Today Egypt is free. Today Egyptians cleaned their streets. Today’s body count stands well over 300 Egyptian citizens and that doesn’t include the injured. But this ancient race, they are resilient. Peacefully, they removed bombed-out cars, broken glass, and (18) days worth of litter and debris.
So why is America rejoicing? Why are we happy that Hosni Mubarak stepped down? Wasn’t he our best bud only (19) days ago? No? He wasn’t? Really, then why did we kiss his wrinkled 82 year old bum for 30 years?
I haven’t posted during these eighteen days. I haven’t commented on this uprising, this overthrow of everything the Egyptians know. I’ve remained silent to this scream for power in a vastly Muslim country. And why not?
Perhaps, I wanted to be able to babble in favor of the winning team? I wanted to remain as neutral as a Swiss bank? But oh, how the mighty have fallen, even the untouchables now have dirty hands.
Why I? She, who fights daily with the one man who holds her heart in his Islamic fist, why have I remained as silent as the graves of those who have died? How melodramatic, it was a democratic movement. Have I been sleeping? Have you? For I can assure you I have not.
I have listened with a deadening ear to the holocaust that has been brewing across the pond. I have watched each news reel with a hardening heart. I have predicted each step of this bloody fiasco with uncanny accuracy, even our own.
And for once, my wonderful Muslim husband and I agree. And not a little, one hundred percent, we are completely aligned against this snake in the grass successful move of the Muslim Brotherhood. How can I say such a thing? Because it’s true. Egypt has been mollified for thirty years with their regime. Was it right? Was it fair? Was it exploitive? Search the “world” news over the past thirty years for your answer. Counting the lives sacrificed to make it what it was; can we call it a democracy? In my world, no, but it was still theirs.
But for a historically volatile population that form of democracy worked. We want to look at Egypt with our Benjamin Franklin tinted glasses, we want to see every corner of the world through our constitutional lenses. But who are we to judge? When did God/Allah/Buda/Joe’s cat throw down his gauntlet and ask the luckiest citizens of the world to pick it up?
I wish I could say I am happy for this supposed win for democracy. I wish I could say that the Muslim Brotherhood had nothing to do with the sudden rise of the masses of the Egyptian populace to have their voices heard. I wish I could say that I believe the Egyptian military will do what is in the best wishes of the people they serve, that they will obey a higher command, not the foreign governments lining their pockets, especially our own. I wish I could say I believe the Muslim Brotherhood is a mostly secular organization.
I wish I could say I am not terrified for the people Israel and Jordan. But most of all, I wish I could say I rejoice with you, Egypt. When all I can say is…be careful what you wish for.
Showing posts with label 9/11 mosque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 9/11 mosque. Show all posts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
My Beer Drinking Muslim
He doesn’t pray, he doesn’t make bombs, and he can suck down a six-pack with the best of them. Does that make my husband and best friend of twenty-three years a bad Muslim? His father would say so, so would his brothers. Just marrying me, (ex-Christian, Chardonnay drinking fool) the personification of infidel, is enough to get him kicked out of most mosques. But I know he’s a good Muslim, not only a good man.
The relationship we have is not all pork buffets and all night bingers. In fact we detest buffets and a binge would have me in bed sick for a month. Us, our thing, is rocky, passionate, and quiet.
Since 9/11 we’ve argued about his religion. Prior to that date, we never discussed it, it was a non-entity. His father was a former mayor in their small village in pre-war Kosovo. As part of the communist regime, he never attended mosque and to my husband’s recollection never spoke of Islam at all. The entire family kept the festivals, but only his mother fasted during Ramadan. So why has 9/11 changed so many people? Not only the Americans were affected, the entire Muslim community was affected just as deeply as we were.
My father-in-law suddenly became devout, and along with one my brothers-in-law even made the pilgrimage to Mecca. But why? My husband, a man I thought I knew more than anyone on earth, changed overnight. He was suddenly torn between his loyalty to his family and his love for America, his home. He no longer thinks of Kosovo as his home, America is.
Having been raised in a cult, I do not respect any organized religion. I do respect the individual’s right to religion and freedom to choose any form of observance they so choose. But having said that, I still fear Islam.
Specifically, I fear radical Islam. I fear the impassioned imams taking undereducated boys in poor countries and brainwashing them into beasts of hatred. Brainwashing exists. I personally underwent thirteen years of it before I was rescued by foster care. While the damage was done in only thirteen years it has taken thirty to begin the healing of the scars left by it.
The relationship we have is not all pork buffets and all night bingers. In fact we detest buffets and a binge would have me in bed sick for a month. Us, our thing, is rocky, passionate, and quiet.
Since 9/11 we’ve argued about his religion. Prior to that date, we never discussed it, it was a non-entity. His father was a former mayor in their small village in pre-war Kosovo. As part of the communist regime, he never attended mosque and to my husband’s recollection never spoke of Islam at all. The entire family kept the festivals, but only his mother fasted during Ramadan. So why has 9/11 changed so many people? Not only the Americans were affected, the entire Muslim community was affected just as deeply as we were.
My father-in-law suddenly became devout, and along with one my brothers-in-law even made the pilgrimage to Mecca. But why? My husband, a man I thought I knew more than anyone on earth, changed overnight. He was suddenly torn between his loyalty to his family and his love for America, his home. He no longer thinks of Kosovo as his home, America is.
Having been raised in a cult, I do not respect any organized religion. I do respect the individual’s right to religion and freedom to choose any form of observance they so choose. But having said that, I still fear Islam.
Specifically, I fear radical Islam. I fear the impassioned imams taking undereducated boys in poor countries and brainwashing them into beasts of hatred. Brainwashing exists. I personally underwent thirteen years of it before I was rescued by foster care. While the damage was done in only thirteen years it has taken thirty to begin the healing of the scars left by it.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Thank God Bajram is Over
Bajram as called by the Albanian Muslims more commonly referred to as: Eid ul-Fitr is the Festival of the Purification After Completing the Fasting Month. Yeah, a mouthful right? The irony of that is they are celebrating the fact that they put nothing in their mouths for a month. During the daylight hours anyway. Of course, they gorge themselves stupid as soon as the lights go out.
Also referred to as simply the Eid, it lasts three days, this year the third day coincided with the ninth anniversary of our September the 11th, a poor ignorant preacher in Gainesville, Florida wanting to roast wieners (I'm sure he was using pure beef ones) over the Quran, and New York in an uproar over the building of a mosque on the ashes of the World Trade Center. I admit, I was terrified they'd be another attack in New York, and not just pissed off New Yorkers throwing their shoes at Joe Biden. (Although secretly I would have given anything to see that.)
The atmosphere around here was hot and heavy for the past week as we argued ceaselessly (I am a redhead and he is pigheaded) as to the probability of such an attack. But thank God, Allah or Daffy Duck that nothing really happened.
Unless you count: Preacher Jones' free trip to New York, sans the shoe throwing, it was too hot to barbeque in Florida anyway, and a worthless deal (worthy of any White House politician) that the 9/11 mosque would be moved to a more appropriate location by a Muslim leader associated with the project. And par for the course, Muslims squealed in protest the world over the non-existent bonfire and killed a few people just for good measure.
Also referred to as simply the Eid, it lasts three days, this year the third day coincided with the ninth anniversary of our September the 11th, a poor ignorant preacher in Gainesville, Florida wanting to roast wieners (I'm sure he was using pure beef ones) over the Quran, and New York in an uproar over the building of a mosque on the ashes of the World Trade Center. I admit, I was terrified they'd be another attack in New York, and not just pissed off New Yorkers throwing their shoes at Joe Biden. (Although secretly I would have given anything to see that.)
The atmosphere around here was hot and heavy for the past week as we argued ceaselessly (I am a redhead and he is pigheaded) as to the probability of such an attack. But thank God, Allah or Daffy Duck that nothing really happened.
Unless you count: Preacher Jones' free trip to New York, sans the shoe throwing, it was too hot to barbeque in Florida anyway, and a worthless deal (worthy of any White House politician) that the 9/11 mosque would be moved to a more appropriate location by a Muslim leader associated with the project. And par for the course, Muslims squealed in protest the world over the non-existent bonfire and killed a few people just for good measure.
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