Big Pharaoh on Egypt
I used to read the English-language blog of Big Pharaoh, an Egyptian writer who would report on developments in his country. Then some years ago he closed down the blog, and until yesterday I was unaware that he’d opened it again sometime during the Mubarak brouhaha.
He doesn’t post so very often, but when he does it’s always an interesting window into some valuable inside information on the Egyptian situation. And so, I recommend Big Pharaoh’s take on what’s transpiring there now:
A small minority of the pro-Morsi supporters were indeed armed with light weapons ”“ which explains the number of policemen who were killed and injured during the operation ”“ and this only made the trigger happy police go on a far bigger killing spree making the death toll of innocent unarmed protesters outrageous and unacceptable to any sensible thinking human being.
…[I]n spite of all the problems pertaining to the two sit-ins, clearing it at the expense of such a huge number of innocent lives allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to claim victimhood and that’s a position the MB feels most comfortable in.
Please read the whole thing.
Odd piece. Is the author pro-Muslim Brotherhood? I ask because of this sentence in particular:
“The MB had a chance to be revolutionary, they chose to focus on their own petty political interests instead.” (By “revolutionary” he means pro-democratic.)
He seems to regard the MB as just another political party, not an Islamist one that would do away with democracy and usher in an Islamist state like Iran.
And “petty” is a strange word for that ambition, unless the author does not recognize, or admit to, that ambition.
Also don’t see why he’s “a great proponent of including the MB in the political process.” That has always seemed foolhardy to me.
Ann:
No, he’s not pro the Muslim Brotherhood. Note that he also writes, “Personally, I was in favor that Morsi completes his term and I believe one year was not enough for the general public to see the true colors of the MB.”
I see him as something akin to those people in this country who said the Obama administration would ultimately convince people of the folly of putting the left in charge, because they’d see how terrible it made things. I disagree with that point of view (I think it is dangerous and that the longer these people are in charge the danger is that they will act ruthlessly to stifle opposition and restrain liberty) but it’s certainly not a pro-Obama position.
He also writes:
“Egypt is still mired in the 60 years old fight between Islamists and the ruling establishment that comes from the army. Since the revolution provided no alternatives, Egypt will remaining seesawing between these two. A viable alternative to the Islamists and to the army needs to rise in order for this seesaw to be broken…Currently the future remains very bleak but I know one this: this country will not see any democracy until a viable alternative to the army and the Islamists is found.”
Revolutions aren’t pro democracy. It’s just pro “anti status quo”.
Having a trivially small number of antagonists shoot into the police ranks assured the MB that they’d have international video of their version of the Boston Massacre.
In fact, the MB has access to virtually unlimited weapons via Libya and their government powers so recently lost.
[One is reminded of how Buchanan set up the arsenals of the Confederacy. Unlike the North, the southern states morphed their militias into expeditionary regiments. This up-gunning was quite a break from earlier years. No doubt that John Brown antics and consequent need to suppress an uprising figured large.]
[At this time, it’s 0bama who is ramping up small arms caches. Telling, I’d say. He wants to have enough bullets to keep the tax serfs on the plantation.]
At bottom, the MB is akin to the Nazis, Communists, and such ilk. They have nothing but hatred to bind them.
By shutting down the tourist trade — probably for years on end — the MB has snuffed out the life of their economy.
Further unrest in the ummah may cause Europe to begin fracking in earnest. Up until now, their politicians have been taking AOPEC payoffs — intermediated by the Greens.
This world is cruel and unkind to the weak, yet still beautiful.
It’ll be even more beautiful when the bodies of tyrants line the highways of the world, when the world is awash in the blood of evil.
Big Pharaoh: “Currently the future remains very bleak but I know one this: this country will not see any democracy until a viable alternative to the army and the Islamists is found.”
True statement. The question is, where are those believers in liberal democracy going to come from? My guess is that there is a very small percentage of Muslims who are yearning for freedom, private property backed by courts, and a secular government that’s reasonably honest. The rest are still in thrall to Islam, tribalism, tyranny, or communism. Some to all of the above. They have no concept of how to proceed to what Big Pharaoh wants. And, unfortunately, it’s the same all over the Muslim world.
It occurs to me that the Muslim world is going through the same process of moderating their religious views as Christianity did during the Thirty Years War. If so, my guess is that it may take longer than thirty years for it to all play out. Depressing thought, that.
speaking of resurrected blogs, Don Surber is also back up and running (once a day, 5 PM, Monday through Friday). You can find him at
http://www.donsurber.blogspot.com
My take on nation-building is an adapted Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Eg, liberal democracy can work just fine in countries like Iraq or Eqypt, as well as it works here, but if and only if basics like security and stability, followed by orderly governance, services, and economy, are sufficiently operational.
Liberal democracy is a legal-rational governing structure that complements a market economy, but it doesn’t by itself form and operate the market economy.
Egypt, perhaps even more than Iraq in 2003, needs to sort a bunch of basic structural and other problems before liberal democracy can be effective.
* sort OUT
“A viable alternative to the Islamists and to the army needs to rise in order for this seesaw to be broken…Currently the future remains very bleak but I know one this: this country will not see any democracy until a viable alternative to the army and the Islamists is found.”
No viable alternative exists, nor will it, as long as 84% of Egyptians support the death penalty for apostasy. That 84% includes the 10% of Egyptians who are Coptic and other Christian denominations. So the % of Muslim Egyptians who support the death penalty for apostasy is actually higher.
Excluding Israel, throughout the ME, there are but two choices; the strongman (Egyptian army) or the jihadist State.
No offense JJ but you engage in a bit of wishful thinking when you state, “It occurs to me that the Muslim world is going through the same process of moderating their religious views as Christianity did during the Thirty Years War.”
Islam’s theological tenets are constructed in such a way as to make moderation of Muslim religious views literally impossible. That is because to moderate and/or reform Islam it is inescapably necessary to declare that Mohammad was either a liar or deluded in making his most fundamental theological claim; that the Qur’an is Allah’s words, not Mohammad’s. Do that however and Islam’s entire theological foundation collapses. Everything in Islamic theology hinges upon Mohammad’s veracity. That is why criticism of Mohammad is verboten.
For those Muslims not inclined toward murder and rapine, that leaves but one choice; silence and becoming a ‘cafeteria’ Muslim, who picks and chooses which tenets he will personally follow.
That leaves no possibility for change, which is evidenced in Islam’s 1400 year static history.
Geoffrey Britain,
“Everything in
IslamicDemocratic theology hinges uponMohammad’sObama’s veracity. That is why criticism ofMohammadObama is verboten.”There. Fixed it for you.
Geoffrey Britain: “Islam’s theological tenets are constructed in such a way as to make moderation of Muslim religious views literally impossible.”
The same could be said of Christianity at one time. In fact, they used to burn heretics at the stake and practice other violent ways of keeping non-believers/partial-believers in line. Even today there are Christians who believe that every word of the Bible is Divinely inspired and Divine truth revealed. Yet even they do not subscribe to some of the more violent passages and commands anymore nor are they ready to do violence to any who don’t accept their views. Nearly all Christians have become cafeteria Christians. One quick example – Catholics who use birth control or accept abortion as acceptable.
When the fundamentalists become a small minority and discredited part of the religion, then the religion can become more tolerant and moderate. Yes, that wouldn’t be true Islam. But no more so than the Christianity of today is not the Christianity of the 1600s. Wishful thinking it may be, but history shows that people can moderate their beliefs when they finally grasp the fact that it leads to less violence and chaos.
The left uses the fake/deliberate victim tactic as well. They know the useful idiots in the west will excuse, condone, ignore any atrocity committed by lefties, but rise up in faux moral outrage at anything, no matter how small, committed by the non-left forces, and they’ll believe any lie, no matter how absurd.
See Haditha.
See WACO too. The feds only want guns so they have an easier time blasting you in ops.
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=37135
One of the contests here previously was over whether to believe Snowden’s background remarks or not concerning US soldier perspectives on Arabs or Iraqis.
That thread should provide some illuminating evidence of current and previous attitudes on the subject.
JJ,
The acknowledged interpretive resistance of Christianity’s tenets and the theological immovability of Islam’s tenets are not analogous. There is no agreement among Christians as to the literal truth of the Bible. There is universal agreement among Muslims as to Mohammad’s central claim; that he is not the Qur’an’s author.
Muhammad repeatedly and consistently stated that he merely took dictation. That Allah sent the arch-angel Gabriel to him and Gabriel dictated Allah’s exact words to Mohammad. Making sure that Mohammad got it exactly right and as archangels don’t make mistakes, the Qur’an is a perfect replication of Allah’s words.
Thus mankind cannot change even a comma, for to revise the Qur’an or ‘interpret’ it in anything but a literal manner is to set man’s understanding above Allah’s and that, no mere man may do. It’s the equivalent of suggesting that we could revise the Ten Commandments and then pretend that the new ‘revised’ Ten Commandments were equally as valid.
In making this extraordinary claim, Mohammad demands utter faith in his veracity, for if his most basic claim is rejected, in that we necessarily declare that the Qur’an is NOT Allah’s direct words, absolutely necessary to reform Islam’s violent and misogynistic tenets, then we implicitly declare that Mohammad is either a liar or deluded. In either case Islam’s theological foundations collapse. For if Mohammad got something as basic as the Qur’an’s authorship wrong, what else did he screw up?
G.B., I get your interpretation of what devout Muslims are supposed to believe, but I have questions.
First, if the Quran is the prefect word of Allah, how come the authentic version can only be published in Arabic? Any reasonable person would want to know. One of the things that led to the reform of Christianity was the printing press, which made the Bible available to many, reducing the clergy’s monopoly on the texts. The Bible has been printed in very conceivable language and is available to anyone who can read. Yet Christianity is not a monolithic faith.
No Quranic scholar I, but I do know that Islamic scholars are busy interpreting and telling the faithful what various parts of the Quran mean. So, does that not mean that the texts are not as plain and clear as you seem to believe? The form of Islam that the jihadis follow is Wahhabism as interpreted by Sayyid Qutb. He reinterpreted the Quran and though accepted by many, not all Islamic scholars accept his interpretation. How do we account for those well educated Muslims who reject Qutb’s belief in political Islam? One example of which is Zhudi Jasser. For which see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuhdi_Jasser#Views_on_Islam
You will claim that Jasser is not a real Muslim. But who is qualified to make that interpretation? I have known (Not closely, but more than a passing acquaintance.) two Muslims who were moderate Muslims. Or as you would describe them, Cafeteria Muslims. It is not my place to tell them, they aren’t real Muslims. My guess is that they make a up a minority of Muslims, but, that they exist at all, indicates that Islam is not the implacable monolithic faith that you describe.
Remember the Book of Mormon was dictated by an Archangel as well. Yet, the Mormon Church has reinterpreted some of the tenets of their faith. Admittedly, they did so at the point of a gun. Cannot Muslims also be convinced to reinterpret some of their tenets if it leads to less violence and a more peaceful life for them?
You may be right that Islam cannot reform. If so, does that not mean that the only way to eliminate the threat from radical Islam is through eradication of all Muslims?
“I have questions.
First, if the Quran is the prefect word of Allah, how come the authentic version can only be published in Arabic?”
No language is perfectly translatable. Thus, translating the Qur’an into say, Farsi would unavoidably introduce differences between Qur’ans written in different languages.
“Islamic scholars are busy interpreting and telling the faithful what various parts of the Quran mean. So, does that not mean that the texts are not as plain and clear as you seem to believe?”
To some extent that’s true. When a Iranian Mullah explains a religious point to another Iranian he will most likely explain in Farsi. Even if in Arabic, unless he’s quoting, an Imam will put the point in his own words, at least to some extent. The basic tenets of Islam however are clear and unequivocal. There is a remarkable degree of unanimity in the Islamic world regarding Islamic tenets.
I’m familiar with Zhudi Jasser and he is most definitely a cafeteria Muslim. The proof of that assertion is NOT that his focus is strictly upon the Mohammad’s early, peaceful Median passages. Rather it is because he never mentions much less rebuts the later, violent Meccan passages.
After Mohammad was rejected in Medina, he had what is commonly called a psychotic break and turned homicidal. Thus there is an inherent contradiction between Mohammad’s early peaceful pronouncements and the bulk of his rabidly violent assertions.
By long established and universally accepted theological jurisprudence, Muslims resolved this conundrum by accepting that whatever Mohammad last said on a subject supersedes anything he said earlier that is contradictory.
In remaining silent on a highly relevant subject, Jasser is engaged in either willful denial or Taquiyya. In either case he is NOT being intellectually honest.
Actually, polls demonstrate that cafeteria Muslims currently make up the majority of American Muslims. It’s not a case of me or you judging them, it’s a case of self definition. In refusing to acknowledge their own religion’s tenets and refusing to follow them they declare their own disconnection from what they purport to believe.
It’s like someone who claims to be a Christian but denies that Jesus ever lived but if he did, then he was just a philosopher. Philosophically, that’s a perfectly valid personal opinion. But by no stretch is it then valid to claim to be a Christian.
“Cannot Muslims also be convinced to reinterpret some of their tenets if it leads to less violence and a more peaceful life for them?”
Certainly some Muslims can but after 1400 years, there must be a concrete reason why reform has never occured and, there is such a reason, Mohammad’s claim makes revision of the Qur’an theologically impossible.
“You may be right that Islam cannot reform. If so, does that not mean that the only way to eliminate the threat from radical Islam is through eradication of all Muslims?”
Reason and logic applied to Islam’s fundamental theological tenets declares that the view I promulgate is logically consistent and valid. I have yet to hear or read of one.
I do wish another alternative explanation existed. IMO, God already tried sending another prophet to Muslims, the Bahai faith’s ‘Baha’ullah’ but he was rejected by Muslims because his message directly contradicts Islam’s tenets.
I do not believe that all Muslims should or could be eradicated. I also do not believe it necessary. The ideology of Islam can be eradicated however, though of course it would take a century or more of consistent actions by the west. Not only unlikely but impossible with the current western left.
The most direct, immediate and effective actions we could take would be to, first establish energy independence so as to stop America’s funding of Islamic terrorism.
WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists
And secondly, end all Muslim immigration into the US with strict deportation procedures for any Muslims who commit a felony or are found to be engaged in activities supportive of Islamic terrorism, including cultural and financial support.
Of course, the political will doesn’t exist for effectively responding to the threat. Perhaps after we lose a few cities to nuclear terrorist attacks.
Oops. Getting late. Should have said “I have yet to hear or read of a logical alternative.”
JJ, a couple of comments: Regarding your first question I think you are asking the wrong people. Of course we see the problems involved in translating verbiage exactly from on language and form of writing into another. Ask any Berliner… That Muslims believe in always faithful translations even into totally incompatible languages and formats over a millennia and a half is on a par with worshiping a meteorite, but they do it. Ask them how they consider it to be logical, but watch your back. As for the idea that the Koran is not to be interpreted, that may be the premise, but it is actually interpreted by many disparate people all the time. Every imam interprets it his own way, pretty much as the bible is, and each interpretation is taken literally by the faithful who follow that particular imam. Christianity has always developed hierarchies of authority with leadership that interprets pretty much consistently for their own sect, Islam has no such control. Any imam can issue a fatwa or even declare war at any time and his followers are bound to follow through unless they leave his fold. The lack of hierarchical order in Islam is the reason Islam can never have a reformation. Any Muslim who preaches compromise with other religions is immediately branded as a traitor by any number of imams who in fact have as much authority as he does. Thus the moderating impulse will always be stillborn.
Actually, Pope B16 addressed the same question back in 2005 – can Islam be reformed? It got very little accurate reporting. (Did I even need to write that sentence?)
The Qu’ran was dictated, not inspired. Mormons had it a little easier in that there was one acknowledged authority. But Islam, while frequently compared to Catholicism, is more like Protestantism with its decentralized approach. Can any one imam start the reform? Doubtful.
Anyway, some links and quotes:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope_benedict_provides_new_public_grammar_for_reform_of_islam_says_george_weigel/
http://www.wnd.com/2006/01/34456/
Fessio said that at the Castel-gondolfo meeting, Benedict was replying to Fr. Christian Troll, an expert on Islam in Europe, who asserted that Islam can enter into the modern world if the Quran is reinterpreted. This can be done, the priest said, by going back to Islam’s original principles and “then adapting it to our times, especially with the dignity that we ascribe to women, which has come through Christianity, of course.”
Describing Benedict’s response, Fessio said: “And immediately, the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there’s a fundamental problem with that, because, he said, in the Islamic tradition God has given his word to Muhammad, but it’s an eternal word. It’s not Muhammad’s word.”
Samir said the pope sees a meeting between Islam and democracy as possible, but “on the condition of a radical reinterpretation of the Quran and of the very conception of divine revelation.”
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/02/render-unto-atatuumlrk-48
If the US ever demonstrates that it can reform, convert, or prevent Muslims from going on ideological jihads, then the war with Left will already have been won. For converting and reforming the Left, will take just as much effort and skill.
Wm Lawrence, thanks for that clarification. I knew this, but had not seen it presented in such a clear fashion. I will keep that in mind whenever I get hopeful about some chance for reform.
Thanks, also, to Juli B., who provides more about the thinking at the highest levels of Catholicism.
With such decentralization, it appears to me that in order to fight radical Islam you have to target the radical imams and the sources of money, which are at the heart of it all. It wouldn’t be easy. But nothing really worthwhile is ever easy.