Daily Mail Reporter: Cameron and Obama hold crisis talks, both calling for 'political reform'; Death toll reaches 102 and at least 2,000 have been injured. Thousands of prisoners escape from jails as riots go into sixth day. Around 30,000 British tourists were stranded in Egypt today as army planes buzzed low over Cairo on the sixth day of uprisings.At least 102 people have been killed, more than 2,000 are injured and there were calls for a multi-party democracy to emerge as President Hosni Mubarak's grip on power loosens. Gangs of armed men attacked at least four jails across Egypt before dawn today, helping to free hundreds of Muslim militants and thousands of other inmates as police vanished from the streets of Cairo and other cities.
Governments scramble to fly citizens out of Egypt: FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Governments started arranging for planes on Sunday to bring home citizens stuck in Egypt, where violent protests of the rule of President Hosni Mubarak have given way in some parts of Cairo to looting.
Jerusalem Post: "Cairo: Anger starting to focus on Israel, US"
Famous museum in Cairo looted and partly destroyed during the riots. Point of reference - video of Taliban barbarians destroying the statue of Buddha in Afghanistan.
History of Islamic reform in the 20th century - the most important contributor is the "Moslem Brotherhood". One cannot understand Osama ben Laden, Hezballah, Hamas, Taliban and Iranian mullahs without acknowledging the influence of the Brotherhood. Here is the excerpt on Moslem Brotherhood from wikipedia:
"The Society of the Muslim Brothers (often simply الإخوان Al-Ikhwān, The Brotherhood or MB) is an Islamist transnational movement and the largest political opposition organization in many Arab statesThe group is the world's oldest and largest Islamic political group, and the "world's most influential Islamist movement." It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and Sufi schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna."Today, Moslem Brotherhood is the strongest organized force in Egypt.
According to Stratfor: "The Egyptian police are no longer patrolling the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. Hamas armed men are entering into Egypt and are closely collaborating with the MB. The MB has fully engaged itself in the demonstrations, and they are unsatisfied with the dismissal of the Cabinet. They are insisting on a new Cabinet that does not include members of the ruling National Democratic Party."
Let's look at some key statistics, which give us some perspective on the people of Egypt...
Percentage of Egyptians that have a favorable view of Hezbollah: 30%
Percentage of Egyptians that have a favorable view of Hamas: 49%
Percentage of Egyptians that have a favorable view of al Qaeda: 20%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that think it's good that Islam is playing a large role in politics: 95%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians who think it's bad that Islam is playing a small role in politics: 80%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that think Islam's role in politics is positive: 85%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that believe there is struggle between modernizers and fundamentalist in Islam and identify with moslem fundamentalists: 59%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that believe there is struggle between modernizers and fundamentalist in Islam and identify with moslem modernizers: 27%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that support gender segregation in the workplace: 54%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that support stoning people who commit adultery: 82%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that support whippings, cuttings of hands of people for theft and robbery: 77%
Percentage of moslem Egyptians that support death penalty for people who leave Islam: 84%
Egyptian demographics: 90% of the Egyptian population is moslem.
Last but not least - let's walk down the memory line. Let's look at the photos of the graduates from the University of Cairo (photos were taken from this site).
Class of 1959
Class of 1978
Class of 1995
Class of 2004
How do you feel about the events in Egypt? Please, don't be shy, share your opinion. If you want to know my opinion - people who installed Ayatollah Homeini as a supreme leader of Iran in 1979 were far more moderate than the Egyptians in 2011.
In summary, my view on the struggle between Mubarak and Moslem Brotherhood is best explained by Henry Kissinger (he said this about the Iran-Iraq war, but is equally applicable to the current situation): "It's a shame they can't both lose".
4 comments:
You're absolutely right. Any little bit of good is so over-powered by the evil present that things can only get worse, whoever wins (and it WILL be the radicals).
"Fundamentalist" Islam is an invented term because Islam is Islam, and the only difference between one Moslem and another is the extent to which they devote themselves to their faith. The more devout they become the more filled with hatred they become and the more dangerous they become. The MB has been behind attacks on tourists in Egypt on a number of occasions, and what is taking place in Egypt today has been many years in the coming, and does not bode well for Africa or the Christians and animists in Africa, nor does it bode well for the West, and it certainly does not bode well for Israel. I don't believe either that the uprisings in Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan and Egypt were as spontaneous as what people think. I think the overthrow of moderate, West-friendly Moslem states has been a long time in the planning. But Westerners have no idea of where the world is going - they've been cushioned for a hundred years by the supremacy of Western nations over Islamic nations. Most Westerners have rejected religion and so they don't understand the seriousness of the danger if the impending overthrow of Western economies and the dark ages on the horizon which the likes of the MB and many others want to plunge the world into.
Scribe,
somewhere in Africa
I've been reading The Chronicles of Narnia to my daughter. I know who Lewis felt as he saw British civilization slipping away.
Hundreds of years of human rights and personal freedom are gone in an instant. Priceless relics of human civilization are gone. We could actually be looking at the new dark ages. Those who are supposed to care about all of these things are unable to look further than their next election, or next bribe, and so I suppose we will all go down together.
I've read a lot of literature that came out of the WWII era and it relates so well to today's world.
First, I certainly agree with Anonymous.
Otherwise, I find myself thinking that the strategy I often hear expressed for radical islam, is a beach ball to try to hold under water.
It's not possible to contain it forever. It must be confronted.
In the process there will be indescribable pain and suffering, but what else is new on this rock in the constant struggle between good and evil ?
MB will probably prevail in Egypt. They voted hamas into power in Pali.
Personally, I find a direct confrontation with this evil Much More Desirable than the Creeping Sharia that is destroying other nations like England and France.
Bring it on and let's get this thing settled - if even just for another 1,000 years.
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