Fear.

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 24^th 2013.

Yesterday the news agencies Ansa and Reuters have respectively aired two flashes, in few words each, apparently having no connection whatsoever binding them; however I think that a connection exists..

1.      “…there are more than 60 thousand Iranian fighters present in Syria engaged in combat flaking Assad’s armed forces”. So confirms Ahmad Jarba, leader of the Syrian National Coalition, in London where the international conference “Friends of Syria” is taking place.

2.      Hassanial Bolkiah the Sultan Of Brunei (and one of the top five richest men on the globe, nfa), announced the entry in force of the ‘Sharìa’ into the Penal Code by April 2014. Thus penalties like “Stoning” and “Amputation” will be introduced and executed.

One may wonder where is the connection? What could be the relation between a Syrian Civil War and the peaceful Sultanate of Brunei? My answer can be envisioned once we realise the western fearsome understanding of the fast spreading bush-fire-type Radical Islamist Movements over vast areas of the world; and the extended ability of those movements to shape and influence International Politics.. For the USA, NATO and Allies it is a very serious hazard other than a very costly one (in terms of intelligence, planning, coordination, logistics, displacements... etc).

In the Syrian case, we have a large scale Shia intervention in support of Iran’s last, and most important, ‘front line foot hold’ in the Middle East.. For Iran, Syria is its National Security strategic defence line against [a] the Turkish expansive intentions, and [b]  the Western Alliance sponsored New Kurdistan project. That’s why the leader of the Syrian National Coalition, knowing well the western worries though not too well the western plans, did confirm the volume of the Iranian interventions in Syria to enhance western ‘fears’ and accelerate their ‘plans’ of a substantial political and financial support for a ‘New’ Syrian Government (hopefully not another replica of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya experiences).

Also for the Sultanate of Brunei case, I believe that the same applies.. We have an extra rich oil producing country, trapped and encaged geo-politically inside Malaysia (one of Asia biggest Islamic States which is hosting large militarised Fundamental Islamic groups); so by risking the expansion of Islamic Militancy Extremism into his Sultanate, and not having enough popular support to counter such possibility; the Sultan, also not wishing to mortgage his oil revenues and/or concede foreign bases in guarantee for a Western intervention to protect his Throne (as the Gulf States did for the past two Gulf Wars with the consequences that we all know); he chose to present his plan for establishing the Sharìa as the Main Source for legislation.

So both issues are closely connected by the Fear from Islamic Extremism, in one way or another.. Regardless how you look into the merits of each one of these news flash, or read what may be hidden between the lines.

Having reached such an observation, I can’t help wondering about the reason(s) of the Islamic Moderate currents’ reluctance (or perhaps even incompetence) to make front against the growing defiant frustrated and aggressive thrust of the Islamic Radical Extremism; the one that has even succeeded in two decades to infiltrate the upper ranks of the International Islamic States Conference, other than its increasingly alarming influence over the International Congress for Islamic Studies and  Researches  (through the effective roles of the Shia scholars on one hand and the financial muscles of the Wahabies on the other). 

That’s why I invite all Historians, Sociologists, Anthropologists, Ethnologists, Philosophers, Muslim Clergy Scholars and competent analysts to study carefully the phenomena in order to diagnose its root cause and suggest the practical remedy(ies) that are needed to definitely cure the cause, not just like ordinary pain killers to periodically calm the symptoms.

Maybe then our future generations could find a way out from the overwhelming senses of doubt, fear and insecurity that are corroding our daily lives; magnified by the paralysing uncertainty about how safe we really are.. All of which are legitimate sentiments when constantly nourished for long periods by such a spiral of Irrational Blind Arrogant Violence.

Pass On The Word.

Seed the Wind and you shall harvest the Storm.

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 23^rd 2013.

The folkloric primitive traditions and practices wrongly named ‘Beliefs’, that intellectual giants like Taha Hussein, Yehia Hakky, Tewfick El Hakim, Youssef Idris, Youssel Essebaei and Naguib Mahfouz denounced and fought in most of their novels and writings; are still controlling minds and lives in almost all the rural and desert territories of Egypt!

Why?  Because of poverty.. The poor have no alternative but to trust, believe and follow the only institutional figure apparently ‘honest’ and ‘truthful’, and that is the “Imam”.. For he’s the one who knows the word of Allah, recites the Koran, guides the prayers, and celebrates the sermons.. And that’s not all, because an Imam is the only available reference for counseling, and here lies the danger of the role!

The Imam of a village have manifested for centuries the cultural pathology of a chronic and rigid close-mindedness, due to his undeveloped static medieval knowledge, which drive him as well to trust and follow another institutional figure: “El Omda”; because he is richer and more connected, then by force he knows better.. He represents “Uly El Amr” isn’t he?

But the Omda himself isn’t free; for he’s controlled, so to say, by the “Ma’Mour” who in his turn reports to the “Hakemdar” who follows the orders of “Modir El Amn” whose subordinate to the Minister of Interior! And each of them has his own personal pressing needs and ambitions which leave little to no room for slower curios observation and profound critical analysis as the bases for any evolutionary knowledge.

But let’s return for a while to the Imam, who in most cases also assumes the role of the “Teacher”, he’s also obliged to concede certain compromises vis-à-vis the village Doctor, the Land-Owners, the Pharmacist, the Grocer, the Butcher and so on. Of course all these compromises entails a blind eye, a deaf ear and a favourable counsel (fatwa).. Because the indisputable order is “The Duty of unconditional Obedience to Uly’L’Amr”.

Such restrained and short-sighted poor understanding of life, society and culture produces not only individuals economically poor, but as well infected by poor morals, poor health, and much poorer restricted sense of belonging (you can imagine what type of new generations they will breed); save some very rare examples (hundreds of self empowered individuals who forced their way out from the mold and turned into illuminating stars in literature, science, art, jurisprudence, industry and finance)  just to prove the rule (tens of millions of other short sighted units grown and educated identically to become deprived from any ambition).

The same concept applies for today’s approach to issues like authority, power, and the rules of governance.. Take the two major contenders in the Egyptian Political Arena: The Muslim Brotherhood and the Military Institution.. Both are structured on the foundations of “Hierarchical Blind Obedience”, the first by faith the other by discipline; so that whomever thinks differently or manifests his malcontent becomes automatically an Out-Cast.. An Ex-Communicated individual destined to rot in oblivion if not condemned for “Treason”.

And because the majority of the countries’ citizens originate from rural and sub-urban areas, torn between the teachings of a poorly prepared Imam and the late night Sat-TV pornography (now available and accessible via internet and cell-phones, both along with other handy technologies are very aggressively marketed and cheaply sold); you can figure out the sorts of any social, political, administrative, economical and cultural referendum or elections.

These two institutions have seeded the Winds of oppression and submission for centuries, and today We are harvesting the Storms of chaos, insecurity, economic crisis and political instability.. Who knows for how much longer we’ll live it.

We change ourselves, we change the equation. Logic but hard and time consuming, yet feasible; in theory! In practice? Given the dominating and brain washing Institutional Theosophy: Heretic.. Unimaginable.. Insane.. Unbearable.. Impossible!

Pass On The Word.

Is ‘Denial’ a crime?

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 19^th 2013.

In today’s daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, the well known constitutionalist Bruno Tinti discussed* the Italian Senate’s Justice Commission recent proposal for a bill by which the “Denial of the Shoah”** be considered a crime punishable by 1 to 7½ years imprisonment; Mr. Tinti confirmed that “high level parliamentary sources confirm that the bill will pass in both chambers”!!

Nonetheless, the fact that no one, yet, have raised the problem of this proposal’s unconstitutionality in view of its flagrant violation to the 21^st amendment of the Constitution: “Everyone have the right to express freely his/her proper thought(s) by any mean of diffusion…”; not only surprises, it frightens.

Popes and Emperors together have founded the Inquisition to serve as an effective institutional organ for punishing the supporters of whatever ideas opposite, or contrary, to the Catholicism’s orthodoxy; by which were tortured and burned heretics, pagans, suspects of being false believers, preachers of other doctrines other than the empire’s established Roman Catholic Faith.

The persecutors of the Inquisition, which by the way lasted till the 18^th century, were defending what they believed to be ‘Historical Falsities’; and this present proposal resurrects the same concept only that those who proposed and wrote it are convinced of defending a ‘Historical Certainty’.. Consequently every individual will be forced to yield to other people’s ideological, moral and religious conditionings. The problem remain in the fact that we know how certain things begin, but how will they end and to which direction they may lead cannot be known for sure.

Now, after reading carefully Mr. Tinti’s argumentation, which I disagree in part with him, and the original text of the senate’s proposal, I’d like to pose an interrogative that seem opportune in such circumstances:

“Will the same concept be valid as well for other ‘Genocides’ and ‘War Crimes’ like those committed, and documented, in the Balkans; the Turkish against Armenian; the many African genocides; the European Colonial authorities vs. the Native American tribes; and the Israeli vs. Palestinian? Or it will concern only and specifically the cases of Denying the specific Nazi crimes committed exclusively against the Jewish citizens, thus discarding the dignity of all the countless victims of the Nazi and those of all War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocides?”.

Pass On The Word.

*The article entitled “Denial, idiocy is not a crime”.

**Persecution and Extermination of Jews by Nazi forces during WWII.

Criticising is The Crime!

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 17^th 2013.

Piergiorgio Odifreddi, the renowned Italian philosopher and mathematician, decided to suspend his collaboration with one of the most important daily newspaper, La Repubblica, once the latter has decided to censor a post on his blog discussing the Israelo-Palestinian conflict.

In the obscured post Odifreddi sustains that “..in these days the latest repetition of the Nazis’ Ardeatinic Trenches Logic is taking place..”; and he goes on further “..naturally, the slaughter of 4 years ago is nothing but one of many perpetrated by the Israeli Occupation government and army inside the Palestinian territories. But to provide a life sentence for Kesserling, Kappler and Priebke only one similar, however much less brutal, act was enough. How many more are required for an International Tribunal to try and condemn as well Netanyahu and his Generals?”.

This is only one of many similar cases where free intellectuals’ ideas are repeatedly censored the moment they skim over an opposed opinion to that of Israel, or if they dare to criticise Israel’s politics in Palestine or anywhere else in the world.. Not only in Italy, but similar censorships were also registered in Germany, France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Scandinavian States, Poland, Turkey, Greece and of course in the USA; not to mention the UK and the nations of the Common Wealth.

The Free World, bastion of Democracy and defender of the Freedom of Expression as the main banner of Liberty, invented the ‘Anti-Semitism Crime’ to silence any voice that may sings ‘Out Of Tune’!!

I can say I am glad that I lived to add one more proof that terms like Democracy, Freedom Of Expression and Liberty, are just empty key words by which professional politicians can use as punch lines to keep holding on to their posts, and continue needling diluted injections of false hopes for a better future in the veins of their voters.. And please note: the hope is meant exclusively for the future.

Pass On The Word.

From Darkness to Light.

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 16^th 2013.

In a structure, like many others scattered around the territory, designed by the Italian Authorities to temporarily host the new migratory arrivals until their legal situations get cleared, a simple quarrelsome event took place in the night of October 12^th 2013 and went out of control to turn into a bloody fight involving all the hosts of the structure and producing 72 injured and 3 deceased.

At a first glance one may think that it was a fight over food, money, water or anything of the sort.. No.. The testimony of the Italian volunteer assigned as a night shift care-taker for the structure will answer the how and why it started in the first place.

Ø  A Muslim refugee from African origins (A..) shared a room with another Muslim refugee(B..) of another ethnic origin.. (A..) wanted to pray his sunset and Night prayers when he came back from work at 22:oohrs when (B..) was deeply asleep, till this point there is no problem, the harm started because (A..) insisted to pray with the lights on, while his room-mate implored him to pray in the dark and silently as he’s tired and needs to sleep. And as (A..) wouldn’t compromise because he was firmly convinced that : “Islam is light, and in light the prayer must be done”!

Ø  As the argument became loud, it woke up the rest of the floor residents and called the attention of the care taker, who thought he can intervene to calm the water between the two, now twenty six.. But his efforts were quickly devoured by a threatening: “stay out of this” coming from frustrated and angry voices, who kept shouting in different dialects attracting more supporters, for each camp, from all the floors of the structure by now entirely involved and fully red-necked..

Ø  It didn’t take long until verbal offensive turned physical and mutated into a real fight.. One that you can’t really say who’s with who, because everyone is swinging blows or getting the blows, and the poor care-taker was forced to call the Police, which intervened after quit some time.. A delay which allowed the event to become tragic.

In poor words a young man of 22 years of age who’s a university graduate in his country of origin, insisted that since Islam is Light, then the prayer must be held in the light! And because of his close-mindedness, added to the epidemic spreading of such unjustifiable rage that obscured the minds of so many frustrated individuals, 72 persons were injured and 3 young men got killed!

If there is any meaning at all for such a stupid act, I was able to detect only one: that no one really taught him to think in order to discover what really made the greatness of the Islamic Nation far back in history, and that is the “Spirit of the Doctrine”.. When we recite verses like “Allah light of the skies and the earth” or “to take you out from the darknesses to the light”; we recall the ‘spirit’ of the very first order transmitted to Mohammad (ppoh) by the Archangel Gabriel: Iqra’!

And it is that very same spirit the reason why I don’t believe that the term “light”, repeatedly brought in the Holy Koran, meant to switch on the light while praying!! But I do believe that it was frequently brought in many parts of our Holy Book for us to switch on all the Lights of the Brain at all times to know, analyse, comprehend and extract new meanings for more teachings out from all our surroundings and from what we’re reciting.

Also if there is a teaching about the prayer in the light, I’d interpret it as “don’t hide your belief”.. Or “valorise your faith by applying it”, in the sense of ‘Be’ a Muslim not only ‘Appear’ as one.

One of the basic facts of life is that we humans, the more we go older the more we tend to understand more, and sometime even review some of what we previously considered as certainties, in the ‘light’ of new findings.. This rule is applicable not only to the scientific research, but as well to the spiritual and doctrinal researches.. Except for these 3 fundamentals conceiving the essence of ‘Belief’:

        I.            Concerning the Obedience: we are ordered not to discuss the Nature of Allah, the Spirit and Death.

     II.            Concerning the Practice: The five pillars of Islam: The Testimonies (Asshahadatain), the Prayer (Assalat), Fasting Ramadan (Saom Ramadan), the Solidarity Contribution (Azzakat),and the Pilgrimage (Al Hadj).

   III.            Concerning the Faith: accepting Allah as the one and absolute only God; accepting the 3 divine books as his word; recognising All the Prophets and messengers chosen and sent for our guidance; acknowledging All the Angels; and trusting in the certainty of the Resurrection and the Final Judgement in the Last Day. 

These are indisputable, and only by fully embracing them one can be considered as both Muslim and Believer. Outside from this circle anything else is open for debate, discussion, analysis, revision, redefinition, re-qualifying, re-considering, modifying, researching, experimenting…etc.

My mind tells me that I will not burn in Hell because I prayed in the dark (maybe the light went off, or maybe I’m blind.. And I don’t think that Allah will reject my prayer because the light went off); because I put on my left foot’s shoe before the right one; or because I didn’t mold my mother, sister, wife and daughter into the Veil..

And my mind also tells me that I’ll be judged according to my Understanding the spirit of the doctrine, based upon what I was able to grasp from the Book and the Sunnah,  and the actions I apply according to that understanding.. So it is according to our free choices, from a universal variety of options present before our intelligence and knowledge, that we shall be praised or sanctioned.         

All this embodies the core of the ideological challenge which is confronting today’s Islamic Movements; a challenge related to the continuous search for means to define and ensure an “Islamic Identity” in a globalised world with no borders, walls, flags or colours; and where all identities are fading away in the apparent confusion of a global cultural chaos.

So in their efforts to meet that challenge, these movements chose to embrace the most radical conservative, if not doubtfully manipulative, interpretations of the ‘text’ (The Holy Koran) or the ‘hadith’ (The Prophet’s Sunnah); and instead of going through the meticulously devoted and agonising work of screening, funneling and filtering the interpretations with the objective of finding new adaptable ways to demonstrate that the doctrine “is adaptable to provide answers for ALL new challenges and meets ALL the demands of ALL mankind at ALL times, until God inherits the earth and what’s upon it” in order to supply the Muslims all over the world with the ‘Immune Identity’ characterised by a discipline founded upon the implications of one single simple order: Iqra’!

But in the absence, other than the rejection, of an effective renewed Islamic Philosophy elaborated by courageous and competent Philosophers; the spirit of the doctrine would not be transmitted or elaborated, thus leaving an intellectual void where anyone could be able to jump in and fill it in full.. And that’s exactly what happened.

Instead of evolving by using the Iqra’ methodology, that our forefathers mastered in order to set the foundations of the Nation; the so-called scholars, who are preaching under the banners of these Islamic Movements, decided to lock our brains inside the many ‘pray in the light’ type “Cultural Ghettos” for whatever reasons other than progress, evolution or development.. They are educating us that it is the only way to preserve our ‘Identity’ from any ‘Contamination’, along with other measures as the Veil, the Beard, the pray in the light or the put on the right one first!!

The Muslim Brotherhood, as well as many other International Islamic Organisations and movements, have all failed to rule and govern, in the ‘Light’ of modern times politics, precisely for not being able to (a) comprehend modern age politics and economy; and (b) communicate effectively with these politics using similar competent tools and lexicon. They simply couldn’t grasp the fact that the 21^st century’s political, economic and social issues cannot be addressed by the same understandings and/or interpretations of a much more simpler life our ancestors enjoyed little less than 15 centuries ago.

Unless the Islamic scholars will find the intellectual courage to make front with today’s pressing issues, the Spirit of the Doctrine will remain distorted and the Identity will remain restlessly roaming about inside the purgatory of time unshaped, undefined and unidentified.

Pass On The Word.

What is a ‘Constitution’?

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 13^th 2013.

In the first place, the Constitution is an idea, a model of a society where we want to live. It is also said that a Constitution is the set of norms which a given population write when they are quit Sober to remain valid and in force when they lose Sobriety.

And here rises by necessity an important question to place before all concerned (the Government, the President, the Media, the Parliament, the Intellectuals, Al Azhar, and the People): “Are the ‘Institutions’ more important or the men and women who operates these institutions?”!

A classic answer is that an institution such as the Constitution, even a mediocre one, if in the hands of Good men and women (who are unselfish, disinterested, competent, attentive for the common good and not the personal or particular good), can function well; while the best of the Constitutions in the hands of incompetent or bad men and women is definitely destined to corrupt and rot.. Consequently the “Idea”, the “Model” will follow.

 So let us ask ourselves:

Ø  “If we had sunk into such a low and degraded state in a relatively very short period of time; then in the hands of which types of men and women have we entrusted the making and functioning of our consecutive Constitutions?”; and

Ø  “Are we quit certain that this latest group of Wise Constituents, all of whom were carefully hand-picked and nominated to re-write a new tailor-made Constitution, are to be trusted enough as to conceive an Idea and establish a Model for our future way of life?”!!!

Culture cannot be forced to flank or support the initiatives of Power; for by nature Culture is Free and as such it shall essentially perform its Critical Functions.. Culture must not baby-sit and sidewalk the actions of who’s in power anyway these actions may go regardless of their aims or ends.

Culture is nothing else but our Collective Conscience, thus it must always be kept vigilant enough to analyse these aims and ends, because on their outcome depends our Future Way of Life.

Pass On The Word.

PS: Allow me to refer you to this very loud cry of warning shouted years ago out from the fragile throat of a dying Mahatma GHANDI, and which very few intellectuals still remember while all politicians seem to ignore:

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

The same man who earlier, almost 90 years ago, strongly stated that:

“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles."

It’s Happening!

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 9^th 2013.

According to a report by Gianpiero Gramiglia on today’s Il Fatto Quotidiano, last Saturday a secret blitz carried out by a US Marines’ DELTA Force unit, ended up apprehending an Al Qaeda leader namely Abu Anas Al Libi. Obviously the event was badly digested by the Libyan authority other than the followers of the captive.

Foreseeing the possible retaliatory activities which could target US Diplomatic personnel and interests in Libya or in neighbouring North African States, the State Department talked about “precautionary measures” while the Pentagon mobilised a special Task Force Unit from its Spanish base MORON to reinforce its southern Italian base of Sigonella (according to the weekly TIME the base from which the DELTA Force have started the Saturday mission) in Sicily.

Ready to strike at a moment’s notice and code-named ‘BENGAZI’ the unit  consists of: 4 MV22 Osprey personnel air-transport units, 2 KC-130 air refueling tanks, and of course 200 marines; and carries out, among many other tasks, missions for evacuating US civilians, hostage recovery, and protection activities.

The US bases of Moron in Spain, Sigonella in Italy and Suda Bay in the Greek island Crete constitute one of the strong holds of American presence in the Mediterranean; and they all “are in support of eventual needs of the personnel and/or assets of the USA/Africom” (the US Military Command for Africa).

A department recently created to match the progressive modifications of the Military Crisis’s geography following the apparent end of the Cold War, the overcoming of the Balkans Conflicts, the endless War On Terrorism, and the explosion of the Arab Spring along with its counter blows; thus transforming the role of the US and NATO bases to return as the Aircrafts Carriers and the bridge to use as a launch paddock towards the Middle East and North Africa.

Now, after viewing what Mr. Gramiglia have reported, let me examine a couple of facts to try and deduct a conclusion or an hypothesis of a conclusion.

·         We know that there are over 33 US military bases in Italy alone, with tens of thousands troops and marines, storing an immense arsenal including tens of nuclear devices! So imagine the amount of arms, crafts, logistics and material deposits, installations, arsenals, fuel and troops existing now in Europe and in the Mediterranean area. And if you’re interested to know the number of active military US bases around the world just digit List, or map, of US military bases and you’ll find the link for militarybases.com.

·         It is also no secret how the US military intervenes unilaterally and without prior notification to the proper local authorities.. It has been doing that in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq and God knows where else.. And that is another clear indication that it does not trust its ‘ALLIES’; except Israel.

·         If they are squeezing on Libya from the west, Syria from the North, and Sudan from the south; what could be the outcome on Egypt’s stability?

·         Add to that the ‘apparently unknown’ source(s) financing  [1] the internal terror groups whereby everyday the security forces are capturing individuals roaming about in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere bearing very large amounts of cash to pay whomever in the name of the Brotherhood for recruiting purposes or simply to buy support and sympathy; and [2] the tons of armaments and ammunitions smuggled from Libya through the western border.  

Adding up all these ‘facts’ together, one could clearly realise that the US/NATO “Plan To Redesign the New Middle East*” is actually on course.

Pass On The Word.

*See my article “What’s The Plan?” dated September 21^st 2012 and published on my blog http://haalitheoracle.blogspot.it/

PS: I’m sure that our  political and military Strategists do know and are considering these facts, nevertheless my question remains valid: “when will they transparently revert to the population with the plan to counter them, in order to unite and solidify the internal front in support of their present and future actions?”!!

The stomach not the brain.

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, October 6^th 2013.

I have just listened to President Adly Mansour’s address to the nation commemorating the 40^th October War day. His announcement about the Dab’aa Nuclear Reactor project alarmed me a lot.. More than the Suez Canal ambitious investments plan. And I still can’t find any valid explanation for the necessity that every administration must hold on to a “Giant National Projects for the welfare of our generations to come” so that we end up drowning deeper in more debts to finance unnecessary projects, or at least not of a prior importance.

The High Dam, The Toushky Valley, the subways and many more projects which couldn’t be a priority for a needy and ignorant population like ours.. Instead of the Nuclear with all its risks (Chernobyl and Fukushima are still close) not only the structural ones but as well those environmental and ecological; for until today no one have ever confirmed the existence of a safe nuclear wastes disposal, or thehealth hazards level on human and other beings tightly connected inside the food chain and the life cycle.

If we must acquire more debts to create energy,  wouldn’t it be more convenient for a country blessed with a year-long sunny climate to use sun-rays as the guaranteed continuous and renewable source to obtain much secure and clean energies; through serious projects and enhancing scientific research and creating real job opportunities for thousands of our graduates in the fields of solar energy and related feeding industries.

Can’t we produce that relatively simple technology and make it our strategic objective to cover the entire domestic family needs with that safe energy in say 15 years time? How many families will settle down serenely from such a wide range of job offers boom on a national scale? They have already done that since three decades in the Scandinavian states, in Germany and in Austria, where they see the sun 38% of the year!! Why not us?

I’m sorry my friends but I can’t grasp the twisted logic driving us always to enjoy self scourging or auto-flagellation.. Have we lost our common sense? Not to realise that it’s all a political game and it has nothing to do with the “welfare of our generations to come”.. Because if that is the objective than why not try the renewable sources of energy instead? Their results are immediate and their social impact is spotless.

The Muslim Brotherhood didn’t really care about Egypt or the collectivity of its population.. And now I fear that we’re about to experience a “Déjà Vu” phenomena that will surely sedate our feelings and contain our hopes, reducing Democracy into the freedom for exchanging jokes in public and practicing sarcasm on opponents in Parliament and public offices through oriented media. So that questions like who will finance, who will build, and by what confirmed scientific guarantees; will all remain unanswered.

And the old game of cartels and monopolies will continue under the umbrella of a severely controlled and carefully censored Democracy..

If the northern Europe countries paid corrupt leaders and officials of the third world to dispose their radioactive wastes (among other hazardous industrial, pharmaceutical and medical scoriae) in their countries; who will we pay to dispose of ours?  

All because the people everywhere have always proved to bear a very short memory.. “People crawl on their stomachs”.. Unfortunately, whoever made that statement he have certainly centered the bull’s eye.

Pass On The Word.

Dreams to remember!

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli September 29^th 2013.

………,,,,,,,yyyyyyyydrghòlrguhgytjm,,mnhyytttrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I know it doesn’t mean a thing, but it’s the only way by which my cat expresses its solidarity and support for my writings: by stepping on the key board, imitating my single digit picking, while I clean my eyeglasses before writing.. Usually I erase its input, yet today I decided not to.. Maybe it has something to do with the subject, I don’t know.. This cat has the natural gift of making me smile and sometimes laugh especially when I’m going through difficult times and tense moments.. Just like today.

I woke up this morning submerged deep an awkward state of mind very close to a bad mood, though I had a good night sleep.. After my usual light breakfast, consisted mainly by a couple of Kamut bread toasts to accompany a measure of Illy coffee brew dumped in a glass of warm Soya milk followed by a peach fruit; I was able to identify the reason of my gloomy start.. It is in somehow related to that rascal Bruno Vespa and his late night programme on the main Italian state TV channel RAI UNO.

As he is a confirmed devoted servile fan to Silvio Berlusconi, and in his desperate maneuver to set pressure on the Senate before the expected vote on Berlusconi’s decadence as a Senator, he used all what’s in his might to argue the Supreme Court’s final and irrevocable verdict sentencing Berlusconi to 7 years in prison and to ban him from any public office or function for 5 years following the confirmation of his guilt in Financial Fraud and Tax Evasion.

I spent some time after the programme discussing with my wife on how fragile the Italian Democratic System has become throughout the past 20 years, and relaying this fact to the rise of Berlusconi and the methods by which he stormed into Italy’s political arena since 1992, with the only objective to enhance his own interests and to protect himself and his financial empire and business web from the reach of the law; as he knew quit well that all his success, if we could name it as such, is founded upon an interminable chain of illegalities.

The last thought exchanged between both of us before going into sleep was that she felt as if that was her September 11^th!

Probably I slept with that thought comfortably lying in my sub-conscience to slowly work its way to demolish my serenity and peace of mind by which I woke a bit grumpy..

It wasn’t before noon, when I was sipping my second cup of coffee, that I identified the true reason disturbing my mood.. I had several September 11.. Yes indeed.. Not just one but many 911s each of which one by one had their share in shaking my existence and marking my culture so deep as to shape my character into what it has become now..

July 23^rd 1952: the Military Coup falsely acclaimed as the people’s revolution.. Because actions are measured not by their intentions but by their end results.. The military action announced its intention to overturn a ‘Corrupt’ multi parties political system and establish democracy and social justice; so

·         it suspended a century long democratic experience since Nubar Pasha founded the first Egyptian Parliament; a parliament that passed laws ruling our daily lives till this very moment;

·         it manipulated a solid Juridical and Legislative experience matured over more than twenty centuries by what became known as “The Massacre of the Jurisdiction”;

·         it intimidated the intellectuals once by the accusations of Communism, once by that of Islamism, or just by being anti-revolutionaries; bringing thousands of teachers, professors, politicians, clergies, journalists, and artists under arrest without trials, all in the name of the “Collective Good”;

·         it systematically destroyed thousands of years of agricultural experience through wrong and corrupt policies for irrigation and cultivation by the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides of doubtful origins without knowing their impact on the entire food chain and upon human health;

·         it actually denied “Meritocracy” as a criterion to hold public functions favouring “Parentocracy” or “Trustocracy” (please forgive and allow me the terms); and that became in time the main qualifying edge for any job even for a street cleaner post.. Holding a recommendation became better and stronger than a PHD.. Isn’t that what the 1952 young Free Officers raised hell to obliterate as they have repeatedly educated us by shoving their famous “Six Objectives” down our throats?

·         it ventured in foreign campaigns in support of African revolutions and Regional wars financing rebellions here and there to substitute the established colonial democracies by corruptible local dictatorships; 

·         it claimed that the ignorance, untrustworthy counseling and superficiality characterising the ruling of Khedives Tewfik and Said brought foreign debts and invited colonialism! Well after 60 years we still can’t free ourselves from the grasp of foreign debts and economic colonialism due the miscalculations and ignorance added to the corruption all of which have arrogantly mismanaged the country in a sequel episodes of blunt authoritarian rule.

The misdeeds list is long, but the end result after 59 years was a poorer population, a shrunken middle class, a Corrupt political system, an unbearable National Debt, a profound decay in the systems of education, health care, and social justice; along with an unprecedented absence of values.. No.. Not even that.. Because all through Egypt’s ancient and modern history, common sense and moral values have always prevailed.. Until that day in July back in 1952.

August 23^rd 1965: the death of ELNAHAS Pasha (notorious statesman, Prime Minister, co-founder and later on absolute leader of Al Wafd Party from 1929 till 1952) after 11 years in house arrest, serving a life sentence issued by the special revolutionary court days after Nasser set aside Naguib and took over. Despite that his funeral was testified his overwhelming popularity as millions participated in thundering silence.

June the 5^th 1967 : waking up from the deep coma inflicted in all of us by the systematic media bombardment of propaganda lies, that turned us into a multitude of hypnotised sheering fans, was the cultural shock quaking the roots of my social and political beliefs.. A shock that contained all the “Mourning Phases” in one: ANGER.

July 1968:  The year that marked the birth of the Hippy movement in the United States protesting against the war in Vietnam; the protests in France, and soon after spreading all of Europe like a bush fire, against social injustice and claiming women rights; ours were the protests against the big lie, and like many of my peers, we protested in universities all over the country and in thousands we got arrested and deported for a few months to ‘unknown destinations’ to be subject to various psychological and physical torture techniques.. I believe that this part of my life marked the disbelief in our identity and the complete mistrust in the entire system.. So my silent rebellious acceptance adopted the worst form of indifference manifested, through various other mundane activities, by drinking, smoking, forming pop and jazz bands to entertain many other indifferent partners of the silent majority. It was a very bad and sad moment that made me question  and revise all my priorities.. From that experience on I decided to regain my curiosity and my critical sense to know more and know better. 

November 17^th 1997: Or the day of the Luxor’s west bank massacre.. It was 8 o’clock in the morning, I have just finished my morning tour of the Hotel I managed then, and while reviewing in my office some figures and forecasts the news came.. Without a second thought I took the hotel bus and went to the west bank to get my hotel’s guests scattered there even before their agents do, and once got them all secured inside the Hotel and the head count turned alright, as well as that of our colleagues and collaborators; I started reflecting on the very meaning of what’s been just consumed.. A senseless cruel and savage criminal act of terrorism just took the lives of 80 innocent persons, identifying an enormous security breach to unveil the fragility and incompetence of our country’s several intelligence agencies and their poor security measures and techniques.

It was not only another blow to my beliefs in that corrupt system, concentrated only on ensuring the safe continuity of the Ruler not the safety and security of the Ruled; but as well it was another candle light glowing inside the tunnel to show me how short sighted the tourism policies were.. And still are by the way, but that can dealt with in another full chapter not only a paragraph in an article.

July 25^th 2005: bombs in South Sinai (idem as the previous date).

January 25^th 2011: the people’s spontaneous revolution methodically lost to the Muslim Brotherhood.. Ever since the 1968 ‘unrests’, social boiling never stopped to burst out its steam in many ways.. The last was this one.. As all the precedents. Also this one was brainless.. It just burst in the absence of the ‘poets’.. That’s why the Brotherhood took the bell and held the lead of the flock, and by the time the people realised the gravity of the damage inflicted and the dangers awaiting to overwhelm their lives, even then the intellectuals were absent and unprepared too.. They were busy debating a series of trivialities chained one after the other on purpose by those concerned with the ‘Throne’ and the ‘Safe’.

June 30^th 2013: Only 23 days were left to commemorate the 61^st year of the 1952 Coup, when another Military Coup, and because we don’t like to call things by their names, it was also falsely acclaimed and cheerfully applauded as the “Corrective Revolution”.. And it brought us back to square 1. Meaning that we may have lost sixty years of our lives in vain! Only we became poorer, more ignorant, unemployed, heavily indebted, and much undisciplined. 

The only promising event was that of January 25^th 2011 which could’ve produced a glimmer of hope.. A feeling that couldn’t last long and soon vanished.. That’s why I decided to consider all of these 911s as some “Dreams To Remember” every now and then so as never to forget, because I believe that all memories can bring a smile.. Bitter or sweet, a smile is a smile.. Better than a tear! No?

Pass On The Word.

PS: My apologies Otis for borrowing your song title for my article.. Thank you and rest in peace.