يا احلي البلاد يا بلادي

First and before I go on, let me share this beautiful song with you, the one I really cant get enough of listening to or get it out of my mind since #Jan25

So, who are we fooling now? The government or ourselves?? Why are we sticking to the NO and only NO?

It’s not a war! What are we gaining out of this stubbornness?

I want to thread hereunder how I “personally” perceive the situation and Mubarak’s reaction into it.

At the beginning, the people planned Tuesday #Jan25 to go out and protest for certain points they’re suffering from like poverty, unemployment, quality of education & rising prices etc…

They peacefully demonstrated & the police never clashed with anyone until midnight.

The protests got big & bigger than the protesters themselves imagined; they got exited & decide to turn it into a revolution that came by total coincidence.

And each part was protesting for its own deal! Suez for their hate to the governor, north Sinai for the Bedouin dramas with the police and so on.

Our lame & corrupted oppositions got even more excited and amazed from what the youth did on their own & made the entire world get stunned to their courage & Valor which tempted them to cling into something they initially disavowed!

They joined & the massacre started and even more they started disputing & fighting over a power & authority while its current cabinet didn’t vacate yet!!!!!!!

The situation since then has been tremendously uprising and got completely out of control without one single official statement from the government the which provoked the people and gave a golden opportunity for spreading lots of rumors.

Then and after a long wait, the president appeared and finally addressed the people, it was quite late, but again, he took accountability for the situation & promised a reform that will come with clear steps that will come on stages in the following days and started it with sacking the government.

A day later he appointed Omar Suleiman as a vice president, a position that has been empty for the last 3 decades, to kill the idea of inheriting the power to his son.

The army started to take control after the police backed off in a chaotic withdrawal. It sets a nationwide curfew that is still completely ignored by protesters without any reaction from the army.

Over the last few days, the president also sacked 2 governors, appointed a new prime minister who’s quite known for what he achieved as a Minister for the Civil Aviation

He finally asked his new VP to start a dialogue with the opposition parties & all political authorities to discuss the constitution reform, the thing that happens for the first time EVER!!!

Moreover, all the army statements, the which, Mubarak is its Supreme Commander, come to ensure the people that it will never use violence against citizens or protesters under any circumstances!

So we have to admit that Mubarak is currently doing his utmost best to absorb the people’s anger & wrap it up rationally.

On the other side and despite all those trials, the people are saying a BIG FAT NO!!

No even to listen or realizing what he’s trying to do.

Okay in my very own personal opinion, it takes a real man and a devoted national to stand still up-till this moment.

Someone else, and the examples are plenty, could have fled the country and “excuse my language” gave us the finger!!

He could have easily said am over 80, my son is never gonna rule anymore, they don’t want me, I’ve got enough so… whatever, good bye folks!!

But on the contrary, he didn’t and he obviously got it, he’s never gonna be there for long but at the same time he doesn’t want too leave it in such mess! For our own sake as well as his name & history! Which is the thing we should appreciate & respect.

So giving up is a huge risk that he evidently doesn’t want to take and he WON’T take!!

For so many reasons besides the idea that he’s doing it for his only own arrogance & selfishness.

Because of the $ 12b we lost in only 3 days and what’s coming after the bourse & banks re-open is totally unknown but even a 10 years old can tell it gonna be worse.

For the robbery & looting that started everywhere, the rape cases, the people who are terrified & those who are living on their paychecks & now they don’t even know if they still have it

For those who were complaining about barely earning 600 EGP & wouldn’t even find it.

For the police officers, that despite all their corruption, got killed, beaten & thrown from 5th & 6th floors windows and ripped their prestige that should be there for our own safety.

For the threat of disabling Suez Canal’s operation, not to mention the tourism.

For the economy that is basically collapsing.
For the GCC stock market that already got affected.

And for the sake of the people who, in case he left, gonna start killing each others!

They want him to leave, fine.. Then what? Do they have a vision for what’s next? Do they even know who do they want to lead or at least what are his qualities internally & externally??

They protested against Omar Suleiman’s choice, which is stupid to be against such personality and they did the same about every single change in the government’s cabinet!!

Like the new Interior Minister saying that he’s getting the head of prisons because he wants Egypt to be a big prison!! How lame?!! Like seriously? This is why?

As if he’s supposed to get a pharmacist or maybe Hassan Shehata to run the police! Guys, surprise!! Whoever gonna come will be a police officer anyway!

The same with the objection about keeping Hussein Tantawi, the one they were cheering for & hugging when he went for site visits to the army checkpoints on the streets!! How contradicted is that?!

And hello, keeping the key of them is urgent in such critical high emergency status.

Why all this hatred, malice & brutal? It’s not like he’s a war criminal!

He has lots of mistakes but he did a lot of other good things, he’s been there for too long and we need the change, true but not that way!

He fucked us up but still saved us loads of troubles and that’s what’s confusing a lot of us!

We have a mix of all ever-existed contradictions and this is what’s driving us bananas!

We have unemployment but we also have laziness, we have political suppression but we still have freedom of speech, we have corruption yet we still have a lot of goodwill.

Hence, we should take our part of the responsibility; we cannot wait for all these years being hypocrites cowards saying nothing then suddenly ask to execute him in one day!

We’ve been waiting for 30 years, another week or 2 wouldn’t kill us! After all he's still a figure of war & peace!

Where do they want us to reach? Another Iraq or civil war and constant instability like Lebanon or maybe Sudan or even better, Tunisia the one we got inspired from??

We obviously lived in so much stability that we don’t realize anymore that it’s actually a luxury that we’re blessed to have. We’re totally ignorant and underestimating the consequences!

We’re so happy of our courage and don’t want to anyone to lead or rule anymore. We’re so happy of the people’s committees & thought we can do better than them!

We’re taking it a pride issue now, saying NO we can’t give up now or else we’ll be the joke of the entire world. So guys am telling you now, if you’re talking about being the joke of the world, keep going & doing what you started and let’s see later if we’re not gonna be the CLOWNS  + SLAVES of the world!

Finally, I want to state something just for the record.. 

Mubarak is not gonna step down! He’s not gonna leave… PERIOD!!

At least not the way you think he will...
First of all & most important the external policies; the world in fact is supporting him! US, EU, Israel & most of Arab countries!

And it started with Israel urging the world to tone down their criticism to Mubarak & US deviates its position from the situation & blacking out Al Jazeera in most of the states and accordingly Canada.

And even if they didn’t support him, what can they do except bla bla bla & cutting aids? Absolute nothing!! No one would ever repeat the Bush mistake & even if they thought about it, Egypt doesn't have the resources that tempt them to interfere politically in order to take; we all know that Egypt's role is more strategic in making the balance in the region.

So tell me, what gonna pressure or threat him except protesters? And for those, the army is doing the balance till they find out a way to absorb their anger & fix things up in a way that shows the world that he reformed according to his people’s will, they're draining their power smartly & slowly!!!

el morour f masr 3

el morour f masr 2

el morour f masr 1

Satellites in the Arab world Stop their orbit

http://www.economist.com/node/17366175?story_id=17366175&fsrc=rss

Yo Egyptians!!

when are we gonna stop complaining about each & everything?
when are we gonna stop being that shallow seeing nothing but the outer line of the west and think they're all living in heaven?
when are we gonna start realizing that the bigger part of our problems actually lye within us and not only the government and the corrupted dictatorship regime?

i'm not living in denial or underestimating the amount of corruption we're facing in our political system.
but who doesn't?
i've tried to name one single country that lacks corruption, couldn't find any!
the richest countries of the world have corruption, unemployment, terrorism, high crime ratios, lack of medical insurance, racism, fake claimed democracy, manipulation, poverty and the list is rather long...

So before you start cursing, sending me hate messages and assure everyone that i'm a member of the national democratic party and maybe hired from that Mr. X to be part of the government conspiracy to brainwash the mass, let me tell you where i'm coming from and list down few facts that might be of your interest.

i've recently seen the latest social indicator in the last 10 years that was published in a special report on Egypt in the Economist by Max Rodenbeck titled the long wait:

i wouldn't say much, you can simply refer to the report for further elaboration, but i believe that the above box says it well and for further reference please listen to the reporter interview regarding the same topic.


another report that i personally think everyone who allowed him/herself to complain & accuse others, should read, KNOW and acknowledge that despite all the challenges, Egypt is still moving forward somehow - Egypt Human Development Report 2010 -


couple of days ago, i had a very surprising conversation with a good french-spanish friend of mine about the escalated depression & suicidal rates amongst french young people, which made me dig deep and try to know more on where do we stand from this holly-preceived world called the west and that's when i found A LOT and picked some random facts & figures.

• Unemployment rate in France hits 10% versus 8.7% in Egypt
• Crime rate in USA is 21.1% versus 9.43% in Egypt
• Fatal no. of terrorism attacks from 1968 - 2006 is 983 in Algeria, 522 in Turkey & 366 in United Kingdom versus 306 in Egypt
• Egypt supersedes most of the Arab countries in democracy level "it's true, don't jump",  leaded the entire Arab world in women's suffrage & has the highest percentage of parliamentary elections registered voters in the Middle East
• Egypt considered to be one of the Arab countries with least restraints on press and has the largest space among Arab world in freedom of speech & expression 
• Ranked the 7th worldwide out of 210 countries in electricity production

i'm obviously picking our top & best ranks in whatever we're doing good and avoiding any negative ones, which are many as well!

okkkaayyy, enough of that utopian world and back to the drama.

What are the major problems other than poverty that irritate you? 

Let me list down the very common ones that will come out of anybody's mind once asked that question

• Traffic
• People behavior & attitude
• Education system
• Political repression
• Overpopulation
• Medical care

fine, we've got loads of shit, but we really also have an issue with our perception to the government role!

we're always expecting to be fed in the mouth and cuddled afterwards if possible, we grow up with the idea that everything is -and should always be- subsidized! bread, gasoline, transportations, water, electricity and all other commodities! even entertainment, TV has to be for free including satellite channels ;\


and after a long deep thought, I kept sticking to my personal belief: a big part of fixing most of our problems MUST be initiated by us, we should be doing the change.
we should put our corrupted brutal regime excuse aside for a bit and start working on ourselves, educate ourselves and the forthcoming generations how and when to take actions; not only complain, nag & snap then keep doing nothing!!

Hamas and dialogue

By   Ali Ibrahim

October 3, 2010, 7:02 pm

LONDON: It is not the first time that Hamas has announced its desire to begin dialogue with the United States. The only thing that is new this time is its insistence. Hamas issued a statement confirming that it has sent a message to Barack Obama, via a US delegation that recently visited Gaza, inviting him to open direct dialogue with the group, and to remove what the group considers to be an American veto on Palestinian reconciliation. Hamas has been careful to stress that it is not opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state based upon the 1967 borders, a stance which mirrors that of its rival, the Palestinian Authority.
If this situation is genuine, then an intriguing question needs to be answered: what is the origin of the dispute between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which necessitated not only a bloody coup, but led to a sharp split in the Palestinian movement between its two governments? The first government, in Ramallah, is considered by the outside world to be legitimate, whilst the second in Gaza is considered illegitimate, but is well-established, has a large arsenal of weaponry, and is committed to the status quo in Gaza. This question is followed by another regarding the content of the dialogue which Hamas wishes to initiate with Washington: Is this related to its participation in the direct negotiations and the Palestinian state project that is currently being discussed, along with all the details surrounding its establishment, both in a political and security sense? Or, will the dialogue be limited to an attempt to legitimize the status quo in Gaza, or in other words strengthen the Palestinian division?
This time round, it is most likely that Hamas is simply afraid of “missing the boat” after witnessing the determination to generate momentum in the US-sponsored direct negotiations between Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu, and it seems that in this attempt to establish peace in the Middle East, Washington is keen to avoid past mistakes, and has extended the peace process to include other parties, such as Syria and Lebanon. Damascus is expected to respond to this, following its experience with the Turkish sponsored indirect negotiations with Israel. If Damascus does respond to this, it is likely that Lebanon will also enter negotiations.
The problem is not dialogue itself but the conditions of the dialogue, and the willingness of Hamas to respond to these, for Hamas needs to change a lot of its previous attitudes before it can become a credible party. Hamas has opposed negotiations since the Oslo Accords as well as during the era of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat; the group has worked vigorously to undermine the peace process, carrying out bombings and suicide attacks. This continued until the last episode in this well known series of events, ending with the current state of affairs. Even with the launch of the current round of direct negotiations in Washington, the Hamas military wing carried out two attacks in the West Bank. It is not known whether this was approved by the leadership of the movement, or if it was a ‘field initiative’ as one Hamas leader described it. In any case, this had no influence upon the negotiations which, in light of past experiences, have almost become immune to such acts.
If what a number of Hamas commanders have stated is true and the group does not oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, then in principle, there is no problem. However nobody will take Hamas seriously if it only conveys this in statements to the media or press interviews. The Hamas leadership needs to make an official announcement in order to reveal the group's official political position on this issue.
What would you bet on the possibility of this happening? Indications are that there is no other option. In the event of the negotiations actually achieving something, Hamas will have to move in this direction if it wants to have a political future in the proposed Palestinian state. The restless inhabitants of Gaza are well aware of this fact, and they exchange jokes via text messages and the internet on the subject of how to rule the Gaza Strip. If this were to take place, reconciliation will be simple, as will Hamas participation in the negotiations; the group would participate as part of a unified Palestinian government.

Ali Ibrahim is Asharq Al-Awsat’s Deputy Editor-in-Chief, based in London. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, http://www.aawsat.com