حاجتين ممكن تعملوها خلال الأسبوع ده علشان تشجعوا مصر بجد.. دلوقتي وعلى طول:

1. تعملوا بطاقة انتخابية، بما إن باب التقدم بطلب الحصول على البطاقة الانتخابية أصبح مفتوحًا طول السنة
2. توقعوا على بيان الجمعية الوطنية للتغيير اللي مطالبها قد تبدو بسيطة، لكن لو اتحققت هتعمل نقلة حقيقية في حياتنا كمصريين وهترجع لنا حقوق كتير

وافتكروا دايمًا: إن الله لا يُغيِّر ما بقوم حتى يُغيِّروا ما بأنفسهم

By the end of his live interview with “Al-Ashera Masa’an” talk show host Mona El-Shazli a little over a week ago, the official Facebook group supporting Dr Mohamed ElBaradei for presidency in 2011 had shot up from around 40,000 to 71,000 members. Less than a day later, it went up to 86,000.

Roughly 40 million Egyptians watched this interview, and the massive effect it had on youth is undeniable. After almost three decades under the same president, Egyptians are in dire need of change. ElBaradei embodies that change. Through him, change can happen if (and only if) everybody works with him. Suddenly it feels that Egypt is no longer owned by a single ruling party and its governing elites.

Most of comments on ElBaradei’s Facebook group are by Egyptians both inside and outside Egypt, expressing support for ElBaradei or trying to find creative ways to spread his vision to the off-line community. The rapid increase in the number of comments is incredible, and can only be compared to the April 6 Facebook group that called for a day of civil disobedience in 2008.

What’s different this time is that the campaign is more mature, with important variables in the equation. Here we have a highly respected symbol to rally around, supported by intellectuals mobilizing a serious campaign despite the stagnant political climate. For the first time in many decades, Egyptians of various orientations are gathering around one person.

ElBaradei’s focus on youth was shrewd because it’s their support he needs the most. In the interview he scored points when he mentioned that he follows their work on YouTube and Facebook, and that he sympathized with the two young men who were temporarily detained while preparing for his welcome. He also apologized for not being able to give a speech immediately after his return as planned, all of which deepened the feeling of respect towards him.

While some compared ElBaradei to US President Barack Obama, others compared him to Mahatma Gandhi or Egyptian nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul. However, some are skeptical, especially that he declared that he is not after the presidency and that he will not set up a new political party. Many of the criticism directed towards him revolved around these points, as well as the fact that he has lived almost half of his life abroad, raising questions over his familiarity with the current situation in Egypt.

ElBaradei is only calling for constitutional reform to guarantee that any capable Egyptian would have an equal opportunity to run in the elections, isn’t this what everybody else is calling for?

But despite the fact that free and fair elections are the pillars of a true democracy, calling for them remains risky.

One can never measure the success of a campaign by the number of members joining a Facebook group. Egyptians are known for being an emotional nation, yet there have been no popular uprisings in Egypt since 1977 against raised bread prices.

ElBaradei highlighted this apathy in the TV interview, when he said that after years of living under a dictatorship, Egyptians can no longer make the connection between their deteriorating social conditions and the need for real political reform, which is the real challenge.

His words have set the wheels of change in motion with loud and determined voices appearing in the independent media, and Egyptians everywhere, on the streets, in offices and buses discussing the possibilities of change.

To keep the momentum of what ElBaradei has started, the following points need to be addressed: First there is a need for proper organization for those who want to help but have no idea how to do so. Joining a Facebook group is only the first step, it can’t be the last; otherwise they will continue to remain as scattered and random as previous groups.

Second, ElBaradei must start presenting a specific vision. Naturally it’s too soon to ask him for an electoral program, but he still needs to make his vision clear in people’s minds. He needs to answer the urgent question: “What are the steps he will take to change the constitution?”

Third, the most trusted intellectuals have to show their full support for ElBaradei and through their networks, they will help him spread his message to a wider base of Egyptians.

I will conclude with the words of political scientist Hassan Nafa’a in an article commenting on the popular reception of ElBaradei at the airport two weeks ago.

“Yesterday at Cairo Airport I saw Egypt voting for a new third way … aiming for complete democratization based on citizenship and separation of powers, transparency and the rule of law… a democratic system which allows anybody, whatever their status, to practice their rights. Basically the freedom to vote for whoever they want under judicial supervision.

“And because those movements found in Dr ElBaradei the right person to lead the much needed transition period to make this system reachable, they decided to receive him at the airport, hoping that he will march them towards democracy.

“Does Dr ElBaradei understand the difficulty of the mission which fate set out for him? And the other question is: Is he capable to handle this mission? This is what time will answer, but I think that we should all give him a hand. Are we ready?”

أم كلثوم
نزار قباني
محمد عبد الوهاب
~ أصبح عندي الآن بندقية

On the day hundreds of spontaneous Egyptian youth, who have nothing to do with politics, queued up at Cairo International Airport to welcome ElBaradei home, and ask him to run in next year’s presidential elections…

On the day some Egyptian writers, actors, politicians and media figures,  finally went down to the street with people and honestly joined their enthusiasm and dream..

On the day little glimpse of hope sparked in the hearts of many…

I would like to day dream and compare #ElBaradei 2011 to #Obama 2009.. Let’s dream that change can happen..

Yes we can!

So here comes my two questions to you (whether you are a western or an Arab):
1. Changing tables, are your western acquaintances divided in the same way towards Arabs? or is it different? does that have anything to do with cultural background?
2. Also I’m interested to know the definition for “the west” in your context?

Sameh Habeeb
Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Palestine
I am Sameh A. Habeeb. I’m a Palestinian born and raised in Gaza. I’m 23 years old. I have a bachelor degree in English Language and Literature. I have worked in several different fields’ pre and post of my university studies for almost 5 years. I have worked as volunteer in civil societies where I practiced tasks to help people and educate children. I worked as News Producer and a Journalist at the Ramattan News Agency which is Regional Media facility based in Gaza and the Middle East.

Some Muslims apologized for torching the embassies, and so I wondered for a while, should I or should I not apologize as well?. YES! What happened reflect a barbaric attitude, and forces the west to believe how ignorant, radical and uncivilized the Muslims are. YET! I can’t deny that my feeling -as a Muslim- was hurt and directly offended. Making fun of the Prophet leaves no excuses for the Denmark or any other country which published the same photos in an act of solidarity!
And so I decided, if Muslims were thought to be ignorant for their late attitude (with free speech I mean), then the west looks even more ignorant for their behavior (their behavior in the sense that: They didn’t search properly before presenting these cartoons.) They got modern technology, science, whatever.. and still accepted to work on their pre-drawn mind-images without investigating what is right and what is wrong. And so I thought, the west and the Islamic world are even now.. so no apologies from my side *sorry my friends if I let you down* .

Some would think that Muslims over reacted for a matter of free speech – as the news paper claims- but let me tell you something, at times of the prophet, his companies were ready to sacrifices their lives, their children, their wives.. they were ready to sacrifices whatever they’d cherish only for one thought “we have the duty for defending Prophet Muhamed”. And now it’s our turn and we- including me- should be doing something.
Therefore, if I was yesterday with boycotting 50%, today I am with it 200% and even more. Something should be done concerning this. What is sacred should be kept sacred. What is holy should be left holy. And let me ask this simple Question again: “what happens if a foreign newspaper thought of denying the holocaust?”
*I am leaving My Reader to answer.*
But that makes non sense, we are making a comparison between an incident that touches a group of people, and the Prophet of the 2nd largest religion almost in all Europe –if not the whole world-.

All what I concluded from the whole thing after all is that: there is yet another form of racial discrimination taking place, but this time for the Muslims!

Time to go..
May Allah’s peace and blessings be upon you..

I think, therefore I am, said the philosopher. Fine. But I think, therefore I speak? No way.
Nobody has an absolute right to freedom. Civilization is the story of humans sacrificing freedom so as to live together in harmony. We do not need Hobbes to tell us that absolute freedom is for newborn savages. All else is compromise.
Should a right-wing Danish newspaper have carried the derisive images of Muhammad? No. Should other newspapers have repeated them and the BBC teasingly “flashed” them to prove its free-speech virility? No. Should governments apologize for them or ban them from repeating the offense? No, but that is not the issue.
A newspaper is not a monastery, its mind blind to the world and deaf to reaction. Every inch of published print reflects the views of its writers and the judgment of its editors. Every day newspapers decide on the balance of boldness, offense, taste, discretion and recklessness. They must decide who is to be allowed a voice and who not. They are curbed by libel laws, common decency and their own sense of what is acceptable to readers. Speech is free only on a mountain top; all else is editing.
Despite Britons’ robust attitude to religion, no newspaper would let a cartoonist depict Jesus Christ dropping cluster bombs, or lampoon the Holocaust. Pictures of bodies are not carried if they are likely to be seen by family members. Privacy and dignity are respected, even if such restraint is usually unknown to readers. Over every page hovers a censor, even if he is graced with the title of editor.
To imply that some great issue of censorship is raised by the Danish cartoons is nonsense. They were offensive and inflammatory. The best policy would have been to apologise and shut up. For Danish journalists to demand “Europe-wide solidarity” in the cause of free speech and to deride those who are offended as “fundamentalists . . . who have a problem with the entire western world” comes close to racial provocation. We do not go about punching people in the face to test their commitment to non-violence. To be a European should not involve initiation by religious insult.
Many people seem surprised that a multicultural crunch should have come over religion rather than race. Most incoming migrants from the Muslim world are in search of work and security. They have accepted racial discrimination and cultural subordination as the price of admission. Most Europeans, however surreptitiously, regard that subordination as reasonable.
What Muslims did not expect was that admission also required them to tolerate the ridicule of their faith and guilt by association with its wildest and most violent followers in the Middle East. Islam is an ancient and dignified religion. Like Christianity its teaching can be variously interpreted and used for bloodthirsty ends, but in itself Islam has purity and simplicity. Part of that purity lies in its abstraction and part of that abstraction is an aversion to icons.
The Danes must have known that a depiction of Allah as human or the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist would outrage Muslims. It is plain dumb to claim such blasphemy as just a joke concordant with the western way of life. Better claim it as intentionally savage, since that was how it was bound to seem. To adapt Shakespeare, what to a Christian “is but a choleric word”, to a Muslim is flat blasphemy.
Of all the casualties of globalism, religious sensibility is the most hurtful. I once noticed in Baghdad airport an otherwise respectable Iraqi woman go completely hysterical when an American guard set his sniffer dog, an “unclean” animal, on her copy of the Koran. The soldier swore at her: “Oh for Christ’s sake, shut up!” She was baffled that he cited Christ in defense of what he had done.
Likewise, to an American or British soldier, forcibly entering the women’s quarters of an Arab house at night is normal peacekeeping. To an Arab it is abhorrent, way beyond any pale. Nor do Muslims understand the West’s excusing such actions, as does Tony Blair, by comparing them favourably with those of Saddam Hussein, as if Saddam were the benchmark of international behavior.
It is clearly hard for westerners to comprehend the dismay these gestures cause Muslims. The question is not whether Muslims should or should not “grow up” or respect freedom of speech. It is whether we truly want to share a world in peace with those who have values and religious beliefs different from our own. The demand by foreign journalists that British newspapers compound their offense shows that moral arrogance is as alive in the editing rooms of northern Europe as in the streets of Falluja. That causing religious offense should be regarded a sign of western machismo is obscene.
The traditional balance between free speech and respect for the feelings of others is evidently becoming harder to sustain. The resulting turbulence can only feed the propaganda of the right to attack or expel immigrants and those of alien culture. And it can only feed the appetite of government to restrain free speech where it really matters, as in criticising itself.
There is little doubt that had the Home Office’s original version of its religious hatred bill been enacted, publishing the cartoons would in Britain have been illegal. There was no need to prove intent to cause religious hatred, only “recklessness”. Even as amended by parliament the bill might allow a prosecution to portray the cartoons as insulting and abusive and to dismiss the allowed defence that the intention was to attack ideas rather than people.
The same zest for broad-sweep censorship was shown in Charles Clarke’s last anti-terrorism bill. Its bid (again curbed by parliament) was to outlaw the “negligent”, even if unintended, glorification of terrorism. It wanted to outlaw those whose utterances might have celebrated or glorified a violent change of government, whether or not they meant to do so. Clarke proposed to list “under order” those historical figures he regarded as terrorists and those he decided were “freedom fighters”. The latter, he intimated, might include Irish ones. This was historical censorship of truly Stalinist ambition. By such men are we now ruled.
That a modern home secretary should seek such powers illustrates the danger to which a collapse of media self-restraint might lead. Last week there were demands from some (not all) Muslim leaders for governments to “apologize” for the cartoons and somehow forbid their dissemination. It was a demand that Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, commendably rejected. It assumed that governments had in some sense allowed the cartoons and were thus in a position to atone for them. Many governments might be happy to fall into this trap and seek to control deeds for which they may have to apologize. The glib assumption of blame where none exists feeds ministerial folie de grandeur, as with Blair’s ludicrous 1997 apology for the Irish potato famine.
In all matters of self-regulation the danger is clear. If important institutions, in this case the press, will not practice self-discipline then governments will practice it for them. Ascribing evil consequences to religious faith is a sure way of causing offense. Banning such offense is an equally sure way for a politician to curry favor with a minority and thus advance the authoritarian tendency. The present Home Office needs no such encouragement.
Offending an opponent has long been a feature of polemics, just as challenging the boundaries of taste has been a feature of art. It is rightly surrounded by legal and ethical palisades. These include the laws of libel and slander and concepts such as fair comment, right of reply and not stirring racial hatred. None of them is absolute. All rely on the exercise of judgment by those in positions of power. All rely on that bulwark of democracy, tolerance of the feelings of others. This was encapsulated by Lord Clark in his defining quality of civilization: courtesy.
Too many politicians would rather not trust the self-restraint of others and would take the power of restraint onto themselves. Recent British legislation shows that a censor is waiting round every corner. This past week must have sent his hopes soaring because of the idiot antics of a few continental journalists.
The best defense of free speech can only be to curb its excess and respect its courtesy.

I wasn’t surprised when I read Olivia’s post as much as I was annoyed. And though I know my words are a bit out of date, but I felt its my duty to show the real situation back in Palestine.. or as how its world widely acknowledged as Israel.

I won’t start by saying “this land is ours and I’m glad its back”, I won’t say as well “that’s what the Israeli’s deserve to be kicked out of Palestine”, nor I’d complete by saying “I hate the Israelis” or all theses blah blahs.. For I am deadly sure that this act is not meant for peace; Take my words on that. No one would ever know the Jews as much as the Egyptians would, ever since Prophet Moses till the great 1973 war. *Tell me have you ever heard about that war before?!*

I am not preacher or a racist; I am but a simple Egyptian, Arab citizen who knows her history quite well. And I would like you Olivia, or any other reader to ask your Jews-Israelis friends this very simple question: “where are your ancestors’ graves?”
I reckon they’d tell you in Holland, Poland or Russia most probably.
But any Palestinian, even the immigrants or the refugees, Ask them: “where are your ancestors’ graves?” , they’d tell you in Gaza, Ram Allah, Jerusalem… or any other corner in Palestine.. Not only this, you may find with them a key for their house that was demolished by another Israeli bulldozer to build their settelments, claiming its their historical land. While it’s not their neither in history nor right now.

All what you see is but a dirty play, believe me. Even it was written in one of the biggest Israeli’s newspapers, that what you’ve seen was but an act to gain the world’s sympathy that they are the men of peace.
But tell me if they really want peace, why had they invaded Sinai in the year 1967? or even more, tell me, why are they demolishing the Palestinian houses and building their own settlements?
Tell why Rachel Corrie died under their bulldozers *on purpose* defending a Palestinian family from demolishing their house. At a time the Israelis claimed to the media: she died by mistake!!

Not even that, have you ever seen the pictures on that site before?
http://walidos.free.fr/voila_ce_que_israel_fait.htm
It’s for a martyr called “Mohamed el Dorra”, a young boy who was shot in cold blood in his father’s lab by another dirty shot form an Israeli solider. They didn’t neither care that he was a young boy nor that he was between his father’s arms. And he was murdered in the street..
Moreover, Despite that this incident wasn’t only photographed but video taped as well, yet they got the guts to spread the story on media as an Israeli child killed by a barbaric Palestinian.. *by the way, I knew about that story from some American friends I knew back then. You can check it out*
And still hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians are killed everyday, while the world is left as silent paralyzed audience.

We are in front of an organized crime, not only against the Arabs, but the whole humanity. In fact Media corrupt and faking the truth aren’t just ordinary crimes but a disaster as well, that if it didn’t touch your part of the world now, it would in the future.

I won’t finish my words by saying I was happy for what happened.
Truely I wasn’t happy that anyone, no matter s/he is/was, have to leave their place.. But I would like to tell you, leaving the settlements in Gaza that’s been for 10 or 15 years maximum isn’t as harsh and cruel as forcing the real owners of the land *the Palestinians* to leave their homeland, and to leave their houses that they knew no other all their life long. *check the pictures on that post by the way*

I know that its our fault *as Arabs* from the beginning till the end, that we didn’t defend our rights in the proper way. Its our fault we rested our case in some hands we believe in their honesty, yet crying over spelt milk we discovered the opposite when it was really too late.

PS: to make things clear, I am not against Jews, I hate all sorts of racism especially when it is connected to religion. I totally believe that anyone should have the right to embrace which ever religion or ideology s/he thinks most suits his/her way of life.
But I only meant in my lengthy post: the ones who claim Palestine to be anything but a pure Arab land.

God Bless you all.

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.