AhMedia احا صحافه

I meet him at an Auto service shop in the western suburban, a man of great intellect and wisdom; I found him articulate and a student of history, after a brief exchange of the history of our cars, we immediately leaped into talking about the history of our people, he thinks America has a split personality, one is very violent and the other is very human. I told him that Muslims has an identity crisis and no personality at all. After a great deal of debating all sorts of issues and crisis in the world, he jokingly asked me:  why god promises Muslims the 72 virgins after they die; and what would the Muslim women get? Not sure of what he is going with this, I went along, and I asked him what made him to think that the so called promised virgins are all women, It is ironic that in the west once you mention virgin you only think of women, besides Muslims men don’t have to die to get their virgin, most of them get their own virgin here and now when they get married, at least theoretically. This made me wonder about the history professor question and I promised myself to look into this modern urban legend, why god promises Muslim 72 virgin in heaven. Here are my two cent findings;

It all started more than three thousands years ago, when the Hebrew leader went to the Egyptian Pharaoh and demanded to let his people go.  At first, the Pharaoh got angry and refused. The Hebrew leader consulted with God, decided to send a blood flood, plagues descended down on the Egyptian population (non-combatants), even Egyptian toddlers were not spared, and finally the Egyptian Army vanished in the deep Red Sea under the wrath of the Hebrew God. The Hebrew leader left Egypt victorious and stayed in Sinai for 40 years.

This year the world celebrated the 30^th anniversary of a similar historical visit that took place thousands year later, but in reveres;  when the Egyptian “Pharaoh” Anwar Sadat surprised the world–and probably himself—when he went to ask the Hebrew leader to let the occupied Arab land go. However, the Egyptian Pharaoh couldn’t deliver on all the occupied Arab lands, so he got himself a sweet deal, a partial sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt can’t keep any troops or conduct any threatening activities.   Although the Egyptian Pharaoh was largely perceived in the west as a courageous man of peace, since this historical trip, peace in this troubled area is more and more in doubt and more illusive than ever.  Egypt may not have had direct military conflict with Israel in 30 years; however, the area has seen nothing but wars, a total destruction of Lebanon twice by the Israeli forces, and the recent destruction of Gaza, as was reported in the New York Times, “Israeli fire destroyed or damaged mosques, hospitals, factories, schools, a key sewage plant, institutions like the parliament, the main ministries, the central prison and police stations, and thousands of houses.” In the aftermath of the visit, Israel expanded settlers in the West Bank, and the Hebrew state has grabbed more land than what god has promised them, Egypt was expelled from the Arab kingdom, and the Egyptian Pharaoh himself was assassinated two years later by young, angry soldiers during the annual military victory parade. Later, America fought two wars in the area, and invaded Iraq and Afghanistan resulting in thousands of deaths and destruction.  Now Israel with its right wing government has no stomach to comply with international peace treaties with the Arabs; so much for a comprehensive peace. No divine intervention from the Muslim god yet!  No wonder why the Muslims are promised the 72 virgins in heaven not land!  Peace anyone!

 

Ahmed Tharwat/ Host

Arab American TV show BelAhdan

www.belahdan.com

 The leading Egyptian political dissident, Ayman Nour, was suddenly released by the Egyptian regime after spending almost four years in Egyptian prison.  In 2005, Mr. Nour was the first Egyptian to challenge the 80-year-old President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for almost 30 years, thanks to marshal law that was imposed on the Egyptian people during the first year he took office.  Mr. Nour was comically accused of forging signatures while forming his Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party;   he needed only 50 signatures to legally form his new party; he got 50,000. According to the Egyptian prosecutor’s office, “he was released Wednesday for health reasons”.  Now there is a lot of speculation about the Egyptian regime’s sudden humanitarian gesture.  In spite of the fact that Mr. Nour has been suffering from severe diabetes during all his time in jail, he was denied medicine and treatment at time.  Some asked whether Mr. Nour struck a deal with the Mubarak regime to secure his own release. “I swear to God there was no deal” with the government, Nour assured his supporters from the Al-Ghad headquarters in downtown Cairo.  It was well-known that Mubarak was under tremendous pressure from the U.S. and the West to release Mr. Nour; in fact, the former U.S. secretary-of-state Condoleezza Rice refused to meet the Egyptian president demanding the release of Egypt’s most infamous prisoner known to the West. President Mubarak refused claiming that it is up to the Egyptian court, now the whole legal system in Egypt is on trial; Mr. Nour release was a total surprise to everyone even his wife Gamilah Ismail, he was abruptly dropped off at his apartment in Zamalak; an upscale suburb of Cairo, she was according to her doing some earring when Mr. Nour called her asking for the apartment key. “ I thought it was a trick”, she explained, “this regime could surprise you, good or bad”; she explained. In my last visit to Egypt, I tried to meet his wife at the Al Ghad party headquarter, the police was surrounding the building I couldn’t even get into her damaged office of an earlier arsenal.  Earlier this same pressure on the Egyptian regime was applied by the West to release the prominent Egyptian sociologist dissident, Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Dr. Ibrahim fled Egypt a few years ago, and as he explained to me in an email conversation,”   “I am  a fugitive now…., continuously  on the  road  between  Qatar  and the  U.S and  any  country  in between  that  does not  have  an extradition treaty  with Egypt.”  Meanwhile, a Washington Post editorial on February 16 argued that President Obama should make any visit by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak conditional upon the release of Ayman Nour and the dropping of charges against exiled human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, while Egyptian government sources have said the decision is “not a result of U.S. pressure.”  Dr. Ibrahim himself weighed in with his thoughts, stating that the release and its timing represent a deliberate, timely gesture of goodwill from Egypt to the U.S., and the “health reasons” justification put forth by the General Prosecutor was simply to “save face” from allegations that the Egyptian regime cave in to U.S. pressure.  Ibrahim noted U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Kerry’s visit to Egypt last week, stating the possibility that Kerry carried a message from U.S. President Obama in this regard, and that this step will help Egypt insofar as it will allow Obama to “extend a hand to Egypt,”

When it comes to dealing with dictators of Arab and Muslim countries, the West has a way of deciding which regime should be changed and which individual be freed.  But there are many less-known or unknown political prisoners in Egypt.  According to Dr. Alaa Aswani, the Egyptian novelist who wrote The Yacoubian Building, there are “thousands of political prisoners in Egypt”, and “some of them have been imprisoned for more than 15 years without even a trial,” he added. I asked him why they don’t get the same attention from the West, and why no one demands their release?  “Their only crime is they are Islamists,” Dr. Aswani sadly explained to me in a telephone conversation. Did Mr. Mubarak release Ayman Nour to warm up to the new American administration? We don’t know for sure and will never know. If we had made a deal.   President Mubarak feels that the Obama administration doesn’t have any stomach for getting in the regime changing business, and the Obama administration realize that spreading the democracy thing in the Arab/Muslim world proved to be a risky business, Mr. Mubarak feels President Obama may be willing to work with him to support his effort in grooming his son to take over the Egyptian crown. Which is facing a fierce opposition from the Egyptian street, everyone I talked to in my last visit in Egypt feels that; the 80- year old president spend most of his time napping, and his son Gamal is the one running the country”.  As we all should applaud the release of  Mr. Nour and Dr. Ibrahim, for President Obama to gain any creditability in the Arab/Muslim street, he needs to stand for all victims of human rights violation, regardless of their political positions. Victims are victims, and Mr. Obama needs to demonstrate to the Arab/Muslim world some sign of change in the inept US foreign policy in the area. He should ask President Mubarak to release all political prisoners; left the marshal law and stop harassing and arresting political oppositions; he should tell him what Millions of Egyptians have been saying for years: “Kefayah.” Enough.  Mr. Obama shouldn’t meet or visit with Mr. Mubarak until he complies.  One Egyptian prisoner has been released; now how about the rest of Egypt.

Ahmed Tharwat/ Host of the Arab-American TV show BelAhdan

My facebook link

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www.belahdan.com

A note from torture chamber

Thanks to digital cameras, millions of people around the world were instantly able to see the gruesome images of the Iraqi prisoners’ torture. However, in spite of the impressive delivery speed that relayed what happened inside the prison, those images were still only snapshots-pictures that are devoid of the context that only human eyes and minds can record and convey.

For me, there wasn’t any camera in the Egyptian torture chamber, there wasn’t any witness to tell the story. But after many years the deep physical and emotional pain and its tragic details remain vivid in my memory. I was a freshman at Cairo High School. Anti-government protesters were a daily routine of the landscape of Egyptian streets. I was too young to grasp the serious political implication of the event. Like most students my age, I was glad that classes were canceled that day.

Thousands of students poured into the streets from schools all over Cairo, but after shouting a few anti-government slogans, we moved away from the crowd to a side street in the affluent Garden City suburb. Without any warning we were rounded up by the Egyptian secret police (The Mukhabarat), who were zealously trying to fill their daily quota of random arrests.

We were lined up with common criminals in front of the police station . A tall handsome police colonel standing at the front started shouting the worst kind of profanities at us, his harsh words quickly extended to our families and parents. Without thinking and in a fearful voice I protested the excessive profanity, Unfortunately, the colonel took an issue with my soft protest; what happened after that has changed my life forever and shattered my faith in authority; my innocence was tarnished forever.

The angry police colonel stopped his verbal humiliation and without looking at me, he ordered one of his guards to take me away to … “the room.” The guard knew exactly where to take me; inside the prison, it was a small dark smelly windowless cold room, naked room stripped out of any human sign, the dark silence in the room seemed as if it has witnessed lots of broken souls.

Shortly, the colonel entered the room, where he calmly and without uttering a word or acknowledging my presence, closed the door, picked up a big riot stick and started hitting me savagely and indiscriminately. I stood helplessly overwhelmed by the colonel’s outrage; the severity of the beating escalated, until my skin start peeling off my body before my own eyes. I lost my feeling and any connection to my body; my confusing thoughts were trapped with no place to go.

I wasn’t trying to be a hero, I couldn’t muster any words, I couldn’t scream or resist. I couldn’t understand the colonel’s anger and outrage, but I knew he had a free hand to do to me whatever he pleased in that room. He didn’t ask about my name, he never looked me in the eyes, he never explained my crime. I was reduced to a nameless, faceless object, as I stood motionless and void of any rights or expression.

I wasn’t the usual suspect — a communist, a Jihadist or a government agitator. This wasn’t a national security issue, it was personal insecurity issue; The Colonel, unaccustomed to the slightest challenge, needed to break my will. He wanted me to beg for mercy, he needed a complete conquest.

My silence was deafening, and as the colonel grew more infuriated, he started getting more creative in his abuse. His relentless physical torture made his early verbal profanity seem like a friendly conversation. There is nothing more humiliating than unjust physical abuse; I couldn’t resist or retaliate, his savage hitting destroyed my ability to express my pain. At the time, I wished he would mix his severe beating with some verbal humiliation.

After what seemed like an eternity, the beating suddenly stopped, and without saying a word, the colonel stormed out of the torture room, he couldn’t stay and face his unbroken victim. I found myself standing alone licking my wounds, only to realize for the first time that the guard who brought me to the room was still there; he was standing in the corner wiping his tears. His display of sadness brought a much-needed touch of humanity to the torture chamber.

I often wondered how my brief confrontation with this colonel could generate so much fury against a helpless young boy. He was not following any orders; he was the whole chain of command. I now realize we were both victims. I was a victim of unjust violence and abuse. He was a victim of his sadistic obsession with violence and his intoxication with power. I was physically paralyzed for weeks. He was morally paralyzed for life. There wasn’t any digital camera to tell what happened inside the torture room that day; all these years, my own memory has had to carry the entire load … alone; … this is the real torture.

Ahmed Tharwat
Producer/Host of the Arab American TV Show Belahdan