Our dear Jon and his little trip

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Aug 17, 2008 at 08:00

So what did we learn this time from our dear Jon? Nothing. Not a thing.

You see our dear Jon you told us that all is OK in Egypt between Copts and Muslims based on your cockamamie conclusions following you little visit to Egypt (out of interst or is it for a masters research on some cockamamie topic and only Allahu A3lam) and this is far from the truth.

Egyptians realize that they indeed have a serious sectarian problem and that their society is being divided along sectarian lines (see Jones re: the Shoubra district) and there is even a movie that was just released and it is called "Hassan wa Morkos" 2008 about such topic but you are clueless and what can I tell you.

It is no secret that Egypt and Iran are the only real nation states in the Middle East and if we are to believe Gaston Weitz then 92% of Egyptians can trace their ancestors to the Copts of Egypt. The majority of those Copts converted to islam and now about 10% of the population is still Christian. They speak the same language and that is Egyptian Arabic and no it is not a dialect and it is a real language that is very different from Arabic, they all look alike, they eat the same food, they have the same cutlure and this is where the tragedy is. What is most amazing is the fact that the importation of Arabs to Egypt was very limited so when you speak next time to a Muslim in Egypt that tells you that he is a decendant of Muhammad and the Arabs then think again

There is a famous Egyptian writer his name is Milad Hanna who wrote a book (al-3amida al-sabaa fi al-shakhsiyya al-masriyya and no I do not translate Arabic for wannabe Arabs like you) and his thesis is Egypt has a unique history based on four historic pillars and three geographic ones.the historic pillars are Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic then Islamic. The three pillars of geography are the links to Europe through the Mediterranean to Africa and to the Arab world and in the words of Egyptians Egypt is indeed umm al-dunyya and that the failure of isalmists to understand such complex history is what would bring them down. Yes much of the book is about hope (see Ajami)

He was horrified about how history is being taught in schools in Egypt and it seems to all start with the Arab futuh (or the Arab opening as if Egypt was closed before the Arab invasion) of Egypt. And the end result is Egyptians do not learn much about their great past be it of antiquity or that of the late antique period and this is indeed tragic because Copts view Muslims as occupiers of Egypt and they all need to go back to al-Hijaz as Egypt belongs only to the copts which is far from the truth and Muslims think that Copts are not real Egyptians and that they are the agents of Europe and the Europeans and the crusaders (one of our dear Jon's favorite topoi) which is also far from the turth

You avoided answering question number 6 about who is really Farag Foda? And do you know why? Because you are ignorant about modern Egypt and you want to see what you want to see.

There are indeed very enlightened Egyptians, and Farag Foda was one of them, that believe that such sectarian nonsense should come to an end. He could not see what does an Egyptain Muslim have in common with Pakistanis like you and he mocked such idea that a Pakistani muslim is closer to him than his next door coptic neighbors and compatriots. But guess what happened to him? He was killed by some nut case jihadi.

Many liberal Copts and Muslims in Egypt are very alarmed about the rise of religion and the end result is the separation of both groups. There is also a sense of optimism that another "liberal age" of Albert Hourani may be just around the corner again.

Now I'm going to be blunt: You are not even original in your blogs as they are full of topoi!

And do me a favor: I'm not really interested in what the Bible says as this is another or your little topoi

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