Who Are the World Losers In The Arab Spring?: Russia, China, Iran, and Hezbollah

The TELY group (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen) have won the first stages in their march towards democracy.  Their populations were able to change the regional geostrategic map through toppling their dictators.  We are now waiting for Syria and Bahrain to do the same:  Syria, through collapsing the fascist system of the Baath party heady by a family business which may be called Al-Assad, Inc.  That system was established in 1970 through a bloody coup.  Bahrain, through modification of its system of governance,  possibly a la Morocco, might enable its Shii majority to participate in a democratic system, while staying safe from the grip of a theocratic Iran.

The Arab Spring is a variety of seasons.  Its most ominous chill is not in its variety of directions.  It is in its most determined adversaries, namely, Russia, China, Iran, and Hezbollah.  We may call this quartet the anti-democratic axis.  An axis is a group of partners sharing the same objectives through a variety of methods.  An axis is not a community of commonly-accepted values.  It is a bundle of sinister objectives pursued through a diversity of national or sectarian policies.

The anti-democratic axis which is standing in the way of the Arab Spring cannot be victorious.  The Arabs of Syria and Bahrain, together with the West assisting them in a variety of ways, cannot but ultimately prevail. For the anti-democratic axis is using the kind of obstructionist tools which are hopelessly outdated.

Examples: the double veto by Russia and China prevented the adoption earlier this month by the UN Security Council of a resolution intended to stop the grisly slaughter of protesters by the huge death juggernaut of Bashar Al-Assad.  Arms from Russia, acquiescence from China, intervention on behalf of Al-Assad by Iran and Hezbollah are all necessary adjuncts of the most brutal suppression of the Syrians search for freedom.  But the external supporters of Al-Assad reign of terror are bound to fail because they are on the wrong side of history.

Both Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah (the Party of God!!)  are military, ideological  and logistical supporters of a dying Syrian regime.  Neither the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, nor the Iran-Syria mutual defense pact, nor the attacks by Hezbollah operatives on Syrian refugees in Lebanon are a match for the massive march for freedom by millions in Homs, Deraa, Aleppo, Hama, Lathakia, Idlib, Damascus and Ain Al-Zoor.  It is a massive wave determined to bring the Assad regime to its pre-destined end.  The Syrian National  Council has been legitimated by 60 States which met earlier this month in Tunis.  Even dictatorship has a shelf-life; the love of liberty is an eternal human quest.

How does the quartet of evil (Russia, China, Iran and Hezbollah) justify its unprincipled stand against the pro-democracy hurricane in the new Middle East?  They say that the pro-democracy wave is engineered by both the West, some members of the League of Arabs States, and outside saboteurs and terrorists!!  They say that the Libyan model has proven that the West is riding the crest of the Arab Spring to effect regime change.  They say that Syrian sovereignty is under attack.  They say that only through dialogue could the Syrian mess be taken care of, and that peaceful methods are the only means to reconciliation.

Let us briefly examine the hypocrisy of all these fake arguments.  Like a sudden earthquake, the Arab Spring sprang suddenly through years of combustible suppression of dignity and human rights.  Its engineers are the millions gathered, largely unarmed to demonstrate against totalitarianism.  The West, through legitimation by the League of the Arab States and eventually by the UN Security Council, came to the rescue of Libyans when crazy Qaddafi was on the verge of slaughtering the Libyan masses in Benghazi.  Better a change of regime which has lost its legitimacy, than a systemic and prolonged aggression against the principle of "rule by the people for the people", and not by a corrupt dictatorial cabal.

Regarding Syrian sovereignty, the anti-democratic quartet is following its own bankrupt ideology which puts the State ahead of the individual who is the true repositor of sovereignty.  And what dialogue are they seeking?  What kind of dialogue should we expect between a mass murderer and his Syrian victims?

The hypocrisy of the anti-democratic quartet is manifest:  Both Russia and China fear an equivalent of the Arab Spring ripping through their oppressed Muslim and non-Muslim populations.  Iran and Hezbollah are blind to the reality of their isolation in a progressive Middle-East.

The Domino Theory in the Arab Spring

On February 11, 2011, Mubarak as the Pharaoh of Egypt, fell.  Before that, the former President of Tunisia, Ben Ali, had fled to Saudi Arabia, and the fall of Mubarak was shortly followed by the bloody end of the reign of Qaddafi of Libya.  A few weeks ago, the former President of Yemen relinquished power, and now the President of Syria, Bashar Al-Assad is trying, in the most brutal fashion, to destroy his people and his country in a hopeless attempt to stay in power.  The Arab Spring is proving the existence of a domino theory which is expected to apply in short order to Bahrain.  The rest of the Gulf oil rich countries may soon follow.
We therefore pose the question: What makes the domino theory work its magic in all these Arab countries?  The answer lies in monolinguality -the Arabic language and its rich culture, more than in Islam as a faith, or history as a shared tradition.  The Arabs adhere either to Islam or Christianity.

The Arabic language, the language of the Quran, in its highest classic form, is the lingua franca of nearly one third of a billion population.  Its cadence and rhythm are nearly hypnotic.  Its intonation is gripping.  Its poetry and prose have galvanized populations from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf to rise up in war or to follow the lead even of unworthy tyrants.

It is sung in recitation of the Quran, and through the lovely voices of great singers like Umm Kalthoum and Abdel-Wahhab and Fairooz.  It is used in all Arab Courts and from pulpits in mosques and churches.  It is even known to Arabic-speaking populations as the "language of the DHADH" - one of the 26 letters of the Arabic alphabet.  Like another semetic language, Hebrew, it is written from right to left.

Regarding the origin and dominance of the Arabic language, the great Egyptian philosopher, Taha Hussein has a theory.  In his seminal book in Arabic entitled "About the Pre-Islamic Literature," he says: "The Arabian Tribe of Quraish located in the Hedjaz (western Arabian peninsula) possessed a form of Arabic which then became the Classic Arabic Language.  Quraish (from which the Prophet Muhammad descended) imposed its Arabic on all other tribes, not by the sword, but through the intersection of mutual relationships, religions, political, economic.  Quraish in whose midst Mecca is located also used the Pilgrimage (Al-Hadj) to make its Arabic dominant."

It will be noted that the cry of the millions in Tahrir Square, Egypt, resulting in collapsing the Mubarak regime, was "The People want the Regime to Go" (Al-Shaab Yorred Issqat Al-Nizam).  For the other Arab revolts that slogan became the equivalent of the Marseillaise to the French Revolution.  That unity of language has been at the heart of the domino within the Arab Spring.

An Iraqi celebrated poet, Maaroof Al-Russafi, once wrote (in Arabic) about Arabic as a harmonizing inter-faith factor:

"If we(the Arabs) are one national unity.
What does it matter that we adhere to various religions.
Our people are bound together through three values
One tongue, various countries and a belief in God."

Al-Russafi penned that poem in the early 20th century.  When I asked a modern Iraqi woman, Dr. Hend Shnayen, my Executive Assistant: "What do you like most in Classic Arabic?"  Without hesitation, she said with deep conviction: "Its multiplicity of synonyms."

Absolutely correct!!  In Arabic, God (Allah) is known by 99 names.  A cry for freedom in the west of the Arab world quickly reverberates in many synonyms throughout that vast area which is now being forever transformed.  That domino for dignity works.

As a student of the psychology of education in Egypt in the late 1940's I was offended by a decision taken by a Deputy Minister of Education regarding teachers' salaries.  As head of the student teachers union at that time, my criticism of that decision, which denigrated the status of teachers, was swift.  During that period, since I wrote songs and poetry, my attack was in poetry which brought about a general strike for higher salaries.  The Deputy Minister expelled me from the Teachers Institute, thus causing the prolongation of the strike.  That strike was eventually settled by various measures including bringing me back from my village to my seat at the Institute, fully rehabilitated.

Ah!!  For the power of classic Arabic which has moved millions to action and caused dictators to disappear!!

In the Midst of the Arab Spring: A Russian-Chinese Deep Winter

An Occasional Commentary by the Blogger

February 2, 2012

Around the horse shoe table of the UN Security Council, a deep cold winter wind blew from the seats of Russia and China in the face of the Western and Arab representatives attempting to have the Council adopt in early February a resolution to slow Al Assad’s killing machine deployed for the past ten months against the Syrian uprising for dignity and democracy.  Having closely observed the tumult in Tahrir Square in Cairo since early 2011, there is little doubt in my mind that the winds of the Arab Spring are destined to destroy that family business, the Al-Assad dynasty, which has endured since the early 1970s. The game of the Syrian dictatorship, supported by Iran and politically sustained by strange bed-fellows like Russia and China, is doomed to come to a tragic end.  It is only a matter of time.

The fiction openly advanced by Russia at the UN Security Council and elsewhere that “regime change” shall be the result of a resolution demanding that violence against peaceful protesters all over Syria should stop is laughable.

Such a stance ignores several vital facts.  Too much blood has already been shed all over Syria, sucking the oxygen out of the lungs of any legitimacy left for the Syrian butcher regime.  The regional organization, the League of Arab States, exercising its legitimate role under Chapter 8 of the UN Charter had intervened.  It has suspended the offending regime; it has dispatched a monitoring team, though ineffectual, to Syria; it has submitted, through Morocco, a draft resolution for a peaceful transition in Damascus akin to the Yemen model.  The Libyan model has very little resemblance, if any, to the Arab League’s plan for Syria as it does not provide for military intervention.  The Syrian masses are demanding, at the cost of their blood, that Al-Assad should go.

The hypocrisy of the Russian-Chinese position towards the present Syrian civil war is transparent.  In essence, both Moscow and Beijing are trying to protect their fire walls against an Arab Spring-like somersaulting over their backyards.  These protective walls are built around their own oppressed minorities and hyper-sensitive monolithic regimes.  This is not to mention their considerable economic interests, including the sale of armaments and the purchase of energy from Syria.

A so-called regime change in Damascus could beget a regime disarray inside the Russian-Chinese protective walls.  While touring Asia, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov has recently told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that “we are not friends or allies of President Assad.”  Really?  If so, then who are the beneficiaries of Russia’s blatant obstruction at the UN Security Council?

At this very moment the Syrian National Council, Syria’s government in Turkish exile, is describing the Moroccan draft resolution before the Security Council as “extremely important.”  Why?  Because as Qatar’s Prime Minister told the Security Council on behalf of the Arab League: “The Syrian government failed to make any serious effort to cooperate with us."

Out of this historic re-alignment of friends and alliances resulting from the Arab Spring, through the Syrian upheaval, the West, especially the US, the UK, France and Germany, are occupying the high ground.  Russia and China are fast becoming the enemies of the Arab masses which are searching for the three Ds: Dignity, Democracy, and Development.  It was historic to see the US and French flags unfurled by the masses in Libyan squares in recognition of the NATO campaign against Qaddafi.

Both Moscow and Beijing, whose icy winds are blanketing the Arab Spring in Syria, seem to ignore the changes in the concept of sovereignty.  Since the tragic Holocaust of the late 1930s and 1940s, human rights have steadily grown through international humanitarian intervention.  This recent doctrine provides that when a government is killing its people, who are the real sovereign, domestic jurisdiction must give way to international intervention.

This doctrine has in fact trumped Article 2(7) of the UN Charter which has given the State the right to define what domestic jurisdiction, is except where international peace and security are involved.  The main purpose of this international law evolution is to save that sovereign from its insane government.  The Assad regime continues unabashedly to manifest its insanity.  And the League of Arab States, whose present Secretary-General is the venerable jurist, Dr. Nabil al-Araby, a former Justice of the International Court of Justice, is pleading with Moscow and Beijing to heed the calls for mercy from every corner of Syria, across all sectarian divides.

Appeasing Russia and China through watering down the Moroccan draft resolution before the Security Council is not likely to stop the bloodbath caused by Al-Assad dynasty's iron-fisted dictatorship.  Better force Russia and China to veto the original Arab League proposals, on which Morocco's draft is based, than to drop references to the urgency of having the Damascus butcher surrender power.  A watered-down resolution by the Council may avoid a Russian and a Chinese possible double veto.  But it will end the traditional obfuscation by both Moscow and Beijing that the West, not they, are the enemies of liberal democracy. 

The exact opposite is true.  It is patently ironic to have the Global Times, a Chinese publication, extol the virtues of Russian and Chinese open opposition to democracy.  On December 5, 2011, it editorialized that "The West doesn't really have an interest in promoting democracy to the world... Its scheme is to expand its interest hidden behind that process."

A weakened UN Security Council resolution could not fail to provide Al-Assad, supported by the enemies of the Arab Spring, with a renewed license to go on killing the oppressed Syrian masses.

It behooves free Syria and the rest of the Arab world to remember who stood with them in their darkest hour and who stood with their tormentors.

Happy Rebirth to Egypt: Her Sphinx is Rising!!

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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January 26, 2012

It is one year old, when democracy was reborn in the ten thousand year old country.  So on January 25 this year, I could almost see the great sculpture of Mokhtar rising.  The sculpture is called “Egypt’s Renaissance” (Nahdhat MISR).  Sitting majestically against the great dome of Cairo University, the black marble Sphinx is made by the Sculptor to rise with a peasant Egyptian woman placing her gentle hand on the head of the colossal Sphinx.  With her lips slightly parted, you can almost hear her whispering to the rising Sphinx, “Rise up.  Your awakening is overdue.”

And so it was with 10 million Egyptians rising in Tahrir and elsewhere in Egypt, wrapped in the Egyptian tri-colored flag, and shouting on January 25, 2011 "Leave" “IRHAL” to Mubarak.  On February 11 of last year, he did, as an Egyptian young woman, holding aloft a crescent and a cross, ecstatically yelling in disbelief, “No More Fear!!!”  The reverberations of those chants must have been pleasing to the ears of historic Egypt (the Sphinx), and of modern Egypt (the peasant woman).  A phenomenal rebirth of the heart of the Arab homeland has finally happened.

Following Tunisia and Egypt, the Arab Spring sprang to Libya to end another dictatorship of long duration.  Poetry is integral to the Arab psyche and oral history.  Witness what the great Egyptian poet, Hafez Ibrahim, said in 1912 in his memorable poem regarding Fascist Italy’s invasion of Tripoli, now the proud capital of Libya.

The first 2 verses of his 45-verse epic poem is entitled “The War on Tripoli.” Translated from Arabic, that great Egyptian nationalist said,

"Greed has unmasked the West
O East, rise up and beware of sleep
O Sun, carry to everyone
Your rays of peace throughout the East"

Again the great theme of rebirth and renaissance.  No more fear!!  The first salvo in the rebirth of Egypt as a democratic State was the seating of Parliament.  The members came to that historic Chamber, located near Tahrir, through free and fair balloting.  The specter of one-party rule has mercifully disappeared.  On January 24 of this year, as the members of the lower house of Parliament, both bearded and well-shaven, took their oath of office, the populace outside gave them upon arrival bouquets of flowers.  Some of those parliamentarians were even hoisted over the shoulders of the Tahrir young demonstrators.  Another graphic symbolism of the New Egypt rising.

Inside the Chamber, discord erupted.  No surprise!!  At birth, the newly re-discovered democracy was uttering its first cry.  Democracy is not a tidy business.  Its discord is a signal of vibrancy.  January 25 has become the national day of the New Egypt.  In this, I could discern another symbolism.  On January 26, 1952, the so-called “Free Officers” whose leader was Nasser burned Cairo.  It was the spark that ended democracy in Egypt and ushered in the Nasser coup of July 23, 1952.  Sixty years later, Tahrir destroyed the 60 year old military dictatorship in Egypt, with the unceremonious toppling of Dictator No. III – Mubarak.

Yet, the Egyptian Revolution, the mightiest uprising of the multi-faceted Arab Spring, is not yet over.  That unfinished symphony which is keen on ending the subjugation of Egyptian sovereignty to outside powers still has unfulfilled demands.  The major demands of all the Tahrirs in Egypt are:

• Ending military rule and the handing over of power from the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) to a civilian government even sooner than the declared date of July 1, 2012;
• Speedy trials for Mubarak, his family, and their cohorts;
• Full accounting for the martyrdom of nearly 1000 demonstrators, and the injury of thousands;
• Acceleration of the rebuilding of the Egyptian economy, now threatened with collapse and reclaiming all public resources to which Mubarak and Company laid false claim;
• Speeding of the drafting of the new Egyptian Constitution through a yet to be chosen constituent assembly;
• The re-assumption by the police forces of their duties, assuring the safety of the Egyptian street;
• Cleansing of the judiciary and other institutions from corruption;
• Elimination of military tribunals for the trial of detained civilians.

The list of revolutionary demands goes on and on. 

In the meantime the SCAF, through Field Marshal Tantawi declared on the first anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution the rescission of emergency laws, except from thuggery (baltagah).  

If sculptor Mokhtar was still alive, his Sphinx would have fully risen on its four legs.

The Al-Azhar Freedoms Charter: The Egyptian Magna Carta

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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On January 11, 2012, I heard my fax singing.  The sweet song was faxed to me by the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, an NGO which I represent at the U.N.  Over the signature of ECFA’s Executive Director, Ambassador El-Sayed Amin Shalaby, the covering note stated:

“Knowing of your interest in Al-Azhar and its mission, I am sending to you as attached hereto Al-Azhar’s document entitled “The Basic Freedoms Document” which was issued on January 8, 2012.  You will realize the importance of the timing of its issuance in view of the increasing apprehension felt in regard to the basic freedoms, particularly religious and cultural freedoms.”

Al-Azhar “Freedoms Charter” of January 8, 2012 has built upon the earlier Al-Azhar document of August 17, 2011.  Co-signed by Pope Shenoudah, the great Coptic Patriarch and Egyptian Scholar, the January 8 Charter states in its preamble in Arabic:

“Following upon the liberational revolutions from which sprang freedoms and which gave impetus to a comprehensive renaissance amongst all sectors of society, the Egyptians, together with the rest of all Arabs and Muslims look to the Nation’s scholars and thinkers to define the relationship between the over-arching principles of the tolerant Islamic Sharia and the bundle of basic rights unanimously recognized by international conventions.”

Then the document goes straight on to the definition of the basis within which “the civilisational experience of the Egyptian people” is framed.  These are:

“the freedom of opinion and expression, the freedom of scientific research, the freedom of literary and artistic creativity, taking into account the observance of the objectives of Sharia and the recognition of the spirit of modern constitutional legislation, and the requirements of humanitarian and informational progress.”

So to what end does all this lead?  The Charter’s response is:

“…in order to enable the Nation to transition to the establishment of its constitutional structures in peace, moderation, and in a spirit of consensus, moderation and with God’s blessings.  This is while guarding at all times against the false calls which use as a pretext religious injunctions for doing good and the avoidance of evil.  Such a pretext enables these false calls to intervene in public and private freedoms; thus contravening the civilisational and societal development of modern Egypt at the very time when the country needs unity, and a true understanding of moderation in faith.  This is the Al-Azhar’s religious mission and its responsibility towards society and the homeland.”

From thence follow the various freedoms promulgated by that historic document.  These, in summary, are:

First: “Freedom of Faith”:

Stresses the relationship between freedom of faith and the right to full equality in citizenship for all on the basis of equality.  The document refers to the verse in the Quran “no compulsion in faith,” and moves on from there to criminalize any aspect of such compulsion or religious discrimination.  It calls for the right of everyone to adopt whatever thought they may espouse, without aggressing against society’s obligation to protect the sanctity of the three “religions of the Book” (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). 


It ends with the adage espoused by scholars of ijtihad (the application of reason to faith) and legislation in regard to the “golden rule” which states “if reason and adherence to what is written collide, reason should prevail, and adherence to the written should be reinterpreted.”


Second: Freedom of Thought and Expression

The Al-Azhar’s Magna Carta describes this freedom as being at the root of all freedoms, as is manifest in the utilization of all means of expression in writing, artistic production and digitized outreach.  It incompasses the right to assembly, to the establishment of parties and other civil society organizations, freedom of the printed, audio, visual and digital press as well as access to information necessary  for informed consent.


This freedom, the Charter cautions, does not include the right to inciting violence, sectarian discord or radical calls for discrimination.  It quotes the maxim of the great historical Muslim scholars which states: “My view is correct but is subject to error, and the opposing view is wrong but is subject to rectification.”


Third: The Freedom of Scientific Research:

The Charter describes this freedom as encompassing social, humanitarian, physical and mathematical sciences.  It defines this freedom as the engine of the train of human progress.  It cites the Quran’s emphasis in many of its verses on the need for examination, reflection, extrapolation and analogy in regard to universal and human phenomena.


On these bases, the Document calls for total academic freedom allowing for experimentation, hypotheses and probability.  It cites some of the names of the great Muslim scholars such as Al-Razi, Ibn Haitham, and Ibn Al-Nafees who contributed in their time to the advancement of knowledge and science in both East and West.


Fourth: The Freedom of Literary and Artistic Creativity

The Charter ends with this type of freedom as covering all types of literature, poetry, song, drama, narration, theater, personal oral histories, visual arts, cinema, TV, music, together with all derivative types of this freedom.


This freedom, the Charter states, is boundless, and is premised only on the ability of society at any given time to absorb it and assimilate it.  It is, the Charter says, the mirror of society’s conscience, and its aspiration for a better future.


This equivalent of the Magna Carta was issued a mere 17 days before the first anniversary of the January 25 Revolution – a date which is now celebrated as the new national date of the New Egypt.  Thus it is correct to see in the Charter of January 8, 2012 a direct link to the ideological basis of the freedom of faith which is at the heart of global diversity.

In Cairo Recently, I Was First Unable To Read The Street Signs

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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For 16 days recently in Cairo, I was unable to read the street signs. I mean the signs of where the Egyptian revolution was heading were confusing. But one thing I was rather sure of: the Revolution which toppled Mubarak on February 11 was succeeded by Revolution II which was pitting the demonstrators of Tahrir against the SCAF (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) of Abbasia - also in Cairo.

Revolution I demonstrated in Tahrir; Revolution II demonstrated in Abbasia. Rev. I called on the SCAF to step in the void left by 60 years of dictatorship; Rev. II was asking the SCAF to let go with governing Egypt through a supine Egyptian civil government. While three Prime Ministers (Shafik, then Sharaf, and now Ganzouri) succeeded one another, the SCAF kept on sending mixed signals as to the length of its tenure as the supreme executive and legislature of the land.

From Tahrir, the demonstrators marched on the symbols of Egyptian institutional continuity: the Parliament, and the seat of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Nervous about menacing statements by a member of the SCAF regarding the future power of the civilians over the military, they ignited Rev. II to disastrous consequences. Clashes took place; the two sides, civilian and military cum security forces engaged in stone throwing and Molotov cocktail hurling.  Causalities resulted on both sides.

While the SCAF tried to calm the situation down, promising handing over of power to a civilian President and government on July 1, 2012, Rev. II was suddenly infiltrated by children of the street who had neither knowledge of nor loyalty to institutional Egypt. In most cases, the street urchins were no older than 15 years of age.

They torched L'INSTITUT which housed Egypt's history and which was established by great French scholars who accompanied Napoleon I when he invaded Egypt in 1798 to cut off Britain's imperial lines to India. More than 200,000 books and rare manuscripts were in grave danger of being forever obliterated by fire, and the world, especially UNESCO, rushed in to reconstruct that historic trove. I saw people weeping in anguish for what happened, and the headlines in the Egyptian press screamed in anguish: "Egypt's Heart is Burning!!"

Prime Minister Ganzouri, a great economist, called on the country to help stamp out the chaos. And the SCAF hurriedly put together a Consultative Council made of 30 civilians to help it, together with the Cabinet, run the country whose January 25 Revolution was supposed to be the model for the Arab Spring. And with a tough-minded new Interior Minister, the call went out that peaceful demonstrations and hooliganism do not mix. Thus the see-saw between peaceful demonstrations and forceful suppression went into high gear.

In spite of all of this uncertainty, and in fact in the midst of, fair and orderly elections for the lower house of Parliament were held. Sixty-seven percent of participation by men and women was recorded. The Islamists who were harvesting close to 50% of the contested seats rushed to assure the Copts, women and the tourists that Egypt shall not be a theocracy, like Iran. The principles of Al-Azhar declared on August 17 to the effect that Islam does not call for a State based on religion were stressed. The elections for the upper house of Parliament, the Shura, were to be held in early Spring and a constituent assembly of 100 was to be established with a membership of 100 to draft the new constitution to be submitted to a national referendum. Subsequently, a President is later to be elected. The Muslim Brotherhood, through its newly-established political party (Freedom and Justice) declared that it shall accept the people's choice for President, even a Copt or a woman.

So by the end of my 16-day stay, I found myself hopeful that Revolution II would not be able to destroy Revolution I. The problem of Revolution II is that its goals remain unclear except for its call for the SCAF to depart immediately. Trying to find some answers while in Cairo from December 6 to December 21, I was advised by my friend Aly to accompany him to Kasr El-Aini Hospital. There the victims of those clashes before the Cabinet's seat lay while being treated by under equipped doctors and nurses. I stopped by 2 beds, on each of which lay a young man in his early 20s. Each one of them had the same name; Nabil. One was a Muslim, the other was a Copt. They had been shot by security forces with live ammunition. I asked each of them: "Why were you demonstrating?" The answer was the same: "I want to claim Egypt back!!" 

Suddenly, the Cairo street signs began to be clearer.

Egypt's Revolutionary Nuances

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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• In Egypt, you can vote while at the same time be protesting against something.
• You can be against the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces), but you can also be for the Armed Forces, the symbol of Egyptian nationalism.
• You can be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but you, being a young person, may be against the leadership of the Brotherhood.
• You can demonstrate in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the Egyptian Revolution, and scream against military rule, even if temporary.  But you may be for the continuation of military rule, with a subservient civilian government.  If so, you don't go to Tahrir, but to another Square, Abbassiya Square, near the Headquarters of major branches of the Armed Forces.
• You may be a resident of Cairo.  But your roots are in the countryside, either in the North (the Delta) or in the South (the Al-Saeed).  So when you wish to catch your breath, you may take a  bus ride to your village where is relatively more peace and quiet.
• You may have been a member of the National Democratic Party (NDP) now dissolved.  But the recent judicial rulings allows you to fully participate in Egypt's political life.
• You may have served in a high capacity under Mubarak's rule, now ended since February 11.  But you may still be called upon to serve the New Egypt.
• You may be shouting in Tahrir a slogan using the examples of revolts in other Arab countries.  In Syria, there is a very bloody crackdown by the military of Bashar El-Assad against demonstrators all over Syria.  But in Libya, a similar confrontation between Gaddafi's military and the Libyan revolutionaries ended up by killing Gaddafi.  So one of the slogans in Tahrir carry an ominous warning to the SCAF: "If you want to turn this into a Syria, we shall turn it into a Libya."
• You may be a graduate of Al-Azhar University, an Islamic Scholar with the distinctive turban of Al-Azhar, which was worn by my late father.  Yet you support the party called "The Free Egyptians" (Al-Missriyoon Al-Ahrar), established by a prominent Copt, Naguib Saweeris.
• You may be a committed Azhari (graduate of Al-Azhar) - committed to Sunni Islam (though there is no basic difference between Sunni and Shii).  Yet you are also committed to the principles declared by Al-Azhar on August 17, one of which states that: "In Islam, there is no recognition of a State based on religion."  That historic document was co-drafted by top Coptic clergy, symbolizing Coptic/Muslim unity, the true fabric of Egypt for more than a thousand years.
• You may be Pope Shenouda, the revered Patriarch of Alexandria, and one of the great scholars in the history of modern Egypt.  He is from upper Egypt (southern Egypt - Al-Saeed).  Yet he is capable of great wit in his discourse with the public.  I attended one of his memorable sessions at the Egyptian Consulate-General in New York City.  Some of his congregants laughingly asked him to tell them one of his favorite self-deprecating jokes.  His response: "God created the upper Egyptians (the people from Al-Saeed of whom he is one) for comic relief!!"
• And if you can read Arabic, you will probably not miss a hilarious cartoon in the Egyptian press, mocking what is perceived to be SCAF's desire to stay beyond July 2012 governing Egypt.  In the cartoon, you see two chairs: In one, there is a bottle of sticky liquid (crazy glue) with the name "Mubarak" as a brand name on the bottle.  On the other chair, sits a military officer of high rank with an indication that that (crazy glue) was applied to that seat before he sat down.  The officer seems to be either unable or unwilling to leave his seat of power.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS