Egypt Blogs America

Starting Next Week EgyDiva will also be a contributor to a collective blogging project called:

egyptblogsamerica.blogspot.com

its not operative yet, but keep an eye out...

مسيحية بنت إية؟؟؟؟

In creating this blog ive discovered some things about inspiration and writing, at least as far as I am concerned. often, if i really want to say something on my blog, i cant because i feel overwhelmed and pressured, and i cant bring myself to articulate the multitude of emotions and impressions i have about an instance, or moment or phenomenon. but i cant just ignore it and move on. im blocked. i cant write about anything else until i find a way to write about whatever it is that last caught my attention. so here it is, because its been too long and i need to move on. sorry if someone doesnt understand the parts in arabic . this happened about a week and a half ago-strange relationship one develops with one's blog......:

"I left my dad's house to go to work feeling great. wonderful mood this morning! got into a cab, Garden city? Garden City, no problems. He took another lady in, she was going to zamalek, I told him, Im going downtown! He said, dont worry, dont worry, Ill take you. So I thought, OK, he'll take me first.

Of course, I was wrong, he got to the 15 May bridge and went down straight ahead to 26th of July instead of taking a right for the corniche. So I told him "ana leh fil zamalek dilwa2ti?" and he said, ill take you, ill take you- so I said, ya3ni ana waraya shoghl we inta mayenfa3sh takhod qararat kida liwa7dak we te2akhar ilnas" so he just got really annoyed and angry and started saying inti 3ayza eh we 2oltilik hawadeeki, we heya nazla hinaho blaa blaa blaa..so i told him mish mawdoo3 hatwadeeni ana waraya ma3ad, you cant just decide to make me late without even informing me we mat3alish sotak. so he pulled over in 26th july and basically kicked me out saying, khalas, inzili hina we 7asbini. I was shocked, and i said, a7asbak leh wenta mawadetnish ilmakan illy ana 3ayzaah? Then he started cursing, so I cursed back at him the same tihng he said, and I told him ya3ni ghaltan we kaman 3ayez titbaltag we te2el 2adabak, as I was getting out. and then while i was slamming the door, takhayalo 2ali eh? "mese7eya bint weskha". yes. this translates to you dirty Christian.مسيحية بنت وسخة

Can you imagine this???? Begad I could not believe it. I mean, I know that cab drivers momkin yikoono watyeen, we weskheen, we khara. but really, mese7eya bint weskha? fe3lan e7na ba2ena kida? And I dont know what that means, that any non veiled girl is christian, or that christian dee lewa7daha ba2et shiteema momkin tit2al zay yel3an deenak masalan aw zay eh bilzabt. And I only feel the need to indicate here that im not christian because if i was the next part of the story would have been me climbing ontop of the car as it drove away and beating it in with my fists.

instead, because i didnt have time to answer before he drove away, I just got into another taxi and I just felt tired, and sad. past anger, I was just holding back my tears the whole ride. not because I was offended, I wasnt offended from this idiot, but I was sad and tired. Sad that people are really this way, such disgusting, low human beings. and tired because Im sick of dealing with them.
I cant start my day like this. I cant start my morning in work crying because of one piece of shit and probably meeting five others before I get home.

Luckily my boss had a meeting outside the office this morning and she's still not back so I could just release it and just cry a little bit in peace. Peace, thats all I want. I cant shoulder all of this. Its enough I always have to defend myself every time im in the street, but am I going to defend the dignity of Christians now too? How many battles can I get in in one day? I have already resigned myself to the fact that life in Egypt is hard, but then there are these shocking moments, these moments of pure hatred, simple misery when I am ashamed to be here, and when I feel truly, truly, overwhelmed and disgusted and tired and most of all confused. And they are always abrupt. Who is this man? Who is he? And how many of those do I have to meet in my day to day life here in this country? Do I have to escape to reserve my dignity or at least not to show up at work in tears? What if my boss comes now and my eyes are red, what should I say? Do I have to lie? Or am I forced to share with my boss that I am under constant attack in my own country. this is abnormal. The amount of hostility I feel thrown at me is unreasonable, the amount of sheilds, or of counter attacks, is inhuman. As if life isnt hard enough without having to enter into a war, a war with no clear enemy, faceless enemies and nameless faces.

I am tired. Im exhausted. and Im so sad. And im in disbelief from that taxi driver. and I hate him. I detest him. If I could see him again I would want to whack him in the face with my bag, I would kick him with my heels in the stomach. I would ask him if he thinks he is the Muslim. I would ask him how dare he speak to any human being this way.
And I hate him even more for bringing up these feelings in me, for bringing up this sense of loss, this loss of hope, this helplessness and at the time this disgust, this anger, this pure hatred. Both are feelings im not used to, I dont like, I dont need. So who are you? What made you like this? How do you justify this behavior?

When will apartheid fall?

At times its hard to believe that pressure, protest, opposition, have the power to bring about real change. Its not always easy because you can't always see the result right away. In this case it took SEVEN years.

The Palestinian- Jewish Unity (PJU), a Montreal based group, have been organizing protests against Israel's apartheid policy every week since 2001, infront of Israel's consulate in downtown Montreal. Apparently, the bad publicity has finally embarrased the Israelis enough to move their consulate to a more discreet location where they wouldnt be publically criticized. Every week between 20 to 30 people got together in protest and pushing for international boycott of Israel.

Sometimes I wonder how in the Arab world we could never get this amout of order and determination to protest anything on a weekly basis. Granted, that would also involve getting beat up by the police on a weekly basis too, but I imagine some national causes would be worth getting together once a week and saying something about it. Maybe I have an unrealistic understanding of the political context? Maybe. But more so, I think I have a realistic understanding of the mismanagement and disorder of Egyptian opposition and civil society movements. I think the main problem would be to get five or six NGO's to decide on one cause to support for a prolonged period of time and to sacrifice their name as THE organizer of that event. If it takes seven years to get ONE consulte in ONE country (Canada, no less) to MOVE, not even banished, then perhaps we should get started on our own problems now..

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Inspired by a fellow blogger's entry testing the argument that First Ladies are always uglier than thier presidential husbands, or at least they should be for the candidate to be successful,
I decided to move away from posts only about state security police and corrupt police, and throw out a"fashion police" for you..

In the spirit of poking holes in hypotheses, which is a fun past time, I argue that in the Arab world this theory is totally untrue. Behold, below, The First Ladies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria respectively (two for Egypt because we already know whats coming) . Its too bad we never even see the first ladies of some of the Arab states, but I assume the Saudi first lady is a sexy mama, all blinged out and manicured...

Mama Suzanne's back in the 80's- style! flair! poise!

Khadija's killer body and hair. Egypt 2- America zero.
Queen Rania of Jordan, absolutely gorgeous. Love the suit!
Asma Al Asad, not so much in the public eye, being married to the world's least popular leader, but definitely something to look at... (why is this turning into a celebrity gossip blog? )

So, it seems, the Middle East comes out ahead when it comes to hotness. Come to think of it, i think the presidents are hotter than the Western presidents as well. Ok, Ill say it: I'd much sooner hook up with Bashar Al Asad than Nicolas Sarkozy and I have no doubt that Ahmedinijad is a better date than George Bush.

لا يا شيخ؟

نظيف: الحكومة تتحمل تكلفة إعادة بناء وترميم «الشوري» بالكامل

أمال كمان كان هيكون على حسابنا؟؟

Adding Insult to Injury

Now I'm not sure what bothers me more. No wait, I am sure. This bothers me more:

Not only did we see the dismal performance in putting out the fire, and the loss of the antique building, and the havoc created by police and officials trying to orchestrate the whole fiasco,but the efforts were directed more to repressing the opposition media from covering a very obvious disaster than to repressing the disaster itself and containing it. Once again, the police have no clear priorities, no clear mind and seem to comfort themselves using human punching bags whenever possible.

Al Masry Al Youm's Parliament correspondent, the official correspondent, who even has a press ID given from the shura council itself, was attacked by the police and his ID was torn. El Badeel, my favorite opposition paper at the moment was prohibited from issuing its paper today because the headlines claimed that "flames consume Ferry, contaminated blood, cancerous pesticides and Upper Egypt train files”. Instead they could only print their online version.

As for the state papers, the headline read "Mubarak closely follows the events of the fire and makes three phonecalls to Al Sharif"- who the fuck cares? They also, myteriously, counted ONE HUNDRED fire engines at the scene.

News flash to the news makers: the public is not blind, and most of us can count.

Liar, Liar, House on Fire

The fire that started in the Shura Council (Parliament) yesterday early in the evening (and went on for a tumultous nine hourse) may have started because of a short circuit, but the reason it went on for so long was doubtlessly the complete incompetence and total lack of crisis management displayed by the Egyptian "action" taking bodies. The fire spun out of control and destroyed this gorgeous 19th century building despite the fact that over 30 fire trucks and a helicopter were part of the so-called "rescue" effort. Thankfully, the flames didnt spread to the nearby Geographic Institute which houses ancient and rare documents. Not that anyone was concerned about that anyways, rather the area was sealed of (in a clumsy, hectic fervor) to protect the U.S, British and Canadian embassies that neighbor it. Of course, if it had been Suzanne Mubarak passing through Kasr El Aini street, you would have seen the most impeccable coordination skills at making sure that she whizzes through unobstructed, you would have witnessed precision, skill, fearlessess. But when its a fire with some government workers who happened to be working in vacation season we cant aim a house at a flame right.

I really feel safer than ever. So we cant put out a fire in our own parliament. The important people were apparently only effective in making "phonecalls"- for some reason the headlines on the state media keep telling us that Mubarak made three phonecalls, Ahmed Ezz called his buddies and Fathy Serour, though he couldnt be there himself because he was in his summer home outside of Cairo, was very concerned. Concerned enough to pick up a cell phone.

It really makes me wonder what would happen to us if we were caught in a building Fathy Serour didnt even care about. If this is how they "save" their power house, then I expect to be burnt to a dark crisp if im ever near a naked flame in Egypt.

Im going to think twice before even turning out my gas oven at home now.

40 trucks, 9 hours, and total failure. What a mess. What a complete fuck up.