Thursday 28 November 2013

Egypt in a Nutshell.

Egypt in a nutshell:

A Quick and Simple guide to Egypt.
  1. Army allies with MB to overthrow the king.
  2. Army Betrays the MB, takes power for itself.
  3. MB attempts to betray the Army, Allies with the British.
  4. Army Imprisons and persecutes MB for decades, Allies with Leftists.
  5. After he takes power, Sadat allies with Islamists to defeat leftists.
  6. Islamists betray Sadat and assassinate him.
  7. Army allies with NDP (Although one could say the NDP was the offspring, but whatever) for decades.
  8. Revolution breaks out in January 2011; Revolutionaries ally with MB to overthrow regime, Salafis ally with Regime, Army Betrays NDP and tosses them to the "wolves", Army then Allies with MB.
  9. MB and Salafis ally to win Parliament. Non-Islamists pretty much betray one another (not to mention infighting)
  10. MB allies with Revolutionaries and Salafis to gain power during presidential elections, betrays Army (somewhat) and removes top two army brass.
  11. Morsi gains power, MB betray Revolutionaries , ally with Army and Former NDP in addition to Salafis.
  12. Morsi overextends his power, Army betrays the MB, Army Allies with revolutionaries, former NDP and Kanaba Party to overthrow MB. Salafis betray the MB and ally with the anti-Morsi block.
  13. MB start begging (and insulting, and threatening) their former allies the revolutionaries to join them, the same allies they've already betrayed at least twice, to join them and fight the Military and Former NDP. Revolutionaries for the most part, ignore them, Which a lot of MB consider a betrayal (The hypocrisy from the MB is staggering)
  14. Army Betrays Salafis in constitution writing process.
  15. Army keeps alliance with Former NDP, betrays Revolutionaries in both the constitution writing process AND on the streets. 

Remember when I said our revolution has similarities to the Lebanese civil war, in which "During the course of the fighting, alliances shifted rapidly and unpredictably: by the end of the war, nearly every party had allied with and subsequently betrayed every other party at least once" , and people called me an idiot?

Well you can Kindly go fuck yourselves.

Note: By Salafis in this context i mean "Political Salafis" i.e the Nour party and the offshoots like ElGama'a. I'm not talking about non-political salafis that have joined Rabaa, or stayed away from politics altogether. Unlike the MB , Political Salafis and Salafis can be (and sometimes are) two different groups.

............ Fucking shitstorm getting me back into politics after i swore it off.... gah.


Disclaimer: Yes I do recognize that there's a HUGE difference between the Lebanese Civil War and Egypt post-Jan25. But there IS a similarity in the betrayals.

Edit: Someone Commented that this is oversimplified. Well No shit Sherlock, it's "Egypt in a Nutshell" not "Egypt in a dissertation", You wanna write something more complex and in depth, perhaps correcting my mistakes (if any), then by all means go do so. 

Saturday 27 July 2013

MB & Islamists: We support Brutality Until it's used against us.

"From (the) revolution with love." photo by Abdallah Adel (Jan 2013)
A lot of people (especially non-Egyptians) are wondering : Why are people who stood against the Military and the Police forces, and decried their brutality previously, not doing the same now that the Pro-Morsi protesters are facing off against them?  The main reason? Because while they were in power, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists Condoned AND Supported brutality by the army & police against those same people.



Perhaps these videos/articles/screen shots can shine some light, and keep in mind this is just a sample.

(Note: I'm not going to translate every one of these, Nor am I going to caption them all, I will also add more videos/images/articles as I find them. Special thanks to @Hany2m, The Human Google,  for helping me find a lot of these.)

Disclaimer before you read further: I am not condoning violence against them. Unlike them, I will not support brutality by state security forces. The point of this post is NOT to gloat. The entire point of this post is to point out one of the reasons why a lot of people are not sympathetic with their current plight, and why the MB hypocrisy in invoking events like Mohammed Mahmoud, Maspero, Abasseyia...etc to prove army brutality, is in fact infuriating to revolutionaries, as those are the same events in which the MB & Islamists condoned brutality by security forces, with no support to (and condemnation of) revolutionaries on their end.

Don't Shoot the Messenger.



Morsi: Blocking roads is a crime that we cannot be lenient with. 


Morsi : There is no problem with sacrificing some (people) for the sake of the rest


MB's ElKatatny: The Minister of Interior informed me that they didn't use buckshot. (Rest of Islamist MP's are outraged at former MP Abou Hamed presents shotgun shells, accusing him of lying )


Morsi: Praises Police and Army for preserving security and institutions. Says he ordered Police forces to respond with Firmness & strength to any "threats" including "rock throwers" .


Salafi MP (after clashes with security forces): says Tahrir protesters are given 2 meals, 200 L.E and given a strip of "Tramadol" (An over the counter drug that can be abused) , Then says 'We need to stand by the MOI not against them, We're trying to Try the Minister of Interior for the sake of some Thugs"




Safwat Hegazy: I'm against bring down SCAF, and I see no difference between the Army itself and SCAF, And I completely trust that the SCAF will hand over power to a civilian government. 


Safwat Hegazy: I admit there's a deal between us and SCAF and I see no problem with it. There's no problem in there being a deal that if they hand over power, we're not going to look into their corruption. 


MB's ELKatatny Thanking SCAF for "protecting the revolution, and managing the country wisely"


Khaled Abdallah making fun of anyone decrying military brutality. Notably the Blue-Bra incident. 


Khaled Abdallah attacking fellow Islamist Hazem Abo Ismail for statements Abou-Ismail made against SCAF 


Safwat Hegazy walking out of show in protest of Egyptian television post-revolution banning Hazem Abou Ismail from appearing on Screen. Safwat Hegazy said absolutely nothing when the MB minister that took over the Ministry of Information did the same exact thing with those opposing the MB


Essam Sultan claiming that groups using stolen police weapons to fire on protesters and falsely implicate the police forces. 



"اللجنة الثلاثية" بالشورى تعدل مشروع "قانون التظاهر" وتسمح لوزير الداخلية بإلغاء المظاهرة (Islamist & MB dominated Shura Council modifies protests law allowing Minister of Interior to "cancel' and/or Shut down protests) 



Some Screen Shots:
Morsi Praising the Police.

A twitter user asks Morsi why he doesn't reform the ministry of interior that is making him look bad.  His response was give it your trust and you will see good things god willingly.


Prominent MB Mohamed ElBeltagi asking Ministers of Interior and defense to strongly and firmly deal with those that block roads, burn buildings ...etc , says they should activate the emergency law if that is what is needed.


"Following tweets are from prominent Brotherhood youths" 

















Friday 5 July 2013

Who the hell is Adly Mansour?

           Disclaimer: This is intended as Humor.

Adly Mansour, The Interim president of Egypt


When it was announced that Adly Mansour was to become our new interim president, The question on everyone's mind was "Who the flying f**k is Adly Mansour?", mainly because well.... no one knew who the hell he was. Well luckily, Wikipedia came to the rescue...





Here are some of the earlier iterations of Adly Mansour's wikipedia page:

The Original Stub
Absolute Boss
He wasn't even sworn in when this was posted
Apparently he's a homosexual absolute boss
The Homosexual Healer Paladin of Egypt
The Healer Paladin of Egypt... Without the Homosexual part
We now know who Batman really is.
He's also Ironman... Talk about multi-tasking. 
The Snake of the Nile
The Snake of the Nile is A Brony (A Brony is a Bro that likes "My Little Pony")

Friday 8 March 2013

Egypt: When Logic Fails


For the average spectator on affairs in Egypt, making sense of events and situations tends to be an exercise in futility; as since the majority of average spectators are not "in the loop", the events tend to make little sense.

As a result, people tend to react in one of two ways; emotionally (and that's a topic for another time) or logically. But ah, there's the rub; What about when logic fails?

I argued long ago in a personal post that there is no real logic, and in this case it's even more applicable; for there is no definite uniform "logic" nor exact "guidelines" to achieve a standard definition of logic, as such Logic differs from one person to the next. But for the sake of this post, let us assume that logic is absolute, after all, the very basis of logic and deduction is If A= B, and B = C, then A = C.

But again, I'm not here to discuss philosophy, so let's return to my original question... What about when logic fails?

In regards to Egypt, the "logical" observer attempting to make sense of things, has no choice but to resort to logical deduction, to do so, the observer gathers what information they can , and proceeds to come to a conclusion based on the information provided. But as I stated above, unless the observer is "in the loop" they don't have access to all the information, and as thus they can never really reach the proper deduction unless by absolute chance. Therefore, logic in this case, has failed.

So what's the solution? To deduce as best you can with the info you are able to obtain, and live with your conclusion, right or wrong? To forgo logic altogether and rely purely on emotion? Do you reach the best conclusion you can, and constantly revise it when you obtain new information? Or do you close your brain off, and just rely on whatever you're told? Or do you do something else entirely?

If anyone has an answer to this question, I'd like to know it, but above all think about this before you're too judgmental towards others.

Tuesday 5 March 2013

Egypt: Tourism in numbers 1995-2012

A quick breakdown of Egyptian tourism figures between 1995-2012 with some minor notes.



YearValueNumerical Difference to pervious year% difference to previous YearNotes
19952,871,00000.00%
19963,528,000657,00022.88%
19973,656,000128,0003.63%
19983,213,000-443,000-12.12%Decline thought to be caused mainly by The Luxor Massacre that took place on 17 November 1997, at Deir el-Bahri, an archaeological site located across the River Nile from Luxor in Egypt. In the mid-morning attack, Islamic terrorists from Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya ("The Islamic Group") and Talaa'al al-Fateh (Vanguards of Conquest), massacred 62 tourists at the attraction, their modus operandi included beheadings and disembowellings.
19994,490,0001,277,00039.74%
20005,116,000626,00013.94%
20014,357,000-759,000-14.84%Decline believed to be the result of two major events; The start of second Palestinian Intifada (also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada) and the resulting support protests in Egypt, as well as the Terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11th 2001 
20024,906,000549,00012.60%
20035,746,000840,00017.12%
20047,795,0002,049,00035.66%
20058,244,000449,0005.76%
20068,646,000402,0004.88%
200710,610,0001,964,00022.72%
200812,296,0001,686,00015.89%
200911,914,000-382,000-3.11%Decline believe to be the result of three main factors:

The Sudan kidnapping In September 2008, in which a group of eleven European tourists and eight Egyptians were kidnapped during an adventure safari to one of the remotest sites in Egypt deep in the Sahara desert and taken to Sudan. They were subsequently released unharmed.

The 2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing: In February 2009, the Khan el-Khalili bombing killed a French schoolgirl on a class trip.

The 2009 Hezbollah plot: In April 2009, Egypt said it had uncovered a Hezbollah plot to attack tourist sites in the Sinai, causing tension with the Shia group from Lebanon.
201014,051,0002,137,00017.94%
20119,845,000-4,206,000-29.93%Decline caused primarily by the January 25th revolution of 2011.
201211,532,0001,687,00017.14%

It is worthy to note that while tourism figures have increased in 2012 as opposed to 2010, they are still significantly lower (17.93% less) than 2010.