A lot of people are panicking these days because of the way the Salafists and extremists are trying to
terrorize people (are you surprised? I mean because they're terrorizing people? Well, I'm
NOT!).
There's absolutely
nothing else in the world that justifies a phenomenon like "El Nas Channel" ("People Channel"), except for that fact that the targeted audience has
no idea about
anything in the world!!!
There was an interview the other day with "
An Islamic Writer and Thinker" that I have never heard of before. The interviewer showed a video recording that has been recorded by someone in an audience using a mobile phone camera. The short clip was from a speech given by Amr Hamzawy. Hamzawy is a professor of Economics at the prestigious
Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University. He is starting a new political part along with a group of respectful figures. Hamzawy's under construction party merged with another party that's also in the making: the Egyptian Social Democratic Party. Regardless of how much people hate the word "Democratic" in a political party's name now, the general ideas of this party are quite appealing to a moderate person like me. Yet, I'm not a member, and I choose to use my time and energy in a slightly different way.
Anyways, that's not our point. In the video that I was telling you about earlier, they showed Hamzawy talking about how his political party wants to build a
civil state, and he was talking about the negative actions that the Salafists are taking nowadays. The
Writer and Thinker wanted to share some of his knowledge, so he started criticizing Hamzawy for not talking about the positive things that the Salafists did. He said that Hamzawy ignored the fact the Salafists demonstrated in
Tahrir Square (who didn't? really...) The thinker was upset because Hamzawy talked very badly about Salafists. Then he dropped the worst bomb when he said: "The term civil SOCIETY could mean different things to different people. And everyone uses the term in a way that serves their own interests..." I'm sorry, but has the
thinker ever
thought about why we have two different terms: "civil state" and "civil society". Yes, I notice that they both have the word "civil", but a
state based on the values of citizenship, equality and rule of law, is not quite the same as social
organizations and non-governmental organizations!!!
I watched a clip on facebook of a Salafist explaining to people what liberalism is, who Baradei is, and telling us how much he hates America and loves it at the same time. Here is a taste of some wisdom:
- "Liberalism means that your mother doesn't wear a hijab (veil). My mother doesn't wear a hijab! Why?!" (Sorry, what?! Man, liberalism means that your mother can wear it if she wants to. Plus, would you please leave our mothers alone? They have enough to worry about!)
- "Baradei made the Americans invade Iraq!" (In case you have EVER read anything about Baradei's stance on the war on Iraq, he was against it and he said they didn't have nuclear weapons).
- "Even America doesn't have direct democracy. They have a council of smart people that get to choose only two persons to run for presidency. A lot of people apply, but only those that they choose at the council called Congress, are the ones who run for elections." (This is the worst nightmare any poor political science graduate can go through! I cannot find a single piece of information that is actually correct in those sentences! WHAT?!) (Oh, and does he like America? Or does he hate it? Or what?
One of the main demands of the revered 25th of January revolution was
FREEDOM, the very freedom that allowed some people like the ones I talked about (only to mention a few) to
express their ideas and their thoughts.
I don't mind people expressing themselves, but I
DO MIND when they don't tell people the
TRUTH. Simply put, they're
LYING and
MISLEADING the masses.
I also mind that these people have absolutely no
LOGIC in their little heads at all. They are allowed to express themselves now because they have been given the
freedom to. YET, in what they think of as utopia (which is really hell),
no one is
allowed to do anything they don't like.
But, when I think of it, it is only the older regime that is to be blamed. Our former rulers have succeeded to create the most
RETARDATION-INDUCING educational system in the whole world. The
majority of the Egyptians do not know how to weigh matters logically. The
majority of Egyptians do not know anything about politics, because anyone who was
TOO active (even if just on the internet) was arrested and sent to unknown locations for days, months, or even year, with no trial... nothing!
I do not blame the mostly helpless people. But, I believe that it is the lucky guys'
RESPONSIBILITY now to teach those who know nothing what we know, and to
LEARN from them experiences that we have never been through. No one has all the
KNOWLEDGE. We all posses bits and pieces of it. People, IT IS TIME TO SHARE.
IT IS TIME TO MUTUALLY EMPOWER EACH OTHERS, so that we can conquer all the
LIES,
TRICKS, and
MISLEADING, no matter where they come from.
And believe it or not, I think we can! And we will!