About Discrimination in Egypt

Since I can remember I grew up with Nada who is a Muslim girl, we attended school together, went everywhere and did everything together. And since I have no sisters she was the best sister I could have ever got. Of course it was not acceptable by a hell of people specially my grandmother from my father’s side – sorry to write that before telling you about it – as she hates Muslims and we always have the same fights over and over when she says that “they can never be trusted” or “they hate us – Copts –“ but on the other side I have to admit that she has her excuse as she witnessed the massacre of Suez that happened in Jan 1952 when she was only 19 she saw her uncle taken, dragged by a hook in the streets and bled to death in front of her eyes by Muslim Brotherhood extremists, then heard her neighbor calling for them and pointing towards a building shouting “This building belongs to Christians go kill them”.

So, anyway I do still fight with her almost every time I see her to explain how Islam is just a religion like any other religion and how she is acting the same like those who discriminate against us.

On the other side, I will never forget how when I was about 7 years old returning from my religion class in school – in schools Christians leave the classroom in religion class to attend it in another room – a friend told me “the heaven belongs to us but you will all go to hell cause you worship 3 Gods” so I replied sarcastically “who told you so!” with a smiling face, and her reply was the religion teacher told us that God says so. Of course I was devastated and didn’t even tell my parents about it.

Another incident when I was walking in the classroom and heard the Arabic language teacher saying how the Higri date is away important than the Georgian one!!.  When I grew up now I keep thinking that putting into consideration that my school was a private expensive school, how the hell is this thing going in poor governmental schools where ignorance & the lack of education are ones of its most features?

I have to admit that Nada’s mother – who is veiled – and her sister can be considered as one family in millions of Muslim families in Egypt who are more than OK with them being friends with a Christian man which is 2 things no one accepts, it just doesn’t happen and I am really lucky to know them as I can’t imagine my life without having a friend like her who stood beside me in every single problem I faced during the past at least 10 years better than any other boy or a Christian cause it just doesn’t matter, a good friend is a good friend whatever his or her religion is.

My happiest day ever was on the 6^th of January 2011 after the Alexandria church explosion when Hossam Eid and Wael Khalil who I knew from twitter came to my church and attended the mass which was really boring just to show solidarity with Copts. I took Ahmed – Wael’s son – to play with the kids outside as it was really boring inside listening to prayers for hours. When I saw how the kids kept making fun of racism telling each other “yea someone came to blow us” and my brother who was telling Ahmed “there are a lot of chicks here let’s see if we can get some” in a church being together with a Muslim I was thinking to myself saying “A kid like that will definitely grow up to be a perfect citizen as he will never ever be one of the racists”.

Since I believe that the first step to solve a problem is admitting the existence of the problem itself, I do have to admit that religious discrimination do EXIST in Egypt with all those massacres, churches being looted, Sheikhs spreading violence and racism on TVs without being sued, etc…

In Sweden for example, religion classes are just to give the kids an idea about all religions not to brainwash them with their religion and how perfect it is and other religions are just bullshit.

From my point of view the most important thing is how the kids are brought up at home; my mother always told me how it is not important your friends’ religion but the morals are the important ones. I don’t know what we should do to reach those sick parents who teach their children how to discriminate against others but there must be a solution. And I hope everyone can contribute with such solutions to help us put an end to this in our beloved country.

PS: saying "all my friends are muslims/christians" and all this priest/sheikh thing will never work!

What Is Happening to Egypt?

I am writing this post in English so everyone would understand what is going on. I have been trying to write for the past couple of days about what is going on but there is a new thing happening every minute!! I have been editing my diary to publish my experience during the revolution and the days I have spent in Tahrir but unfortunately I’m not done yet.

Since Essam Sharaf took over Ahmed Shafik’s place as a prime minister of Egypt on the 3rd of March 2011, everyone became happy and full of hope for a better future to our Egypt but since that day catastrophic incidents kept happening one after another to an extent that got me shocked and speechless.

On the 6th of March 2011, in a place called Atfeeh, Helwan city a church was attacked by a loader by some ignorant Muslim extremists who looted the church shouting "Allah Akbar" and 7000 Copts were kicked out of their homes from the fear and since then Copts went to Maspero where the media building is and kept protesting till today the 10th of March 2011. Then the military promised to rebuild the church and capture who were behind the crime that lead to two deaths and 3 injuries.

Starting on the 8th of March 2011 which was the international women’s day, some Egyptian women though of starting a demonstration in tahrir stressing on their demands for freedom and women rights in Egypt; they had some papers with their demands written on it which you can see it in this post and it translates:

·         Women should participate in the formulation of the future Constitution, Law and Politics in Egypt.

·         A new civil constitution respecting civilians, protecting equality and canceling all kinds of discrimination.

·         Changing all kinds of personal status law so it guarantees full equality and all rights.

·         Not giving priority to the women’s reproductive role on her other roles in her general and personal life.

·         Setting deterrent penalties to stop any kind of harassment against women either inside or outside her home.

·         Women should be allowed to elect themselves for presidency.

Before this march began I was following those trusted tweeps to get the news live from tahrir:

@HindElHennawy , @pakinamamer , @Women4Democracy , @etharkamal , @egyptocracy & @EngyG

I guess all of the demands are reasonable rights for any woman, they didn’t ask for much! But when they went to Tahrir square the weirdest thing ever happened!!

The first tweet I saw was from Hind Elhennawy she wrote “A sheikh is trying to convince us that what we are doing is wrong, he is saying the voice of women is a sin” then she said “fights between men and women in Tahrir”.

Then saw from @Women4Democracy saying Anti-protests are coming saying “go home cook” and “you won’t make it secular”

Pakinam Amer then wrote about how she was insulted by a man who shouted at her face saying “you are a sin”

Ethar Kamal wrote “men are chanting Egypt is Islamic you won’t make it secular”, “I'm actually starting to feel a little unsafe. Couple of thousand shouting men and what doesn't even look like 100 women.” & “Was just ranted at by a 'sheikh' telling me to go home and raise my kids.”

@Egyptocracy wrote “Man: What if a woman president gets pregnant, who will rule when she delivers? Me: Who would rule when a man president gets ill?” although to get elected you have to be over 40 which makes it impossible for a woman to get pregnant anyway.

Engy Gamal wrote the men chanted “the people want the women down” and that they were kicked out of the square!

The video shows how a girl was explaining how she got sexually harassed and that there were men standing with them who got beaten for that.

Click here for the video

On that same day in the evening sectarian clashes took place in Mansheyyet Naser, Mokattam in south of Cairo were more than 5000 thugs attacked the small town with weapons and petrol homemade bombs burning houses, shops and killing Copts. When the people tried calling the fire department they said “we will not come cause we sent 6 fire trucks and they were stopped and smashed by thugs and got away”. A witness said “all that because we protested against what happened in Atfeeh and the army blocked some roads which angered the microbus drivers , the extremists and thugs belonging to the NPD so they came to kill us with weapons and we have nothing but the signs we are holding”.

Eight copts were killed and a muslim who was standing with them against the thugs as well their names:

Mina Fares Hanna 15 years, Shenouda Adly Riad 14 years, Semaan Nazmy Zikry 28 years, Malak Rasmy Kelada 26 Years, Sabry Khalaf soliman 22 years, Yasser Fangary Rasmy 23 years, Ali Mohamed Hussein 22 years, Ashraf Fawzy 23 years, Yasser Makram Atallah 23 years.

Losses: more than 5 houses, 7 cars and trucks, 4 storages & shops were looted and burned all belonging to Copts.

All the info was confirmed and documented and I translated it you can see the actual details in Arabic Here

And finally today thugs went to Tahrir making fights and throwing stones at the army provoking them to evacuate the whole area!!

The question resides, who is behind all this mess and where is our Tahrir with its miraculous scenes that we were witnessing during the start of the revolution?

We witnessed Muslims chanting in churches for a better Egypt with Christians and saw Christians holding hands to protect Muslims from police thugs and Central Security Forces while praying which was more of a science-fiction movie than a reality to me to witness that!!

Were are the Egyptians that i saw in Tahrir? Where did they go? What is happening to Egypt and who is doing this?