Category: Politics

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Cultural Differences Politics

Democracy

I have been following the elections in Egypt semi-closely.

I have read 2 comments that gave me pause. I wanted to share them.

The first was from a friend of a friend. She was riding in a taxi. Apparently, it is very common to have a taxi driver ask
“Who are you voting for” during the ride.
This woman had, to her, a surprisingly in depth and intelligent conversation about the issues with the taxi driver.

The taxi driver could tell that she was surprised by his insights. He replied:

I maybe illiterate, but I am not stupid.

Another was a tweet from a woman working in a polling station. The woman was wearing a veil on her face. When asked which candidate she was casting her vote for, she replied: Sabahi.

The poller was surprised that the woman in the veil was not voting for one of the Islamist candidates and said so.

The woman replied:

The veil is upon my face, not my mind.

Categories
Politics

Election?

I hear some vague hints on the intertubes about some sort of election for “leader of the free world”. (and I have always wondered: how much of the world is free? and is it “free from ..” or “free of ..” and what is it free from/of, exactly?)

But I had to dig for any information about this election, cause hardly anybody is talking about it. Everywhere I go, when people find out I am American, they have no opinions of the election.

None of the other ex-pats ever talk about it.

The newspapers barely have any coverage. Dont’ see anything about it on tv.

It is almost as if it wasn’t happening!

But once you find any info, it is apparently a big deal (at least to the small minority of people that follow these things). Go figure.

As far as I can tell from what I read, it is an election between the messiah and the anti-christ.

Should be a no-brainer to decide, no? After all, who wants to vote for the anti-christ? I mean, besides his evil minions.

But there seems to be some sort of mixup. No matter where I look, or how hard I dig, there seems to be no clear cut answer on about which is which.

Some people even claim that they are both facets of ba’al Zebub, and that the one true savior was forced out of the race early on. But that can’t be. How could the true savior lose the eternal struggle between good and evil? Unpossible!

And it looks like it will be close, with lots of accusations of voter fraud

  • I heard the messiah fella is raising people from the dead to vote for him!!
  • I heard the anti-christ has legions of the undead driving people to the polls, with cattle prods!!

to rile up the losers.

What a great time to be an american. Too bad the time difference makes it really hard to stay up late enough to see how this latest episode of “the great experiment” goes in real time.

Categories
Politics Travel

My heart’s not in it.

I have some photos from our trip to Beirut that I wanted to post. And maybe talk a bit about our (too few) days there.

But today, the president of Lebanon has called in the army to “keep the peace.”

Today is supposed to be the last day of his term. But the parliament has been unable to agree on a replacement.

So, there is no president, legally. Is there still a constitution?

It is a very complicated system they have.

The president must be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister must be a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament must be a Shi’a Muslim.

In addition, the parliament must be made up of so many of each, based on a census that is over 50 years old.

The Christians, who hold a majority of the parliament, have not allowed a census to be taken because they (the Christians) have not been breeding as quickly as the Muslims, and know that a new census would change the division of power.

Tonight, the streets of Beirut are dark and empty.

We managed to visit for 4 or 5 days in October. We had been trying to visit there since we arrived in Cairo, but every time that we had free time, things had seemed to heat up in Lebanon. October was quiet. The elections had been put off (again) and the entire country was holding its breath.

We were hoping to go back again sometime soon. It is a beautiful country. (Even with bombed out buildings in downtown, and long detours because of bridges that were destroyed).

I have never been accused of being an optimist, so it is no surprise that I fear the worst for Beirut and the rest of the country.

I am glad we got there when we did.

I hope we get another chance sometime soon.

Categories
Politics

Egypt Today

For an enlightening read on Egyptian politics, take a look here.

Categories
Politics

Americans beautiful!

We were riding in a taxi yesterday going to the big bazaar.

Everyone here asks “where you from”.

If it is just someone on the street, you can be sure he is trying to start a conversation so he can drag you into his store.

We got dragged into a perfume shop this way. Live and learn.

Children on the street will say “Welcome to Egypt. Where you from”. It is unclear if they have something to sell or are just practicing their English.

2 hijab-ed women, one wearing a niqab (a veil that covers the entire face but leaves the eyes visible) were walking down the street and as they passed us, one of them said “Welcome to Egypt” and kept walking. Slightly odd.

Anyway, the taxi driver asked “Where you from” and I replied “America”

His response was

“Americans beautiful! Very good people… Bush, no good!”

I agreed and we laughed.

I wonder how the conversation would have gone if I tried to disagree with him, and had a command of the language to do so…

Update: Had the same thing happen the other day at the meat counter. Nice man asked us where we were from, we replied Amreeki (america in Egyptian Arabic).

He said “Americans very nice. Bush no good”

Seems to be a common sentiment.