From: bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Re: Political cleansing in Egypt
Date: 15 Dec 92 00:31:47 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson

In article <Bz9Bxw.Myr@newsflash.concordia.ca> ilyess@ECE.Concordia.CA (Ilyess Bdira) writes:
>In article <28117@optima.cs.arizona.edu> bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken) writes:
>>
>>The government of Egypt is far from perfect, Ilyess, but its
>>citizens have more freedom than most neighboring countries.
>>The sort of people you cheer for would take most of them away.
>>But, hey, it would be what (you think) Allah wants and
>>Islam prescribes, yes?
>
>Of course, you as western person who believes in a person being innocent until
>proven guilty do not belive this extends to Muslims or to Arabs, that is
>why you support a terrorist government who actually caused the problems
>in the first place, by suppressing the Jihadis before they commit any
>of their recent acts.

I think the Egyptian government is far from perfect.  But I do
think that your buddies in Egypt would be trying to overthrow it
if it were perfect, if it weren't a fully Islamic (by their definition)
government.  Even if it weren't the right flavor of Islam.

>Even now, it is engaging in a war to exterminate them (having a green
>light to shoot to kill at will), while the people
>who committed the terrorist acts were masked and could very well be 
>members of the Egyptian Mossad and with the torture that is so widespread
>in Egyptian detention centers, confessions are meaningless .. 

Yes, it is not surprising to see you blame the deaths on someone
other than your buddies.  No doubt another sinister consipracy
at work.  And, since it is hidden and sinister, there is no way
I can disprove it.  Of course, neither can you disprove that
you don't work for the Israeli Mossad.

>But since you love the Egyptian government so much (apparently because
>it made peace with Israel, which you have to love since you are a christian
>fundamentalist zionist), you are ready to forgive all of its sins.

No, I don't love it, and I certainly don't love it because it made
peace with Israel, and I am not a Zionist and am greatly
saddened by Christian Zionists.  Not everyone who disagrees with
you is a Zionist or under their control!  I got fed up of the ad
hominem a few years ago, but when I used to participate in 
talk.polics.mideast I used to agree with net.likud about 70%
of the time but with net.plo 30% of the time, something that
earned me the suspicion of both.

And I'm not ready to forgive the government all its sins.  I just
think that the alternative you strive for would be much worse
and is not what most Egyptians want.  People would have far
fewer religious and political rights than they do now.

>The egyptian government have been ruling by decree and imposed emergency
>measures since 1981 and it is extending it every time it expires..
>You say that there is freedom of speech, mabe compared to Tunisia, but
>it would not compare favourably even with Cuba.

OK, tell me how many authentic newspapers in Havana criticize
Papa Fidel!  Can you name one?

>Of course you yourself know that there will be much more freedom
>under the strictest of Islamists than there is in Egypt right now,
>you just have to say what you said because it fits your agenda.

This is true only de jure.  De facto it would be much worse.
This is true because the most extreme and the most ``Islamic''
tend to rise to power.  And those who disagree are heretics
and would get shot.

But one of the people on my top-ten list of very nicest people I've met
is an Egyptian Muslim (and a devout one,too).  I would have absolutely
no problem being ruled by an Islamic government with people anything like
him or many of the Muslims I've met.  The problem is that the vocal
Islamicists are very intolerant, and if the less extreme ones
voice opposition they are history.

>Sorry to break this to you Dave, the Egyptian, Tunisian, and Algerian
>governments are waging a war on their own people with the support of
>Israel, France, and the United states.. No wonder extremism is on the rise.

I think that they are waging war on the part of the population that
wants to violently overthrow the government so they can ram Sharia 
down everyone's throats.  And I think most Egyptians hope their
government succeeds.  (How many Copts do *you* know well, BTW?
Ask them about their friends and relatives in Imbaba.)

And I think a major reason for the rising tide of this extremism
is economic.  The economies of only two or three Arab countries
are growing as fast as their populations, and in many cases
they are growing a good deal slower.  So the plight of the
common man gets worse and worse and he blames the government.
You will see this in Iran (*not* an Arab country) in reverse as 
its economy gets worse over the next decade.

>::::::::::::::********************************:::::::::::::::
>Ilyess Ben Ali Bdira    Montreal Quebec  Canada
>E-mail ilyess@ECE.concordia.CA, benali@alcor.concordia.CA
>Phone Number and Address variable...
>::::::::::::::********************************:::::::::::::::


--
Dave Bakken                               Internet: bakken@cs.arizona.edu
Dept. of Computer Science; U of Arizona   Voice:    +1 602 621 4098      
Tucson, AZ 85721; USA                     FAX:      +1 602 621 4246
The fact that you're paranoid doesn't prove they're *not* out to get you.