the Lebanese.

Back to Boston, so I am chatting with my new neighbor about the “old country”, always a favorite topic in a gathering like this for both immigrants like two of us and even those who have known no other country but the USA. He asks, have you been to Lebanon recently? I said I have not, but I have such great memories, I used to walk all over the city and I recite several names of districts and other landmarks. I then mention that going to Tel Aviv and Haifa earlier this year somehow reminded me of Beirut a lot. This was the end of the chit chat and we plunged deep into a political discussion.

My new friend, while not a Palestinian, is not about to “sell” the Palestinians “out”. Wham ..here, it comes, so my visit to Israel is “selling out” Palestine? My friend came to the dinner with progressive Jews who did not “sell out”. He is Lebanese, he could just ignore Palestine and “sell out”. Well my friend, I feel deeply for the suffering of the Palestinian people and for the justice of their cause, but my main way of expressing a commitment to this cause is through dialogue and engagement. There is enough propaganda out there, from both sides; while grossly uneven in the main stream with a general bias always in favor of Israel, this is not how I wish to express my commitment.

There are many progressive Jews, I know, some are my friends, but they are not the ones I am looking for a dialogue with! Why not? … Because I want to understand what the mainstream Israelis and Jewish Americans think, I want to know where they are coming from. ….. Do I try to convince them of the justice of the Palestinian cause? Well …my friend in a dialogue, a true dialogue, at least the way I try to practice it, I focus on expressing my own ideas and narratives rather than trying to form or manipulate the opinion of the other. So, you just sit and talk as normal as if no issues with Palestine? I too could just “sell out”? I tell my friend that if through my dialogue I help one or two people every year look at things differently, then I am satisfied. He insists but what do you talk about? Do you just accept their story? No I don’t, I give them my narrative and listen to theirs. I tell my friend, I am not really interested in spending my energy getting the average Joe away from his Celtics game to talk to him about the justice of the Palestinian cause. Joe Average will vote many other issues before this issue become central to him, if he votes at all and I add jokingly I am Lakers fan anyhow. Wham again; I am not sure which is worse being a Lakers’ fan or having visited Israel. My friend is getting to the point where he is losing patience with me.

Justice, basic dignity for the people of Palestine will happen with peace; peace will happen when enough Israelis and American Jews feel that peace is a serious possibility and believe that peace is a genuine goal for the Palestinians and their supporters, not just a short term step on the path of more war. In my dialogue, I am seeking to know the “Zionist Enemy” directly and I want them to know me; because I believe peace is really possible and with it justice for the people of Palestine. Turning all Israelis into progressive Jews is not a realistic path to peace, we need peace with those we disagree with on very fundamental and difficult thorny issues, we need peace with the “enemy”; yes this is indeed possible!

The first award for the gathering is to radio program on Palestine broadcast on Boston College Radio on Sunday mornings. I think my friend is part of this program or affiliated with it somehow. This program has created so much hostility and a lot of people have tried unsuccessfully to take it off the air, a big round of applause. The Palestinian voice is being “heard” in Boston, or should I say it is being broadcast in Boston …not everyone is a sell out! And the Celtics are winning too!

AA

July 14, 2008

Scattered thoughts from the land beyond Sinai

An emotional journey with many fleeting thoughts about what to expect … a twinge of fear, of understanding, of anticipation and a touch of sadness or resentment at those rejecting my desire to come and see for myself. So this is the other side, this is where the Phantoms and the Mirages were taking off back in 1967!

Recognition …Right to Exist …was it right to come into existence then? …right to exist now?

Somehow I feel that the issue of recognition is split into different questions that need to be addressed separately. For me recognizing Israel today is self evident; it is there and has been for several generations. Today maybe a million or more have already been born to parents who were born in this land, to deny Israel’s right to recognition is clearly delusional ….regardless of how one (I) feels about how Israel came into existence, it does now, and must be recognized.

More than anyone else the Palestinian Israelis have come to terms with the reality of Israel’s existence and are living within the system and are working to better it.

Sadly, I don’t see Israel reaching out to be accepted. Once it did maybe, perhaps it got tired and it doesn’t anymore …did it ever really? Israel’s brutal practices seem to feed the flame of hate rather than yield the desired result of acceptance… why does it persist? I think of those who know everything there is to know about the Jews and have never actually laid an eye on one let alone spoken to one, make up the majority of those debating normalization or recognition. Sadat was truly a brave visionary man, may God forgive his many sins. What he did was truly remarkable, what was going through his head as he landed here, I wonder?

Land of the rejected and the rejecting …the images I have looking at the people as I run on the beach and on the streets of Tel Aviv! There are some people who are here because they can’t be anywhere else. The Hasidic Jews are home here; they can be easy targets for discrimination and have suffered over the centuries ….don’t they get hot in this stuff? I think I must have run onto the stage set of "Fiddler On The Roof” by the beach ….. or am I just too hot in this cold wave?

Yet, there is also the elite that is accepted everywhere ..in New York, in Paris. Some places in Boston look and feel more Jewish than Tel Aviv! The elite who are clearly not rejected anywhere , some of whom are dead set against accepting the other …both others I reckon …. Are they doing this out of compassion for the rejected ones? A good deed! Or are they simply supremacist in their own way? A bit of both, I guess!

Then there is the truly religious amongst those elites, as always I am not so sure if it is adherence to a faith or loyalty to a nationalist movement that fills a void! Funny, I waited in the extra security room at the Airport with a new immigrant in shorts, yarmulke and iPod! Oh, the battle between the Law of Return and the Right of Return is surely one sided.

The “Rejected & the Rejecting” may help me make sense of this! ….and we have our own rejectionists too …what fun with the one verb!

The Weather in Israel Today

The Jerusalem Post is full of complaints about incitement and of Israel being rejected by Arab and Muslim countries, not even being shown on the map. Yet its own weather map on the back page shows the map of historic Palestine plus the Golan with just some marking for Gaza! Why the mark for Gaza but nowhere else? The pot is calling the kettle black, I wonder.

“What good is the IDF if it can’t stop the Qassam Rockets?” cries one of the headlines in The Jerusalem Post! There is something very macho about Israel. An out of place and out of date sort of feeling that overwhelming strength is the key to safety. America is learning more from the four year experience occupying Iraq than Israel has done in many decades of dominating and occupying the Palestinians.

Focus on Israel not the occupation!

I Saw The Wall, visited and prayed at Al Aqsa and I saw the settlements and the house of the zealots, in the old city, with the many Israeli flags. But I did not want my trip to be focused on what Israel is doing to the Palestinians of the West Bank, I didn’t want the impressions of the checkpoints, the oppressive wall, most definitely, it is not a fence, this is one big ugly wall. I wanted to see the pre 1967 Israel, its look and feel, what are the people like, are they European? Mediterranean? vulgar and rude as I heard from another Egyptian? Intellectual? Cool & hip? I admire the guts and courage of Sana Hassan coming to Israel even before Sadat. I should have packed Hassan’s Enemy in the Promised Land as my guide book; it would be funny if it were to be sold as such!

What do the road signs look like? I find Arabic is really the third language after Hebrew and English. It is strange that almost all old Palestinian names are suppressed; I understand the use of biblical names but when a village once existed with a certain name why come in and substitute a very European name. Israel needs to come to terms with its own history, the good and the bad! The different monuments on the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and the History of Israel in the Welcome to Israel hotel book all made me think of George Orwell’s 1984. Yet I could not reconcile this 1984 feel about the place with what must be truly remarkable freedoms even by US standards!

The Pess-optimists … The Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Most interesting for me are what I call, perhaps wrongly, Palestinian Israelis, what the Israelis call Israeli Arabs and what are often referred to as the 1948 Arabs or Arabs of 48! The Palestinian Israelis come across are very welcoming. First, they assume I am a local Israeli Jew who speaks Arabic but then when they find out I am of Egyptian origin they shake my hands warmly, offere tea or coffee. At a gas station, one says ”…we have two Egyptians living here, you should come and see our village…”. This is close to Nazareth; where several Palestinian Israelis were killed by the Hezbollah bombing last year!

Collaborators …the whole lot of them of course not, I highly doubt it; Haifa and other places were already integrated for decades and in many cases people were highly educated and more affluent. I think of Emil Habibi’s wonderful book “The Pessoptimist ~The Secret Life of Saeed” Habibi portrayal of the early years of Palestinian life in Israel through the eyes of a Palestinian “Candide” who was actually a collaborator! Habibi won the Israel prize for literature for his work. I guess the worst and best of all possible worlds!

The different languages one hears American English, Russian, Hebrew, French, Arabic … Almost all the Israelis I meet have been to Sharm. The Palestinian Israelis consider visiting Sharm as a visit to Egypt, the Jewish Israeli refer to it as in Sinai, not Egypt …Oh this still? It is a bit disturbing but, I suspect, just an innocent oversight, not a deliberate statement about Sinai not being Egypt.

The comfortable integration between Palestinians and Israelis in some places, even in the old city is remarkable. As I have dinner at Haifa and look around me I think; are they worlds apart or almost the same people?

Orthodox and those in the black robes!

The orthodox Jews with the Yarmulkes and the many many variants of the “Hasidic” Jews with their different costumes, the long black robes, the ties, and the different types of headwear…something unreal about the movement in flocks. …..The imposition of the Shabbat’s rules on secular Tel Aviv seems unnatural to me! It reminds me of stores closing at prayer times in Saudi Arabia …what a strange thing to remember here?

Constant sound of gunfire!

The beautiful beaches of Tel Aviv are destroyed for me by the horribly noisy racquet ball games, sounding like bullets being fired, I wonder if bullet sounds are relaxing for some? Such a strange aspect of a city and country that is always on edge!

The same exact games are very popular on Alexandria beaches but with a less noisy ball or just more background noise, or just played less vigorously? I wonder to myself as I close the windows.

Diesngof Street,

I walk by the same exact street corner that had 3 or 4 bombings; I see two memorials for the victims of the suicide bombings! I am told the trees had to be cut down in a “box” form to avoid body parts flying all over the high tree branches. What a dreadful image, I close my eyes and turn around.

In the 90’s many west bank Palestinians worked in Tel Aviv, not just as laborers but shopkeepers too! Tel Aviv feels a lot like Alexandria before the overcrowding, perhaps a cross between the Mamoura and Semoha districts of Alexandria.

I wonder to myself: is Israel comfortable with itself? Is it any more or less comfortable than anywhere else?

Temporary Permanent Residents

Those Palestinians in the Triangle, not sure what Triangle but that is what the area around Jerusalem is apparently called! They carry a certain color ID card which entitles them to temporary permanent residence, whatever that means.

What will happen to the people that Israel acquires as part of its eventual settlement with the Palestinians? Will they become like the Palestinian Israelis or will they integrate less?

Are there any territories actually occupied and not disputed …apart from Gaza which is really neither, now at least?

Aren’t we all temporary permanent residents after all?

31 January 2008

Informed and Perceptive View of Iraq - Book Review of Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid

This is easily the best book I can recommend to anyone on the Iraq war. Anthony Shadid, a third generation Arab American, who speaks fluent Arabic was on the ground before the Iraq war and lived through its phases all the way to the full blown insurgency.

Shadid demonstrates an excellent understanding of the people and the culture, this understanding makes his analysis very valuable indeed. A very important point that Shadid makes is the desire of the people for justice over democracy.

Shadid's understanding of Iraqi society makes his analysis on the insurgency, its roots and its nature very convincing. The analysis of the power structure with the Shiite religious leadership and the diverging loyalties as well as the Iranian versus Arab orientation of the leadership is very well explained. It is remarkable how ill informed much of the media in the US referring to the Mahdi Army, the Sader militia, as Iranian influenced when Shadid explains clearly their roots being as populist & nationalist counter movement to the Iranian dominated Shiite religion leadership.

Through countless daily interactions with Iraqis from all classes, all sects and all political views Shedid offers tremendous insight on the factors that shaped the views of the Iraqis and how these changed over time as the country sunk deeper into a depressing war. Shedid equally well covered the American troops, their perception of their role and of the Iraqis around them.

Can't say enough about this book except I wish it becomes mandatory reading for political and military readers. Shadid's Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the war is very well deserved!

Irreconcilable Narratives from 1967 to 2006

I was only seven years old then, but I still remember the frightening sound of the Israeli war planes up in the sky and the sound of the distant bombing and that of the Egyptian anti aircraft guns. We lived on the edge of Cairo adjacent to some nondescript military installation with whom we had a dispute over a small piece of property that was part of our house and would eventually become our one car garage. This was back in June 1967, just off school and looking forward to the summer and maybe a holiday on the Mediterranean beaches in Alexandria. I feel somewhat a fraud because these days have had such an impact on my life; Cairo was far away from the real center of the war and while hundreds of thousands from each of the three big cities of the Suez Canal had to flee their homes I am not really aware of any civilian destruction in Cairo itself. Yet those days of fear, panic and of nightly shouts of “tafou el nour” telling us to turn the lights off have left their mark on me.

Ten years later, while living in England, I would seek out Israelis to know how it felt on their side, what were they thinking, I would visit a synagogue in Manchester and attend meeting with Jewish Groups. Many years later I am still active in dialogue in person and on the internet advocating reconciliation and peace in the Middle East. I have now come to accept that there will NEVER be one set of facts surrounding the 1967 war; was it a war of self defense or a war of aggression? Why were the Egyptian POW’s brutalized by the Israelis? Why did Israel immediately (and later too) annex territory and just a few years later started a colonizing settlement policy? Was Egypt’s Nasser really a threat to Israel or just a loud mouth? How come the Egyptian army was not even on an “alert state”? But why did Nasser threaten to blockade the Red Sea? How come Israeli intelligence knew so much about Egypt that the Arabic Service of Radio Israel broadcast helpful hints to the students taking General Secondary School Certificate just few days before the start of the war yet thought that Egypt was really a threat? Can Israel be blamed to taking Nasser’s bravado seriously?

I now accept that there is no real factual answer to these questions. Each side has its narrative, its own proprietary set of facts that can be substantiated with loads of logic and evidence, yet diametrically opposing and irreconcilable. This was in the dark ages before the internet, blogs, 24 hours news station like CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera. Somehow I thought such contradictions in the basic facts ..what really happened could never be repeated in the Middle East. I was wrong! I have just returned to Boston from a business trip to Europe that included a four day side trip to Egypt. So, I was in the US for the start of the 2006 hostilities watching CNN and listening to NPR, moved on to the CNN International & BBC and then on to Al Jazeera, Al Manar (Hezbollah’s very own TV station) and Egyptian Government and opposition newspapers and talking to friends, relatives and strangers about the events.

Where best to start, simply the very basic facts are disputed and hence the positions that people take are radically different. While it is hard to generalize I will attempt to portray the basic facts as seen in my predominantly pro Israel US community & US media, a glimpse of Europe and lastly in Egypt. The Israeli Palestinian conflict is much more complex and so I will attempt to focus on the Lebanese Israeli war except of course the Palestinian dimension does play a very important role and supporting evidence of the various conflicting facts. Much of what follow will essentially be generalizations that aimed at capturing the main themes.

In the US, the situation is very clear cut. Hezbollah is already listed as a terrorist organization; the fact that it is a member of a Government we recognize is explained away as part of our support for the Lebanese Cedar Revolution aiming at ridding Lebanon’s of Syria’s occupation and national reconciliation. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and from Lebanon; Palestinian terrorists kept on firing rockets on Israel and actually carried a raid on Israel taking an Israeli soldier hostage. Israel attacked Gaza in self defense to silence the rocket attacks and to free its hostage; innocent Palestinians civilians were killed while Israel pursued armed terrorists; Israel had no choice but to attack those who attack her and these terrorists hide in civilian areas so there is bound to be civilian causalities; the onus is on the Palestinian terrorists, the Palestinian Authority which is clearly complicit in the terrorism and for the civilians who harbor them.

Hezbollah invaded the internationally recognized and undisputed border of Israel and killed Israeli soldiers and took two of them hostage. Hezbollah acts were essentially in support of the Palestinian terrorist and part of their hate of Israel, which they refuse to recognize, has a right to exist. The timing may have been motivated by Iran and its nuclear issues. The US must support Israel as a very active partner in the War on Terror or WoT. In this war, like Iraq and Afghanistan civilians will die but it is ultimately for their own good to liberate them from oppressive terrorists. This sort of logic is very prevalent across the entire political spectrum in the US not just in the strongly pro Israel community where I live. The limited voices of dissent mainly focus on the scale of destruction of Lebanon and the evacuation of the US citizens from Lebanon. Very few faint voices go beyond that and the vast majority of people see Israel very much doing the right and responsible thing.

European media including CNN International which is in competition with BBC World rather than Fox News and most people I talked to believe Israel’s version of the events on Lebanon but not Gaza. A relatively small minority buys the current hostility as part of the WoT, indeed most don’t see Iraq’s war as part of WoT either. There is a fair amount of sympathy for the Palestinians but not necessarily Hamas and Hezbollah is negatively viewed as a repressive terrorist organization that provoked Israel and was responsible for so much kidnapping, death and destruction for many years. The view of Israel is less glowing and there is tremendous sympathy with the Lebanese people and anger at both Hezbollah and Israel for killing civilians.

The Egyptian narrative is entirely different. The vast majority of the people I talked to, in fact everyone I talked to, believe that Hezbollah never ventured into internationally recognized Israeli territory but into an area that Israel has occupied since 1982. Israel has refused to hand this territory back to Lebanon claiming it was never part of Lebanon and was indeed part of Syria. Hezbollah attacked Israeli occupation forces and took two Israeli soldiers prisoners not hostage. Hezbollah is on record that while it does not recognize Israel it is a nationalist Lebanese movement and it leaves the struggle of Palestine to the Palestinians; its aims are purely liberating all Lebanese territory and freeing Lebanese hostages held in Israeli prisons. Hezbollah only fired rockets on Israeli towns after Israel attacked Beirut and its original operation was against Israeli military not civilians. I had not heard this version of events before I arrived in Egypt. The headline of the opposition newspaper “El Wafed” cried “Revenge …Revenge ..Revenge” after the Qana massacre which was shown in graphic details on al Jazeera and Al Manar TV and also on CNNI. El Wafed, the party that was re-established in the 70’s with a strong capitalist roots and alignment to the west has had to go fully populist and blatantly anti Semitic (contrary to its 1919 roots) to criticize the Government as incompetent and has called for freezing or canceling Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, probably knowing fully well that this would not be done. The Muslim Brotherhood was critical of Saudi Islamic rulings blaming Hezbollah and I have heard that some Wahabi influenced Imams were roughed up by the worshippers after the Friday prayers for taking anti Hezbollah positions. The general feeling is that Israel’s attack was premeditated and was waiting for an excuse; Israel military incursion into the area it occupied from Lebanon since 82 was the original provocation. Iran is no threat to Israel and it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from the US & Israel.

In the lazy days of summer on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast people were completely occupied with the events and very sad of the destruction of Lebanon and the cruelty of Israel. Opposition parties are racing to attack the Government over trade with Israel and various trade unions and professional syndicates are kicking out members who have been engaged in “normalization” with Israel. The Opposition papers are as one sided and populist as Fox News; it is all Bill O’Riley without the ugly purple ties and as anti Semitic as he is anti Muslim & Arab if not a tad more. While talking heads on CNN & Fox talk with authority over Sunni and Shiite splits, they are clearly ignorant of how this sectarian issue plays such a minor role in countries such as Egypt which has virtually no Shiites but its majority Sunni Muslims has a very strong spiritual alignment with Shiite Islam not seen in countries such as Iraq.

I have always been very interested to learn more about the lives of the 1948 Palestinians who remained in Israel, those often referred to as Israeli Arabs who make up nearly one fifth of the population of Israel. When I heard that one of Hezbollah rockets landed in Nazareth and killed 2 children and saw on CNN the crowded streets I guessed it must have been the Palestinian part of Nazareth, later I heard on the BBC that it was indeed the case. I saw an interview with the distraught father on al Jazeera just once. I asked many of the people in Egypt I met if they knew that Palestinian kids were being killed by Hezbollah rockets, many people had no idea and were shocked. When I mentioned that Haifa shelters had Palestinian and Jewish Israelis in them they were surprised and somehow uncertain what to think. With so many CNN and other American reporters in the North of Israel I would have expected much more reporting on the Israeli Arabs, their living conditions, adequacy of shelters and the like but that too was lacking. The relative silence on the Israeli Palestinians or Arabs was virtually the only thing in common. Their existence is annoying inconvenience to both sides; their lack of adequate participation in Israelis society as an embarrassment to those wanting to present Israel as a liberal egalitarian society and whatever participation they do have in the Israeli society is too much for those who believe Israel is total evil that can never be reconciled with. At least there is some common ground but not much room for hope from this!


AA
Aug 5, 2006

Cartoons, Ships, Danes, Italians, Egyptians & Saudis

I woke up yesterday to morning papers and internet news showing pictures of angry people on the streets of Cairo. A boatful of poor Egyptian laborers returning from Saudi Arabia to the South of Egypt went down in the Red Sea. A fire erupted on the boat some 90 minutes after it left the Saudi Port and for some unknown reason the boat did not return to Saudi and it kept going farther out to sea. Some hours later, the reports are still conflicting but most say 2 hours, the boat took in water and 15 minutes after that went down with some 1400 people in the dark shark infested waters of the Red Sea. Rescue operations commenced some 8 to 13 hours later, again conflicting reports, and less than 400 people were saved and taken to hospitals in Egypt.

Poor Egyptian laborers from the South of Egypt often go to work in the oil rich countries; they often work in the construction industry and many at relatively low paying jobs that do not afford them luxury of annual trips home. Thus the workers stay away from home for several years and finally return with their savings carrying gifts to their families. I expect some would use bank facilities to wire their savings home but the vast majority would have carried all of their earthly possessions back with them on board. So down went some 1000 people and the livelihood and hopes of some 1400 poor families; all lost to the bottom of the Red Sea. The War On The Poor continues to claims its victims from New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico Coast to Pakistani Kashmir and trains and now to the Red Sea.

So far I have not heard of people taken to hospitals in Saudi or any Saudi participation in the rescue, perhaps the poor drowning Egyptians lacked the necessary re-entry permits. Naturally I assumed that the angry demonstrations on the streets of Cairo were against the Saudi and the Egyptian authorities. I was mistaken the angry mob was demonstrating against ..the USA for Iraq …no no ..Israel for Palestine ..no no the angry mob on the streets of Cairo were demonstrating against Denmark and the now infamous anti Muslim offensive cartoons. Egypt was not that bad, in Syria where self expression without Government approval is as rare as the balanced coverage on Fox News the Danish and Norwegians Embassies were torched …not a word about the 1000 or so Egyptians that downed!

The Danish cartoons were doubtless offensive. An attempt to defy self censorship and to reassert the freedom of expression is somewhat more acceptable when lampooning one’s own culture or heritage but attacking others especially at a time of rising incidents of racism and Islamophopia is unacceptable behavior. While the Prime Minster of Denmark publicly expressed regret over the publication of the Cartoons I am unaware that neither Italian Prime Minster Berlusconi nor any of his predecessors have ever expressed regret over the much more offensive portrayal of the Prophet Mohammad by Dante.

If the Danes want to continue to portray themselves as forward looking liberal egalitarian society yet support a newspaper (by buying it and advertising in it) that promotes racism I say let them. Islam is not insulted by such bigotry anymore than it was by Dante centuries ago. Islam and Muslims however are insulted far worse when we allow the extremists to steal the banner of Islam and commit heinous crimes under its name and remain silent. Danish cartoons are a bigger danger to Denmark and to what and how the Danes claim to see as their values. Some have argued that it is up to Muslims of Demark to deal with this problem, I would argue that it is up to Non Muslims of Denmark to boycott the offensive paper and those who advertise in it. I would argue that this needs to be done through discussions and dialogue and not even a boycott of Danish products let alone violent demonstration that reinforce the negative stereotypes that we object to in the cartoons.

I wish that the sense of activism and outrage on the streets of Cairo and Damascus and many other Muslim countries is redirected towards more fundamental Islamic issues. “Mercy” and “Compassion” and their linguistic derivatives are by far the most repeated words of the Quran. Where is the mercy and compassion towards the passengers of El Salaam 98? Where is accountability or justice? Isn’t the seeking of justice fundamental to the Islamic belief or does that only apply when the perpetrators of the injustice are non Muslims??


AA
February 5, 2006

Reciprocal Silence: Egypt’s Christians and America’s Muslims

"God who told the first killer, Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”…To His justice, the blood of twenty Copts, which flowed on the soil of El-Kosheh, upper Egypt, cries out. … If it doesn’t receive justice on earth, it seeks justice in God alone, He is the source of all justice. The verdict that was issued in the El-Kosheh case was a source of disappointment to all Copts. It left a deep wound in their souls and a scar in their memory that time will not erase. Thus, they turn to God who has never forgotten Abel’s blood. For He establishes justice and provides comfort."

I read these words in utter amazement. The Egyptian Christian Coptic Pope Shenouda III turns to God for justice. While the rest of the world has managed to escape the Y2k bug unscathed, the operating software for the Southern Egyptian brain ran into a massive glitch on December 31, 1999. The uneasy existence, officially know as harmonious, between Egyptian Muslims and Christians erupted into an orgy of killing in the little town of El Kosheh. Some small dispute between a seller and buyer left many people dead and houses of God burnt.

The south of Egypt has had a history of feudal violence and revenge killings. During one of the years of the Al Capone era, Chicago could only be rivaled by El Menia in terms of homicides statistics. The late Egyptian playwright and novelist Tawfiq Al Hakim mentioned this piece of trivia as he told of his years as district attorney in the Egyptian countryside. Al Hakim talked of Southern Egypt and Chicago as the two extremes of criminal violence, an advanced extreme motivated by money and a backward one motivated by tribal honor.

So homicides are nothing new to the south of Egypt. Worse, murders often went unpunished by the state as no witnesses could be found, cycles of revenge continued generation after another and the dead were not mourned until avenged for. So difficult and unruly the South, or more precisely the Middle South, of Egypt can be that it took the brutal Ottoman Sultan Salim I many years to conquer it after the fall of Cairo. Before him the ruling Mamluks employed the Arab tribes of the desert to raid the Egyptian villages to help them keep a grip on their holdings.

Tough place that middle south of Egypt--its people are renowned for their generosity, loyalty, warmth but above all, their stubbornness. Akhenaton and his beautiful wife Nefertiti established a new monotheistic religion and capital in the Middle South. We don’t know if they did that to simply get away from the more established religious centers of Thebes and Memphis, to challenge the stubborn, or to seek protection from the people of the middle south. The reign of the single god Aton did not last, and the established order of Amon was soon restored. The capital of Egypt moved away from the Middle South, back to Thebes.

The fact that massive violence erupted in the South of Egypt and many people got killed is not a major shock. The Luxor tourist killings in 1997 speak clearly of that, and for the last several decades that part of Egypt continued to be very difficult and, by the relatively peaceful standards of Egypt, violent.

The murders of 21 Copts in El-Kosheh are yet to result in any serious convictions. One wonders why …is it the traditional silence awaiting vengeance for the killings? This is highly doubtful. The Copts of the Middle South are as renowned for their stubbornness as their Muslim kin. Is it likely that they would want to continue the feudal killing without getting some police officers and attorneys from Cairo or elsewhere involved? Could it be that they want to seek justice with their own hands? This is unlikely; the Copts of the middle south or for that matter throughout Egypt know that they stand little chance of gaining justice on their own. I am inclined to think that witnesses said all there is to say, or at the very least tried to.

I wonder, 21 dead, yet over 90 suspects were set free and only four were convicted, with only one receiving a sentence of over 10 years (for illegal possession of weapons, not murder). It just does not add up. Could it be the local police force had colluded with the killings and refuses to self implicate? This allegation has been made by some Coptic organizations, and several outspoken Copts in the US have accused the Egyptian police of playing a complicit role in this massacre. Some Copts say that Muslim judges and district attorneys absolutely refuse to seek or apply serious punishment on a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim. Could it be that the district attorney in charge or the panel of judges just believe that there can be no law above the Law of God, and their own interpretation of the Law of God precludes the killing of a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim? Or could it be that these very same people are concerned that the community would seek retaliation had they sought to apply the laws of Egypt and seek the death penalty for convicted killers? Could the restraint be political? Could it be that the Province or the Egyptian Government feel that hanging a dozen Muslims, or even fewer, would ignite waves of anger that could cost the lives of more people. Could it be that that the Government itself is choosing to circumvent the law in an attempt to protect life? Would any of this be right? But why are Muslim intellectuals silent?

There are indeed many possibilities and many ways to attempt to understand the lack of serious convictions. In well-publicized cases Egyptian justice is often swift; three years is an eternity. Some Copts in the US and elsewhere have suggested that the belated recognition by Egypt of the Coptic Christmas on January 7th as a national holiday is a bone thrown to the Copts in exchange for the light convictions for the accused killers of El-Kosheh. Yet the government, with relatively muted criticism, has allowed the state attorney to appeal the case to the Court of Cessation, Egypt’s highest court. This is encouraging.

In the last two weeks I came across many government-owned and opposition Egyptian newspapers. The diversity of views on many issues is impressive. I saw many different theories, including some very good insight into the Iraq war and a tremendous amount of coverage of the Palestinian daily struggle and the Road Map. I did not see one, not a single word or article, on El-Kosheh. I did not see any analysis of the possible motives for the most recent court ruling, nor have I seen any analysis on the Coptic community post-El-Kosheh in Middle Egypt. Has there been any behavioral change? Are the Copts frightened now, fully subjugated, or are they defiant?

Was El-Kosheh a massacre or simply a tragic incident? Massacres are not measured in the numbers of the dead, they are measured by their impact. Massacres instill fear in the hearts of their would be victims, to ensure compliance, subjugation, or eviction. Massacres move neutrals to action, hearts of stone flicker a bit at stories of massacres. The victims of massacres of Srebrenica and of Sabra and Shatila measured in the thousands, Deir Yassin in the hundreds, and the Boston Massacre was less than 10. In Bosnia, Srebrenica finally forced an end to the war, through an escalation at first. Sabra and Shatila forced the Israelis out of Beirut and Sharon into disgrace for well over 10 years. Deir Yassin frightened the Palestinians out of their homeland. And the Boston Massacre, with the fewest victims of all, triggered the American War of Independence. Massacres bring about change, for better or worse. When a change is needed, small numbers get killed unnoticed, the numbers keep rising, and one day we wake up to the news of Srebrenica. Then something happens, a change occurs. Let’s hope El Kosheh is recognized for what it is, a massacre that forces all Egyptians to think …and to change.

We must label El-Kosheh a massacre and set about to seek some answers. Why did it happen? Why does it continue to go under-reported, under-discussed and under-analyzed? Sheikh Muhammad Sayed El Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar and a leading Muslim spokesperson, spoke very passionately to the cameras during the latest Iraq War, issuing a religious “fatwa” or responsa, that those who die in suicide bombing against the American invasion of Iraq are martyrs. “Shahidun, shahidun, shahid!” were his exact words, meaning martyrs who will not be punished for committing suicide and will be rewarded in the after life for death in the cause of God.

While I disapprove of the war on Iraq, I am astounded by how a leader like Sheikh El Tantawi can manage to come up with an unambiguous Islamic legal ruling on suicide bombing while remaining virtually silent on the killing of his innocent non-Muslim compatriots.

The issues of the legality of the death sentence or even life imprisonment for a Muslim convicted for the killing of an innocent non-Muslim appears far less ambiguous than the issue of suicide bombing. A very clear-cut and passionate declaration by Sheikh El Tantawi affirming the position of Islamic Law on the issues related to the killing of non-Muslims by a Muslim and against obstruction of justice is sorely needed. While I have not seen a single news report from Sheikh El Tantawi on El-Kosheh, I understand that he has indeed reached out to the Coptic Community.

In a few hours or days after the first suicide bombing against the American invasion, Sheikh El Tantawi spoke to the world, very passionately. Yet, it has been over three years now since El-Kosheh; how clear has he made his position on this issue. Is he quiet because he does not wish to alienate those who believe that serious punishment is inappropriate? Or is the case so complicated, and he does not wish to interfere with Egyptian Law? Yet Sheikh El Tantawi feels free to interfere with Egyptian foreign policies both in regards to Palestine and Iraq. And his pronouncements are generally not case specific, even though they maybe issued in response to specific situations. Surely Sheikh El Tantawi can say that those who murder innocent Non-Muslims are “murderers, murderers, murderers” and should be punished. Those who stand in the way of justice are enemies, not friends, of Islam.

Sheikh El Tantawi can do more, but at least he is trying to reach out to the Coptic community. Far more worrying is the silence of Muslim intellectuals both in Egypt and in the west.

Here in the US, the silence of Muslims on cases of abuse and discrimination against non-Muslims in Muslim countries is complicit. Twenty-some Christians are gunned down in a Pakistani church, the killings of Christians in Indonesia, the complete lack of freedom of worship for Non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia …and we are silent. We don’t say much; we don’t even offer condolences or stand for one-minute silence. We just move on as if it’s irrelevant to us. Yet we are not disconnected from the interests of the Islamic world, and we rise in protest or in support of events in the Islamic world. We Muslims, in America and elsewhere in the west, have shown little interest in the treatment of minorities in the Islamic world.

With a few exceptions, such as the courage and eloquence of people likeYale’s Khaled Abou El Fadl, Muslim religious and political representative organizations remain largely silent. True, they condemn acts of violence against Americans committed under the false pretense of Islam. Indeed this is a step forward, but it will be far more powerful when this stand against violence is not connected to political gain. We must speak up against violence even when there is no gain, even where there maybe pain. Our condemnations must be tied directly to a principled religious and moral Islamic core belief, or indeed a core set of beliefs encompassing above all the sanctity of life, justice and the doing of good on earth.

9/11 has triggered much pain and uncertainty to all of America, perhaps to none more than to the Muslim, Arab American and immigrant communities. For me personally, the most painful was not the spilling out of the underlying religious and ethnic prejudices of the mainstream media, or the rubbish of the racist talking heads, or the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell brand of hateful fundamentalism; the most painful was the reaction of other minorities. Those who are normally anti defamation at best stood silent; more often than not, they fed the fires of hate. I feel no more 9/11 pain than when I hear Egypt’s Copts in America, blinded by their own anger over the treatment of the Coptic minority in Egypt, inciting discrimination against Muslim Americans. The vast majority of Copts in the US do not take part in this hate, but as always the loud minority dictates the agenda and paints the silent or ambivalent majority with its own ugly brush.

But the Copts in the US and elsewhere in the west can do little to fan the fire of hate and anxiety; they represent no more than a hand fan aiding a jet engine when compared to the Christian Fundamentalists, Zionist Right or indeed the secular Neo-Conservatives. And I know the jet of hate and racism will eventually blow away the little hand fan too. Yet that self-destructive little hand fan causes me personally far more pain than the jet. Because the Copts know better. They know of millions of Muslims who share their values, laugh at the same jokes, sing the same songs, eat the same food and share most habits. They know most Egyptian Muslims are simple, non-hateful and peaceful people. Most Egyptian are pious, God-fearing people who pepper their speech, indeed their whole life, with “alhamdulillah, inshallah, astaghfirullah..etc,” meaning thank God, God willing, ask forgiveness of God, etc.

In the more classical sense of the word, most Egyptians are “orthodox” be they Muslim or Christian. Their religious faith, their piety, is as much an ethnic as a religious heritage, an integral part of their whole being. The vast majority of Egyptian Muslims and Christians are peaceful and believe, at their core, in coexistence. Doubtless there exists discrimination against the Copts in Egypt in many facets, doubtless the extent of the discrimination is not recognized nor accepted by the Muslim majority or the state. Yet difficult as it maybe, just as many Christian Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iraqis are in the forefront of defending and standing by the Muslim minority in America. More Copts and indeed the American Coptic organizations must speak out too and stand shoulder to shoulder with Egyptian American Muslims in the US. To do otherwise is to accept the injustice of the discrimination in Egypt and to wish its equivalent institutionalized right here in the US and elsewhere in the west.

Many of the outspoken Copts in the US come across as simply wishing revenge, and they see discrimination against Muslims in America as some sort of payback. Their claimed belief in minority rights is voided by their hate. And again the troubling silence of the majority of the Copts and of the US Coptic organizations is indeed a parallel to the equally troubling silence of the American Muslim minority and institutions about the abuse of Christian minorities in Islamic countries. A reciprocal selfish and self-destructive silence that feeds hate and undermines the rights we all aspire to for ourselves. Belief in minority rights and in religious freedom can never be selective, and to claim it for narrow selfish reasons reveals intellectual dishonesty that betrays a freedom-loving tolerant facade and reveals an ugly self-hating interior.

Sand Storms

Often time as I run in Boston my mind takes me back to Cairo, the city of my childhood, and I look at the Charles River but I really see the mighty Nile before me. The long Mass Ave Bridge transforms itself to Qaser el Niel Bridge; Longfellow becomes Abu el Ala’a Bridge and Cambridge become Zamalek. Not last night, that wasn’t the Charles River I was running by, it was the Tigris. The cars going by me were not cars they were Cruise missiles. I heard the air raid sirens too, three times in fact and I never heard the all- clear! Last night I run in Baghdad, under bombing! As I ran last night, I thought of myself a traitor, doubly so. As I went running last night, I pictured myself on the streets of Baghdad and I felt fear, I felt helpless and I felt sorrow.

I was not anti war, but I have now become anti war. All I wish for now is sand storms …sand storms and more sand storms that will slow down the tanks, make it difficult for the laser to see, difficult for the planes to fly difficult for the killing to go on. Sandstorms that will prevent Iraqis from killing anyone, its own sons or America’s finest. Just sand storms, bad enough to stop the killing but not to increase the misery and the suffering.

Saddam Hussein represents the absolute worst calamity that has hit the so-called Arab World. His propaganda machine, his internal security apparatus, his torture chambers, his killing squads, his ethnic cleansing, his belated false commitment to Islam and his pretend care for the Palestinian struggle have lasted for way too long, far too many years. He has killed too many people, tortured and tormented too many people and his thugs have raped too many people and destroyed too many families and villages. I, for one, want him gone.

I supported the US policy in tightening the noose around Saddam’s neck. I supported the military build up that forced him to accept UN inspections and lowered his standing in the eyes of the whole world including those who supported him in his brutal invasion of Kuwait. I would have even supported and offered my help in a war to remove him, but such war had to be sanctioned by international law and had to be very clear and public about its objectives.

I can’t support the current war. Call me inconsistent! I am not a politician I don’t have to be consistent, I only write to get my feelings and thoughts out…to communicate what I now, right this minute, think is right, not to prove that what I thought was right three weeks or two years ago turned out just that.

This war started out almost like vendetta by the Bush Administration. In my eyes the US failed to prove any real danger from Iraq to us here in US. It looked to me more like electioneering and a focus group driven war, a war to show Bush as resolute leader and in the process to get rid of one nasty thug. I was willing to go along with that but the Bush Administration in its bullying of the UN and later in its defiance of the UN changed the equation, for me, completely. It is no longer just about Saddam losing; it is also about Bush winning.

Last night as I ran on the bend of the Tigris in the heart of Baghdad, I felt so much for the Americans POW’s, the kid from New Jersey and Shawna from Texas, the young mother, the Asian American kid, I wanted to reach out across the TV screen and hug them, I want to bring them back to their kids, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, I wanted them home. I felt the same way about the little olive skin Iraqi boy screaming with the white bandages around his head, I so wanted to comfort him. And the young Iraqi man whose brains were literally blown out and pieces of his skull and hair were barely attached to the rest of him made me just want to die to get out of this whole horrible mess. These images can’t escape from my mind, the dread in Shawna’s eyes and the pain in the eyes of the Iraqi boy and the skull fragments with hair on them. I wanted this war over now, I wanted the bombing over me to stop, I wanted the all-clear siren, wanted it in the worst way.

The Bush Administration may well be wining the public relations war in US; not me! though, they had me but no more. I am appalled by the double standards and their lies. I can’t believe the propaganda war coming out of the Bush Administration directed at me! at us; Americans! What is this stuff about a coalition, am I supposed to believe that having starving countries like Eritrea in the coalition as a substitute for France. Is distant El Salvador the equivalent of Europe’s largest economy Germany and is Bulgaria with its heritage of compliance under Warsaw Pact a substitute for including Russia? Why lie to me about a coalition, why not tell me, we are doing this alone? I resent the insult to my intelligence. Tony Blair does not dare talk about a Coalition of the willing, I respect his honesty.

Come the issue of POWs and treatment of POWs. Again I am disturbed by the double standards. The US took it in its own hands to define who is a POW and who is an “unlawful enemy combatant” during and after the very legitimate invasion of Afghanistan. Those captured were shown on TV in shackles. Instead of showing the world that supported our liberation of Afghanistan our respect for the rule of law, we aimed to redefine the law. On to Iraq, AOL and most US TV showed Iraqis in civilian cloths surrendering and being told to kneel down before their captors, in another shot Iraqi captives were shown marching with their hands over their heads. We can’t win hearts and minds through double standards, but do we care? I don’t think so! the Bush Administration seem to have bought into the Fouad Ajjami & Paul Wolofwitz doctrine, that the Arabs and Muslims will not like America no matter what, so we should not care one iota about their views and get on with doing the right thing.  It is the American hearts and minds that the Administration is really after not those in the Middle East, Europe or even Eritrea.

I am sick of the soft questions of vast majority of American media, I am sick of an American correspondent’s incitement to the military to “take out” Iraqi media, I am sick of American press not asking the really tough questions about Geneva Convention and about the human cost of the war. I am sick of media acting as if covering military product exhibit. I am sick of idiotic use of words such as terrorism that only ultimately serves to equate the Anglo-American “liberation” forces with the Israeli occupation forces. More importantly, why not comment on the fact that the Iraqi Army is a conscript army? As liberators we don’t want to shoot Mohammad or Ali to free their parents and we should indeed expect that Ali’s mom and Mohammad’ dad may not really object to being used as human shield to protect their kids. Mohammad & Ali never enlisted, they were forced into the service. As an American patriot and an American by choice, I fear we got it so badly wrong. We are surrendering American values. Our news briefings are sounding somewhere between the Sharon Spokesman and Tariq Aziz; we are creating whole new definitions for the law .. for morality ..for accuracy in reporting …and for truthfulness.

I find myself also so sick with the reversal of roles that seem to be happening now. Twelve years ago, after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he offered to get out of Kuwait if Israel got out of the West Bank. Much of the world denounced this “linkage” and while many Palestinians and sadly some distinguished Arab Americans fell for it, his whole offer was not taken seriously by anyone. Nowadays guess who is offering linkage? It is the Bush Administration that is over and over again promising to tackle the Palestinian suffering as soon as its gets its way with Saddam. Surely if tackling the Palestinian problems is the right thing to do, it has nothing to do with the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Will the Palestinians have to wait for the rest of the axis of evil, or is Iraq enough?

Al Jazeera and the new all news Arab media seem to have actively sided with Saddam and his army. A naive, but perhaps understandable reaction, to the Bush Administration failure to offer consistent and coherent reasons for the war and simple knee jerk reaction to the involvement of foreigners in our own messy affairs; and not any foreigner ..after all the US is the staunchest ally of the oppressive enemy Israel. So Al Jazeera and the so-called Arab street want to see more Iraqis and others fight America and die fighting America. No one talks of a simple non-cooperation with an uninvited occupation. Why not promote or even discuss refusing to fight for Saddam but also refusing to be liberated. A bus load of Iraqis charging an American tank is not an act of nationalist courage or Islamic commitment; it is neither ..it is the product of ignorance and misinformation ..it is the product of people being lied to by their own Government and by the free independent media, above all it is waste …a terrible waste of life. Jazeera and other Arab media are absolutely right to call it an Anglo American invasion but to claim that suddenly the brutal butcher Saddam is now DEFENDING Iraq or fighting on behalf of Islam and the all important Arab pride is a lie. Jazeera never quite makes the claim explicitly; it is however made over and over again in many ways that it never need to be verbalized.

Islamic authorities, the worlds over seem to be producing new fatwa’s by the hour. How can such a complex issue be resolved so simplistically by declaring that fighting against the invasion is an Islamic duty and those who die fighting against the occupation to be martyrs? Surely for this issue to be subject to Islamic legal interpretation the fatwa givers would have had to take account of all the facts and then issue a legal Islamic opinion. What facts have they taken into consideration and how sure are they of these facts? In accordance with Islamic jurisprudence, just like any legal codes, many issues have to be weighed and dissected. Do the fatwa’s address the crimes of Saddam? What do they make of the possibility that the Anglo-American invasion would indeed result in freedom for the Iraqis? Or do they simply adopt a view that anything America touches in the Muslim World is evil? Where are the dissenting Islamic views? How can the Sheikh of Al Azhar encourage martyrdom through suicide attacks against Anglo American forces; how can he square that with the Quranic commandment not to destroy ourselves? How many mosques must Saddam Hussein bomb and how many hundreds of thousands of Muslims must Saddam kill and how many rape squads must he employ before Sheikh Al Azhar can see that standing by Saddam is not really a commitment to Islam?

As I ran last night in Baghdad my brain was working so hard, in over drive trying to make sense of it all. I wanted sand storms, just sand storms.. I certainly don’t want Saddam Hussein to win ..As a Muslim, does that make me a traitor? Not in the least, Saddam is not fighting for Islam, Saddam’s party is nothing if not anti Islamic to its very core. During the Gulf War of 1991 the bombing of Iraq, a so-called Islamic state never bothered me, I so desperately wanted his defeat and the end of his atrocities. The US courageously jumped into the aid of the Bosnian Muslims when the whole world stood idly by watching the massacres. I don’t want Saddam to come out victorious. But, I am a traitor; I don’t want Bush to be proven right in his defiance of international law, and in his deceit about coalitions and in his contrived causes for the timing of the war. So as I run I can only wish for sandstorms and more sandstorms to stop these horrible sirens of air raids in my head. I want sand storms to silence the fatwa’s that trade in my religion that appeal to popular sentiment as cheap politicians do and in the process push more innocent Iraqis to their death. I want sand storms to help me put my own skull back together to re-find my non-conflicted identity, my whole being.

I worry about my own American identity in all of this. Is my opposition to this war and my desire for the killing to stop now an expression of conflict of identity or maturity of identity? I just don’t know, but my struggle with identity and disturbing images is nothing, those who are suffering are the troops and the civilians in Iraq, all of them.. I am just passing through their city of sorrows, city of rivers of blood.

As a Muslim, I am angry at the use and abuse of Islam. I am angry to see Islam evoked by Saddam Hussein’s propaganda  and at millions of Muslims the world over not getting clarity from their leaders but rather political driven hallucinations and racist hate of the west under the name of fatwa. I think of the difficulty we have every year agreeing on a day to start our fast in Ramadan…of the many different Muslim debates on such a silly, divisive and marginal issue ..they then speak out …not now ..it is all silence. As if standing by Saddam is so very clearly Islamic, just like looking above your head and seeing the full moon in Ramadan …no argument then about the holy month..where is the dissent? Where is it, when it really matters?

I want our young soldiers to come back safe and sound; I don’t want them to be victims of propaganda, to be objects of hate the world over. I want Shawna to come back to her young child and I want the killing to stop. I don’t want a victor in this, because I can’t see truth prevailing and I see a clear victor as a recipe for more war in Iran, Libya or Korea. I just want blinding engine-stopping sand storms. And I run harder and harder to get my skull back together and to get home and as I cross Commonwealth Avenue I hear the massive explosions and my whole being is shaken ..shaken, desperate for sandstorm, desperate for sound Arab, Muslim, American and world leadership.

AA
April 6, 2003