Reply #11: Great! I'm headed back to Egypt next week.

[onager]

I had been there since last October, on a work assignment, then got to spend a couple of weeks back here in the U.S.

One very minor thing leaps out at me in that article: I hear a LOT about the Brotherhood in Egypt, but I have NEVER seen it called the "MOSLEM Brotherhood" before. It's always the Muslim Brotherhood. FYI, some Muslims get pretty picky about the pronunciation and spelling of that word, and they get a bit offended by "Moslem," which they seem to consider a Western bastardization.

Some other things you might not have read about in the Western press, off the top of my alleged head:

--In the last, lengthy, painful Egyptian Parliamentary elections (they went on for THREE MONTHS!), the Muslim Brotherhood went from 15 seats in Parliament to 88 seats. That was extremely frightening to liberal, educated, working Egyptian women, or at least the ones I've talked to and read about in the local press.

--Some Egyptian political observers think Egyptian President Mubarak is sending Bu$h a message with those elections: "Hey cowboy, if you insist on imposing American-style democracy on the Middle East, then you're going to get a lot of very democratically elected Muslim fundamentalists in the government." The same message seems to be coming from the elections in Palestine and of course, the showpiece of democracy, Iraq. (insert sarcasm smiley)

Mubarak does have an ace up his sleeve: he can legally disband the Parliament, though it would bring a firestorm of criticism and probably riots.

In the same vein, Mubarak recently cancelled the scheduled municipal elections. Some observers think he feared more big victories by the Brotherhood.

--I talk to a big cross-section of Egyptians, between my job and my idle wanderings around the Alexandria area: military officers, college students, fellahin (peasant farmers), just average Egyptian folks. It is impossible to overstate their disgust for Bu$h and his gang.

--The more paranoid Egyptians are convinced they are currently Number 3 on the Bush Invasion List, right after Iran and Syria.

--OTOH, they have good reason to be paranoid. Hosni Mubarak is 77 years old, and not long ago he cancelled a diplomatic meeting after a physical collapse. (AFAIK, that wasn't even reported in Egypt. I heard it from A Reliable Intelligence Source. No, not the American media!)

Since he took office after Sadat's assassination in 1981, Mubarak has always refused to name a Vice President. (For the very good reason that he fears a coup.)

His son, Gamal Mubarak, has recently popped up all over the Egyptian press, stoutly denying that he has any interest in being President.

This fools the Egyptians about as much as Jeb Bush denying he wants to be President would fool us. Many Egyptians are convinced Mubarak Junior will try to grab the Presidency, and they are pretty pissed off about it.

One Egyptian military officer told me: "We are not a kingdom, we are supposed to be a republic. And we certainly don't need another dynasty like your Bushes running Egypt."

:rofl:

--Cartoon riots? Pfft! Right after I arrived in Alexandria last October, the Muslims and the Coptic Xians started battling in the streets. This all blew up over a TWO YEAR OLD play allegedly performed in a Xian church. The plot had a young Copt being converted to Islam and turning into a suicide bomber. Radical Muslims duped the play on DVD and passed it around, then preached fiery anti-Xian sermons during Friday services at Alexandria's mosques.

For several weeks, churches, mosques, homes and stores were fire-bombed. The streets were full of tear gas and riot police. From my hotel room on Friday morning, I would watch long rows of paddy wagons and empty city buses heading for trouble spots. (To the credit of the Egyptian govt., they had police guarding Xian churches 24/7 for quite a while. Egypt is about 95% Muslim.)

The big surprise about all this is that it happened in Alexandria, the most liberal, tolerant and outward-looking city in Egypt.

My Egyptian friends are convinced that the trouble was fomented by Outside Agitators, probably well-financed Wahhabi nutcases from Saudi Arabia. From what I know about the Wahhabis it certainly fits their M.O. But Egypt has a lot of homegrown nutcases as well, though the Egyptians don't like to admit it. Probably anymore than we like to admit Fred Phelps and Ann Coulter are Americans...

Overall, I've found the Egyptians to be some of the most tolerant people on Earth, and my job has taken me all over the world. (Including a LONG 2 years in Saudi Arabia.) More than once, Egyptians have told me they don't give a damn whether a person is a Muslim, a Xian or a non-believer, as long as they act decently. Heck, some of them know I'm an atheist and it doesn't bother them.