Egypt: Another Disgraceful Attack on a Woman at Tahrir Square – Women’s Human Rights Must Be a PRIORITY for people around the WORLD – We Must END the Global War on Women!
Natasha Smith – Journalist: “Please God Make It Stop”
Tag: Egypt
“Egypt is Free!”
With the resignation of the dictator Mubarak in Egypt, people in the streets are chanting “Egypt is Free!”
We are all responsible for equality and liberty – over the past weeks, the Egyptian people have also proved that they too are willing to be responsible for equality and liberty in their nation as well!
To all those who gave of their lives, and to those who gave their lives as martyrs, it was their sacrifice, their sense of responsibility to their society, that resulted in the dictator Mubarak to stand down today!
The path ahead for Egypt is uncertain for sure, as the military supreme council assumes what some state will be temporary power. But the people of Egypt have spoken and demanded by the many thousands, perhaps millions in the street, that they will struggle for freedom for all.
Let us join the people of Egypt in rejoicing today, and seeking our shared efforts in pursuing the Undiscovered Country of equality and liberty – for all people – everywhere – with our Universal Human Rights!
Egyptian Protesters: We ARE Them
About the Egyptian protesters, Richard Cohen states in the Washington Post: “We are not them.” I am sorry to disagree, and I believe this is the root of our continuing problems, and our inability to effectively challenge extremist views. We ARE them as fellow brothers and sisters in humanity, with shared universal human rights, human dignity, and human freedom.
Especially as Americans, these are the truths that we hold self-evident, that ALL, not SOME, have these universal human rights. Not just those we think who are “ready” for such rights and freedom. Do we believe in this or not?
Mr. Cohen states that “the dream of a democratic Egypt is sure to produce a nightmare” because democracy and democratic values “are worse than useless in societies that have no tradition of tolerance or respect for minority rights.”
I have written many times of the abuses against Coptic Christians in Egypt, and I have stood with them in demanding freedom for their people from the dictator Mubarak. Yes, certainly these abuses start with allowing them to happen among the people. But the Mubarak government and its policy of discrimination, repression, and oppression of the Copts has set the example to institutionalize such discrimination and hate – and it has institutionalized oppression of all Egyptians.
I understand that some fear the increased power of extremists in a future Egyptian government without the dictator Mubarak. However, as the Copts, other Muslims, and intellectuals could easily tell you, the power of extremists who sought to oppress others has been significant during and within the existing Mubarak government. The dictator Mubarak did not care as Copts and Muslims have been oppressed by extremists; moreover, he supported the institutionalization of such oppression. You just need to have been paying attention to Egypt before the protests. When dictatorial governments (as Egypt has has for decades) set the example of oppression as an institution, then one cannot expect democratic values in that society to thrive.
This is why Free People Must Reject Dictators of all kinds — Consistently and Without Reservation, Everywhere.
We cannot ask others to aspire to freedom when Americans arrogantly claim to some, no you are not ready for freedom, you are not worthy of such human rights.
Today, on the streets of America’s national capital, Mr. Cohen’s claim is being read that Americans should reject Egyptian human rights because “we are not them.”
In the February 1, 2011 Washington Post, Mr. Cohen claims of the Egyptian protesters, “we are not them,” and continues to claim that America must reject human rights for Egyptians, stating “America needs to be on the right side of human rights. But it also needs to be on the right side of history. This time, the two may not be the same.”
If such an anti-human rights statement is published by the Washington Post, is it any wonder that American anti-Islam web sites have had no shame in calling for shooting at Egyptian protesters and effectively calling for their deaths?
Yet some people will still wonder why some in other parts of the world hate Americans.
We must hang our heads in shame at such anti-human rights statements by Richard Cohen, Violent Extemism Watch, and other groups that claim that everyone, including the Egyptian protesters, do not deserve our shared universal human rights. This is not the America I know and not the land of the free and the home of the brave. Those who seek to turn our nation into one of quaking cowards that call for denying human rights and mass murder against others, even if we disagree with some, do not understand what it means to be an American.
So I will simply let America’s founding fathers respond to such outrageous and shameful statements. Let us hear what America’s founding fathers said about what our values, principals, and even identity is as Americans.
This is the “American” position on such human rights, freedom, democracy and human dignity.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
— July 4, 1776 – United States of America Declaration of Independence
To Americans who may have forgotten this, remember when we decided to become Americans this was our founding declaration. We did not declare that only some deserve these rights, but that ALL deserve these rights. Americans did so, because even before we were Americans – we are them – we are our fellow brothers and sisters in humanity who deserve the same rights around the world.
These are the truths that we hold self-evident, even if there are those today who have forgotten them.
Be Responsible for Equality And Liberty – for All.
Anti-Islam Web Site Calls for Shooting at Egyptian Protesters
While the death toll in the Egyptian protests against its oppressive government has risen to over 100, one American-based web site has called for shooting at Egyptian protesters, then urges the Mubarak government to use tactics from Tienanmen Square, and even genocidal tactics from Indonesia.
In a disturbing development, R.E.A.L. has learned today that the anti-Islam “Jihad Watch” website has posted an article, titled “A Whiff of Grapeshot” on January 28, 2011, calling for shooting at Egyptian protesters. The Jihad Watch article also urges Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to use the same practices as Communist China totalitarians did in the Tienanmen Square massacre in 1982. The infamous Tienanmen Square massacre against Chinese freedom activists resulted in estimates of between 400 and 3,000 killed in June 4, 1989.
In the January 28, 2011 posting “A Whiff of Grapeshot” on JihadWatch.org, JW writer “Roland Shirk” makes the argument that if there are Muslim Brotherhood members within the Egyptian protesters that a “whiff of grapeshot” should be used to dispose of them.
- Jihad Watch writer “Roland Shirk” states that: “That should prove enough to cripple Mubarak’s attempts to stay in power–which could only succeed through the ruthless willingness to show the mob a ‘whiff of grapeshot.’ I know it sounds terrible to say this, but if they are in league with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian mob deserves it.” (The term “whiff of grapeshot” refers to efforts by the French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, while he was a Brigadier General during the French Revolution, to shoot and kill Royalist opponents in the street on October 5, 1795. The future dictator had ordered soldiers to kill the Royalist rebels with cannons killing 300, which 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle called clearing the streets with a “whiff of grapeshot.” Grapeshot was used in rifles as a series of large metal slugs to cause maximum damage to opponents. It was used to kill American soldiers during the Revolutionary War.) (see also screen capture)
- Jihad Watch writer “Roland Shirk” concludes by urging Hosni Mubarak to use the tactics of Communist China in 1989 in Tienanmen Square that murdered thousands of freedom fighters, stating: “For us to be prattling on about the virtues of self-government in this context is suicidal, like Russian aristocrats hosting Bolsheviks in their salons. If I could have Mubarak’s ear, I would whisper just two words of wisdom: Tienanmen Square.” (see also screen capture)
- In further comments after his article, “Roland Shirk” also writes that “The best hope for Egypt would be a TOUGH crackdown, followed by a relentless purge that targeted the Muslim Brotherhood. It might end up being as ugly as Suharto’s war against the Communists in Indonesia.” Statistics on the Suharto purge against Communists show that at least half a million were killed and 1.5 million were imprisoned. (see also screen capture)
Other recent columns by “Roland Shirk” have been praised by the “racialist” Lawrence Auster who applauds this individual’s calls to end the right of any Muslims to immigrate to the United States.
The Jihad Watch website is run by SIOA co-leader Robert Spencer whose SIOA political activism has included protests at a planned mosque in Long Island and the planned Park Place Islamic Center in New York City. He will be speaking on February 11 at a CPAC convention on those topics in Washington DC.
For the record, R.E.A.L has long objected to, protested against, and written many articles challenging the views of the Muslim Brotherhood and their political Islamist views that we believe are anti-democratic. However, we can object to and disagree with the Muslim Brotherhood, while believing in human freedom, human dignity, and democracy. We can see challenges to freedom without calling for tactics used by dictators, Communist totalitarians, and architects of genocide.
We urge Jihad Watch to retract this article calling for violence.
Choose Love, Not Hate – Love Wins.
======================================
Screenshots:
Defiance Against Islamism Must Never Defend Dictators
As the Egyptian public has continued nationwide uprisings for freedom, jobs, and a better standard of life, too many freedom supporting people found it “awkward” to support the Egyptian people’s struggle for freedom. On January 29, Reuters reported that “Egypt protests leave West in awkward position.”
The only thing “awkward” about this is the very idea that free people would find it “awkward” to support people anywhere around the world protesting for freedom. That speaks volumes, and demands that we reflect on where we stand as people responsible for equality and liberty.
Free people must reject dictators – without question, without caveat, without reservation. But in too many parts of the world, too many free people are willing to view that dictatorship is not such a bad thing.
The root of many of these arguments are the existence in Egypt of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood political group, which promotes a political Islamist, pro-Violent Extemism view. The fear of some of these who are reticent to back the Egyptian public in their uprising for freedom is that it will somehow empower the Muslim Brotherhood political leaders (who reportedly have had minimal role in the uprising), or that backing the Egyptian public will undermine counterterrorism agreements or treaties on Israel.
I feel sorry for those people who misunderstand the point of freedom. Freedom is not about how selfish and self-centered we can be. Freedom is not about how secure we can be or how our foreign policy interests can be best served. Freedom is about giving everyone a chance and voice in their own destiny.
On Saturday night, January 29, I watched in shock as Egyptian Christian broadcaster Michael Youssef spoke during CNN’s global broadcast about how the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was really not that bad (compared to Nasser), how the Egyptian people’s standard of living had somehow “improved” under Mubarak. He also stated how the protesters were really lucky that Mubarak was letting them speak out in public as they are doing (after the oppressive Egyptian police had fled). The CNN broadcast studio is in Atlanta, and Michael Youssef lives in Atlanta; I am sure that was a major factor in having him on CNN on Saturday night. But I will tell you I have not seen his views as being representative of the Egyptian Christian Copts around the world. I have shared the struggle with Egyptian Christian Copts who have suffered mightily under the Egyptian dictator Mubarak. I have joined Egyptian Copts at protests at the White House when Mubarak has visited in every type of weather. I have prayed with Egyptian Copts in Washington DC for release of their people from oppression and abuse in Egypt. I will tell you one thing – most of Egyptian Copt diaspora does not think life has “improved” under the dictator Mubarak, no matter what Michael Youssef tells CNN. On Michael Youssef’s website, much of it is dedicated to his opposition to Islam, “Muslim Zealots,” and “Islam vs. Christianity.” In his other public statements, Michael Youssef has sought to object to all of Islam. On CNN on January 29, he dismissed the Egyptian protesters by telling the world that “democracy is a Western idea.” If Michael Youssef believes this, then what type of democratic rights have we been fighting for Christian Copts in Egypt?
Salon reported on another figure, SIOA leader Pamela Geller, who was praising the “good news” that the Egyptian police force for rounding up and arresting protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood, and who writes that “Mubarak has been a US ally for decades.” Pamela Geller has been the primary activist behind the continuing protests against the Park Place Islamic Center in New York City. A similar argument was made by Israel National News who reported in an article “US Wastes Chance to Support Mubarak” that “The U.S.seems to have partially abandoned its long-time Arab ally, with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton telling the Mubarak government it must implement democratic reforms and allow peaceful protests.” Since when do Americans cheer when any protesters are arrested by an oppressive regime? Since when did free people decide that “democratic reforms” and “peaceful protests” are a BAD thing?
These ugly fractures behind claims of supporting freedom versus actual support for freedom demonstrates a hypocrisy that must not go unchallenged.
A significant element in this hypocrisy is how some have hijacked the defiance against political Islamist extremists as a challenge against all of Islam and all Muslims. While there is not space to address this very important and complex subject justice in this posting, those who have chosen to attack all of Islam and all of its diverse followers as a monolithic entity has been a key mistake and misstep in political debate on this topic. Moreover, objecting to the Islamist extreme views and ideologies is no more anti-Islam than objecting to Dominionist Christian extreme political views and ideologies would be anti-Christian. Many of those objecting to Islamist views are Muslims. Many of those, like myself, who object to Dominionist Christian views are Christians. Many human beings can stand solidly behind both our religion and human freedom for all.
As free people, we can respect pluralism for diverse religions and beliefs, while challenging those who would use religious views as a rationalization to justify denying human rights to others based on their different religion, race, nationality, gender, or other identity. That was the initial intent behind most of those who challenged the political Islamist views. However, the SIOA and other anti-Islam organizations and their leaders have sought to reframe that human rights debate into a debate that is anti-Islam and anti-Muslim.
Therefore, from the anti-Islam groups’ perspective, any activity that could conceivably allow a political Islamist group to gain power must be wrong, even if millions of other non-Islamists gain freedom. This Mutually Assured Destruction type of thinking is the root behind those who are most wary of the Egyptian protests today.
With freedom, we are also free to disagree and protest against groups whose views we object to. In my own case, that has included my own protests and my many articles challenging the views of the Muslim Brotherhood and their political Islamist views that I believe are anti-democratic. Unlike Pamela Geller, my defense of democracy and freedom does not call for cheers of “good news” when Egyptian protesters are rounded up by the oppressive Egyptian police force. I can object to and disagree with the Muslim Brotherhood, while believing in human freedom, human dignity, and democracy.
To those who have worried about a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt as a result of the current protests, well-known anti-Violent Extremist Dr. Walid Phares has also stated on Facebook:
“I caution against reaching any final conclusions in any direction yet because it is evolving, and there are several forces pushing their agendas. And yes of course you have the Islamists (MB and others) rushing, Iran applauding, but you have youth which has never been so explosive as before. And of course you have an incredibly ‘lost’ US policy which is adding to the equation. What we see is going to last, and final outcomes are not yet around the corner. More in my book and in pieces coming soon…(bottom line: do not let past historical experiences take over your analysis. No doubt about it, the Islamists are all over the map, but the context had changed. We’re gonna see something new, complex, and long…).”
Dr. Phares and I, in our own different ways, different opinions, and different directions have challenged Islamists’ views repeatedly. There are certainly things on which we will disagree, but anyone who looks into the history of either of us will see clearly that neither I nor Dr. Phares have been appeasers of Violent Extremists or Islamists. We see threats, but more importantly we can also see the need for engagement, encouragement, hope, and mutual respect for people who genuinely seek freedom and democracy.
Dr. Phares has stated on al Arabiya TV: “We need to engage the real leadership of the young demonstrators. We need to identify them and have them represented in the new process. But civil society should form its own leadership beyond the existing movements and parties.”
It is important for all of us who love freedom to realize that there can be NO deals with dictators.
The price to pay of losing our credibility on freedom, democracy, and human rights will always be too high. People, especially young people, around the world are watching to see if we can have the conscience that we claim and if we really do support defense of democracy that we urge others to risk their lives to pursue.
For those who have also been concerned about Islamist views and the Muslim Brotherhood, this is also your opportunity to demonstrate the courage of your convictions on human freedom for ALL people. It is certainly possible that Muslim Brotherhood extremists may grab power in Egypt, but let’s not forget that there are millions of other Egyptians who simply seek a better life and freedom in their nation. If freedom supporting people in America and around the world can’t be there to support the Egyptian people, then who are we to then be surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood gains power?
We must not let fear define our position on the truths that we hold self-evident of universal human rights for all people. If we want others to aspire to a standard of human freedom, human dignity, and human rights, we must first set an example of this for the world ourselves and stand united with those struggling for freedom everywhere.
Be Responsible for Equality And Liberty – for All.
Hani Shukrallah Calls for Change in Egyptian Treatment of Copts
Al-Ahram newspaper’s editor Hani Shukrallah writes in his January 1, 2011 article J’Accuse: “I accuse the host of MPs and government officials who cannot help but take their own personal bigotries along to the parliament, or to the multitude of government bodies, national and local, from which they exercise unchecked, brutal yet at the same time hopelessly inept authority. I accuse those state bodies who believe that by bolstering the Salafi trend they are undermining the Muslim Brotherhood, and who like to occasionally play to bigoted anti-Coptic sentiments, presumably as an excellent distraction from other more serious issues of government. But most of all, I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us; those who’ve been growing more and more prejudiced, inclusive and narrow minded with every passing year. I accuse those among us who would rise up in fury over a decision to halt construction of a Muslim Center near ground zero in New York, but applaud the Egyptian police when they halt the construction of a staircase in a Coptic church in the Omranya district of Greater Cairo. I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in your offices, in your clubs, at your dinner parties: ‘The Copts must be taught a lesson,’ ‘the Copts are growing more arrogant,’ ‘the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims,’ and in the same breath, ‘the Copts are preventing Christian women from converting to Islam, kidnapping them, and locking them up in monasteries.’ I accuse you all, because in your bigoted blindness you cannot even see the violence to logic and sheer common sense that you commit; that you dare accuse the whole world of using a double standard against us, and are, at the same time, wholly incapable of showing a minimum awareness of your own blatant double standard. And finally, I accuse the liberal intellectuals, both Muslim and Christian who, whether complicit, afraid, or simply unwilling to do or say anything that may displease ‘the masses,’ have stood aside, finding it sufficient to join in one futile chorus of denunciation following another, even as the massacres spread wider, and grow more horrifying.”
=========================
J’accuse
Hypocrisy and good intentions will not stop the next massacre. Only a good hard look at ourselves and sufficient resolve to face up to the ugliness in our midst will do so
Hani Shukrallah , Saturday 1 Jan 2011
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/4/2977/Opinion/J%E2%80%99accuse.aspx
We are to join in a chorus of condemnation. Jointly, Muslims and Christians, government and opposition, Church and Mosque, clerics and laypeople – all of us are going to stand up and with a single voice declare unequivocal denunciation of al-Qaeda, Islamist militants, and Muslim fanatics of every shade, hue and color; some of us will even go the extra mile to denounce salafi Islam, Islamic fundamentalism as a whole, and the Wahabi Islam which, presumably, is a Saudi import wholly alien to our Egyptian national culture.
And once again we’re going to declare the eternal unity of “the twin elements of the nation”, and hearken back the Revolution of 1919, with its hoisted banner showing the crescent embracing the cross, and giving symbolic expression to that unbreakable bond.
Much of it will be sheer hypocrisy; a great deal of it will be variously nuanced so as keep, just below the surface, the heaps of narrow-minded prejudice, flagrant double standard and, indeed, bigotry that holds in its grip so many of the participants in the condemnations.
All of it will be to no avail. We’ve been here before; we’ve done exactly that, yet the massacres continue, each more horrible than the one before it, and the bigotry and intolerance spread deeper and wider into every nook and cranny of our society. It is not easy to empty Egypt of its Christians; they’ve been here for as long as there has been Christianity in the world. Close to a millennium and half of Muslim rule did not eradicate the nation’s Christian community, rather it maintained it sufficiently strong and sufficiently vigorous so as to play a crucial role in shaping the national, political and cultural identity of modern Egypt.
Yet now, two centuries after the birth of the modern Egyptian nation state, and as we embark on the second decade of the 21stcentury, the previously unheard of seems no longer beyond imagining: a Christian-free Egypt, one where the cross will have slipped out of the crescent’s embrace, and off the flag symbolizing our modern national identity. I hope that if and when that day comes I will have been long dead, but dead or alive, this will be an Egypt which I do not recognize and to which I have no desire to belong.
I am no Zola, but I too can accuse. And it’s not the blood thirsty criminals of al-Qaeda or whatever other gang of hoodlums involved in the horror of Alexandria that I am concerned with.
I accuse a government that seems to think that by outbidding the Islamists it will also outflank them.
I accuse the host of MPs and government officials who cannot help but take their own personal bigotries along to the parliament, or to the multitude of government bodies, national and local, from which they exercise unchecked, brutal yet at the same time hopelessly inept authority.
I accuse those state bodies who believe that by bolstering the Salafi trend they are undermining the Muslim Brotherhood, and who like to occasionally play to bigoted anti-Coptic sentiments, presumably as an excellent distraction from other more serious issues of government.
But most of all, I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us; those who’ve been growing more and more prejudiced, inclusive and narrow minded with every passing year.
I accuse those among us who would rise up in fury over a decision to halt construction of a Muslim Center near ground zero in New York, but applaud the Egyptian police when they halt the construction of a staircase in a Coptic church in the Omranya district of Greater Cairo.
I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in your offices, in your clubs, at your dinner parties: “The Copts must be taught a lesson,” “the Copts are growing more arrogant,” “the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims”, and in the same breath, “the Copts are preventing Christian women from converting to Islam, kidnapping them, and locking them up in monasteries.”
I accuse you all, because in your bigoted blindness you cannot even see the violence to logic and sheer common sense that you commit; that you dare accuse the whole world of using a double standard against us, and are, at the same time, wholly incapable of showing a minimum awareness of your own blatant double standard.
And finally, I accuse the liberal intellectuals, both Muslim and Christian who, whether complicit, afraid, or simply unwilling to do or say anything that may displease “the masses”, have stood aside, finding it sufficient to join in one futile chorus of denunciation following another, even as the massacres spread wider, and grow more horrifying.
A few years ago I wrote in the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, commenting on a columnist in one of the Egyptian papers. The columnist, whose name I’ve since forgotten, wrote lauding the patriotism of an Egyptian Copt who had himself written saying that he would rather be killed at the hands of his Muslim brethren than seek American intervention to save him.
Addressing myself to the patriotic Copt, I simply asked him the question: where does his willingness for self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation stop. Giving his own life may be quite a noble, even laudable endeavor, but is he also willing to give up the lives of his children, wife, mother? How many Egyptian Christians, I asked him, are you willing to sacrifice before you call upon outside intervention, a million, two, three, all of them?
Our options, I said then and continue to say today are not so impoverished and lacking in imagination and resolve that we are obliged to choose between having Egyptian Copts killed, individually or en masse, or run to Uncle Sam. Is it really so difficult to conceive of ourselves as rational human beings with a minimum of backbone so as to act to determine our fate, the fate of our nation?
That, indeed, is the only option we have before us, and we better grasp it, before it’s too late.
Egypt: Alexandria Man Khaled Said Beaten to Death – Reportedly by Police
al-Masry al-Youm is reporting on the death of a young Alexandrian man who was reportedly beaten to death by Egyptian police. Supporters of his concerned about human rights have created a Facebook page on this topic.
al-Masry al-Youm reports: “Policemen beat young Alexandrian man to death”
— “Khaled Said, a 28-year-old Alexandrian man was beaten up to death by two policemen as he refused to give them money, a human rights group said on 10 June.”
— “Witnesses called el-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Torture and recounted to its lawyers the incident.”
— “‘On Sunday, Khaled was at cyber cafe at around 11:30 in the evening. Two policemen asked him for money and when he said he didn’t have, they beat him,’ Muhammad Abdel Aziz, lawyer with el-Nadeem, told al-Masry al-Youm. ‘As he was beaten up, his head hit a marble table and he started bleeding.'”
— “According to Abdel Aziz, the policemen took Said out of the cyber cafe and continued to beat him. ‘He screamed at them saying ‘I am dying, leave me’, and he fell on the floor.'”
— …”The police has ordered an autopsy of Said’s body.”
— Associated Facebook Web Site
