What would really happen in Egypt

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Feb 27, 2011 at 17:30

Hi Mr Tovey and sorry that it took me so long to get back to you

>Hosni Mubarak's resignation will go down in history as a chapter closing event; that of a changing face in Egyptian and Middle East politics, which while not the first in regime changes in the twenty-first century, it will become notable for a variety of reasons that have yet to play themselves out. Ever since Egypt became dominated by Muslim sensibilities,

I wish that I can agree with you 100%. The way Egyptians view themselves and their very long civilization is rather complicated. They view Egypt as having an ancient Egyptian reality (and even most of the members of the Muslim brotherhood are very proud of it), a Greco-Roman reality (can you imagine the Western civilization or Christianty without Alexandria in the late antique period and the likes of Plotinus, Athanathius, Hypatia and Arius and these are only a few names), and a post 642CE Arab reality and this is indeed a delicate balance and yes islam is way up now but i do believe that in due time this balance will be restored. So you can see that in the words of the writer Milad Hanna Egypt Egypt has connections with Arabia and the Levants through islam and with Europe through ancient Alexandria and with Africa through its Pharaonic heritage and this balance has to be kept the way it is.

Oh the Copts? The word Copts or Aqbat (A'bat in EA) are really all the people of Egypt so one can very much say we have Coptic Muslims and Coptic Christian

>its role in the later industrialized history of the eastern hemisphere has been pivotal, in some ways similar to its ancient role of old world politics, yet remaining crucial to the process of controlling the region because of its location. After all, in property management, it is location, location, location. The British knew that in Gordon's day; most everyone familiar with Middle East issues knows that it is as critical now.

This could very well be true but if your question is who would really come to power? then my answer we still do not know. I suspect that most educated and secular Egyprians have no like or use for the Muslim brotherhood again because they value the Egyptian connection to Western civilization and many feel that they are not Saudis and resent the salafists and wahhabis. al-Qaradawi? He might be popular among the religious Egyptians but I cannot see him in charge! Egypt is not Iran!

So what would really happen? If the 1952 revolution is of any help to us I suspect that we will have a leader from the military that will be Egypt's new president. In 1952 Mohamed Nageeb was the leader for a few months until Gamal Abd al-Nasser took over, so stay tuned

As for the proposed term limit that is demanded by the youth of Egypt in the recnet uprising and it seems that it will be part of the constitution of Egypt (term limit of up to 8 years) will not be effective unless the Judiciary is free to enforce the law which I do not see it happening

>In reviewing this exchange on the colloquialisms of the Arabic spoken in Egypt, one thing emerged that I could not resolve with my mid-twentieth century history lessons; that ethnically, Egyptians are not Arabs.

Very true. Egypt is one of the most homogenous countries in the Middle East and and as per Gaston Weitz 92% of the population of Egypt can trace their ancestors to the Copts of Egypt and the amazing thing is the importation of Arabs to Egypt was very limited. Just check a photo of Mohamed Atta or Sayyid Qutb and they both look like what ancient Egptians looked like

>Further, I understood Arabs are a distinctive and separate group coming out of the Sabean peninsular regions in the seventh century to spread the peculiarly distinctive religion of Islam. Further still, places like Iran and Iraq (Persian and Chaldean) are not originally Arabic in ethnicity, they too coming under the influences of Arabic sensibilities brought along with the spread of Islam. Am I wrong in remembering this from the pre-progressive era before the occidental rewrite of history in the Middle East?

It is just amazing how old civilizations are never conjured away. I will just tell you about Iran and Egypt as they were both invaded by the Arabs in 637CE and 642CE but the expected outcome would have been that the invading Arabs would have become Pahlavi speakers (in the case of Iran) or Egyptian/Coptic speakers (in the case of Egypt) and indeed in the case of Iran we now have a language that is 20% Arabic loan words and in the case of Egypt we have this wonderful Egyptian Arabic which is a mix of Arabic, Coptic, Greek, Italian, French words and it sounds like Arabic but it really is not Arabic which means that the outcome is what would have been expected as the civilized (Iran and Egypt) took away from the barbarian (the invading Arabs and I'm using here Herodotus' word barbarians or the invaders) and shaped their own languages despite of islam and despite of the Arabs

As for islam: Again one would have expected that the invading Arabs would have converted to Zoroastrianism (in the case of Iran) or to Coptic christianity (in the case of Egypt) but what really happened at least in the case of Iran is that 70% of the books of islam were written not by Arabs but by Persians which makes Islam the invention of the Persians and in the case of Egypt Egyptian islam was very much affected by the past and for example the veneration of al-Sayyid al-Badawi in the city of Tanta is no more than the very ancient celebration of the Egyptian god Horus! Another example: Egytians farmers still prefer the old Egyptian calendar as it is very much in sync with what Egypt is all about and there are many more examples that I can give you which means that Egyptians shaped Egyptian islam in their own unique way. I guess Old civilizations are not conjured away

Stay tuned for more

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