Our Escape from Egypt

ell - what to say... first of all i am probably lucky that escaped one day before - or rather just at - the uprising began. As a family i think we did pretty well, and avoided the horror of leaving next few days as BP expat families, whom I hope to see tomorrow can attest.

First of all - i would like to break that news to you in circumstances - my wife is expecting. So our life in few monthis just prior to this revolved around this simple but unavoidable, and pleasing fact.

The week started slowly with a news of a demonstrations increasing in both power and number, whilst we were holed in the office for a week long oerformance review, for which i prepared and worked hard on. All my thoughts were on the deliver, - others dismissed the events as an insignificant challenge to Mubarak's rule. We have been there before they said, in 2005 the most recent. Arabs do not deserve the representative government, they should be governed. We agreed - perhaps there are excpetional countries - but on average a Muslim is a docile creature, whose only instinct is to earn enough for a loaf of bread and vegetables for a large family. He will agree to a tyrannical rule which guarantees that.

I have planned a visit to London some days before. - this was to be a short medical check up trip for us as well as opportunity to unwind before another heavy week of work. Our mothers were planning to visit on February 5th. Both sets of tickets already purchased. On Wednesday we had a visitor - an Azeri boy who brought us some home cooking from our mothers. He wavs staying in a hotel in downtown - more precisely Sheraton Cairo on the Corniche. I have also decided to change the date of the departure from January 29th to January 28th for no apparent reason beyond a desire to increase our stay in London. So much for an absence of an intuitive nature in men. Or maybe a have certain prophetical qualities i do not know about.

Thursday was a last day of our review, all were perhaps relaxed and inattentive to events outside, although i have sensed a certain unease in Egyptians from the office. We were watching events on our computers when there was some free time: my Arabic is rudimentary so i have missed a majority of what people discussed in the office. Thursday i went home safe and sound at 6 or 7 pm.

Thursday night mobile phones went sporadic, a frantic cry from my wife informed me about Facebook shut down - we are a heavy users. Few hours into the night the whole internet was shut down. This has made her nervous and I then have tried to calm her down as much as could in a assuredness that we will be leaving next day. BP advised us not to leave our homes.

Meanwhile the heaviest demonstration was expected the next day, just as we were escaping to the airport. My driver agreed to come over at about 1pm, and my last call to him went at about 11am, just before the shut down of mobile network. I went to the office to check emails, which still worked there, and found out that BP advised us to stay put. Our driver arrived at 1.30 pm and we set off from our flat at about 14:40, with full expectations that we will be coming back, however as we watched news, our expectations diminished by the minutes. The demonstrators were battling the police in earnests, deaths were declared. The city was becoming a warzone.

On the way, we encountered 3 check points on the main road to the airport - some streets were cordoned off in view of approaching demonstrators. Our heroic driver found a back route and we were in the airport in no time. There was no chaos and everything was orderly, in fact it felt we were a planet away from all of the disturbance, which we could observed from TV screen in the airport. We managed to book 2 separate seats on a full flight of mostly relaxed people. All went without excess and our landing in London was nothing but a normal experience. Back in London I realized - while glued to the TV screen in the hotel room - what we have just escaped. 40,000 people stranded in the airport and BP evacuation of worried families. We avoided the worst.

The demonstrations continued growing from strength to strength and now Tahrir Square is full of thousands of people demanding Mubarak to go. There is Million Man March going on - a people power, benevolent, inclusive and hopeful. Women medics saving and treating wounded in makeshift hospital in mosques, young men forming chain to protect the Cairo museum from looters, vigilantes protecting their neighborhoods and businesses, locals and patients beating back looters back from the cancer hospital - this heroic scenes were abound in this often berated city. Arabs were taking back their dignity.

The actions of police and police-ordered criminals did not stop Egyptian people from defending their dignity and their rights. The Arabs, Muslims and the World as a whole is indebted to them. I know it will be difficult, and sometimes may descend into chaos, but the Egyptians need to persevere. Genie of freedom is out of the bottle, it can not go back in without a meaningful political reform.

Now we are holed up in the hotel waiting anxiously for news from BP on what to do next in our refugee like situation.

I know one thing - it will take sometime. I know something else - I am missing a pivotal moment in the history of the long suppressed Muslim World for this I am a bit sorry. Which way things go we do not know. In geology past is a key to the present. History is more complicated - we can be pessimists but we can also have hopes that things will improve.

Egypt, 2011. Is it Iran in 1979, Russia 1in 917 or is it Eastern Europe of 1989. I don't know, but I suspect it will be something in the middle (just to avoid the issue). Sometimes cynical sceptics have to be superseded by dreamers, for without dreamers no revolutions are made, when revolutions are cried for. Without realists, none of the fruits of revolutions survive for long.

Nationalism Explained

Some might refer to otherwise quite liberal me as a nationalist, which might have some truth to it, although i view things through a different prism.

While modern concept of nationalism is a European invention (or distortion), the old concept of family, clan, and blood loayalties and resulting sentiment of what one would call "soil nationalism" existed from the time immemorial and will always be with us. To deny your roots, your language and religion is a grave sin in the eyes of a nationalist.

What nationalism is remains a hotly contested subject on which there is little general consensus. The clearest example of opposition to nationalism is cosmopolitanism, with adherents as diverse as liberals, Marxists, and anarchists, who hold all people equal and strive to eliminate cultural and ethnic differences. On the other hand, main universal religions - Islam and Christianity, in particular - also to certain degree restrict modernist nationalism, while unwilling to restrict ethnic one.

Reliance on ethnicity to spread religion is a major boon. Nations that have fused religion into the sense of nationhood are almost unassailable - like Jews, Armenians or Iranians. They will have less internal conflict but will receive double reinforcement from the two powerful ideas: ideas of sanctity of blood and sanctity of Revelation. Nations where religious affiliations divide, generally fare worse - like Yugoslavia or Northern Ireland. So called post-religious Europe is in fact still very culturally Christian anywhere from a small hamlet to a big city (although maybe in denial of it).

In this sense true non-expansive and non-chauvinist nationalism is still a parochial force, for it does not strive for imposition of international values and is content to maintane values specific to a certain tribe or ethnicity. It carries no universal values and therefore does not clash with whatever other values a person can hold dear.

Recent non-western example of confusion between specific ethnic and religious sentiment is Pushtun problem hapless Americans now finding themselves in. The reason it may not be possible to fight Taliban in Pakistan or elsewhere it is because in a sense Taliban are Pathans, who are fighting for and within the bounds of Pushtunwali code and in this sense they are "freedom fighters", however barbaric they may be for Europeans. All should remember that Afghanistan is a gravesite for all of its invaders and occupants, irrespective of their might.

Hands Off China!

Emotions always carry the day - especially if these emotions are about China, which Westerners can not live without but still fear.

Chinese leaders are in angry denial of the criticism of their handling of the cituations that is so untimely - just before olymplics. "There is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," Chinese leaders say.

But even if this is not true, and recent events were just sporadic protest aganst the Chinese, the following is true. What right have other countries to interfere criticise and object to the way most populous country in the worlds conducts its internal affars. Of course, Tibetan independence is fashionable in many Bohemian or not so Bohemian circles in the West, but - despite equally gruesome persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjang region - barely a squeak comes from the West on treatment of Uighurs in China. I empatise with Tibetans, but I see that Tibet is highlighted in the West for two reasons: 1) Presumed cultural affinity of liberals with Tibet and 2) desire of conservatives to see China's wings clipped.

Almost every ethnic minority in China is discriminated against simply because of the cultural incompatibilty of the Chinese with those minority cultures. China is not intent on forcing people to adopt to Chinese way of life but the assimilation is happening anyway, because China dominates these regions, and it is through China that people in these remote regions gain access to the World.

But China is an empire which took hold of those territories in fair conquest. It has thus a right to govern those as long as it exercises a fair judgement and does not commit mass murder. No evidence of the Nazist policies has been observed and China brought prosperity to otherwise backward regions. Only by internal force, this great country should break apart violently or without violence.

The Last Caliph

On the blog which linked to Riri's I have found a damning injuctions against the destruction of Khilafah.

On the 28th of Rajab 1342AH, corresponding to 3 March 1924CE, the Khilafah was destroyed at the hands of the colonial powers with the assistance of collaborators such as Mustafa Kemal. Allah (swt) has obligated us to rule by His Law and ordered us to shield the Ummah with the Khilafah state.

I have an amblivalent attitude to the Califate as it has been destroyed by Ataturk, but I do want to come to his aid. He has done the unthinkable and in order to save the heartland of Ottoman Empire from the Western Domination stood against the alliance of Sultan and Allies to preserve independence of the Turkish State in the time of peril. The alternative was a foreign domination under a Western protectorate with monarchies of the type created or propped-up in Iraq, Jordan and Egypt.

The Turkish national movement, as the details explained in Turkish War of Independence forms a Turkish Grand National Assembly, secured formal recognition of the nation’s independence and new borders on July 23, 1923 through the Treaty of Lausanne. The National Assembly declared Turkey a republic on October 29 and proclaimed Ankara its new capital. After nearly 700 years, the Ottoman Empire had officially ceased to exist. However, under Allied direction and diktat, the Sultan pledged to suppress such movements and secured an official fatwa from the Sheikh ul-Islam declaring them to be un-Islamic. But the nationalists steadily gained momentum and began to enjoy widespread support. Many sensed that the nation was ripe for revolution. In an effort to neutralize this threat, the Sultan agreed to hold elections, with the hope of placating and co-opting the nationalists. To his dismay, nationalist groups swept the polls, prompting him to again dissolve parliament in April 1923. The National Assembly abolished the Caliphate on March 3, 1924. Abdul Mejid was sent into exile to France along with the remaining members of the Ottoman House, marking the official end of the "Ottoman Caliphate".

It is interesting to note that the last "Caliph" Abdulmejid II was an urbane and an intellectual.
He served as Chairman of the Ottoman Artist's Society. He is considered as one of most important painters of last period Ottoman art. His paintings of the Harem, showing a modern musical gathering, and of a woman reading Goethe's Faust were displayed at an exhibition of Ottoman paintings in Vienna in 1918. His personal self-portrait can be seen at Istanbul Modern.

For Turkey Ataturk did a right thing, destroying a poweless institution which had become an instrument in the hands of would-be colonizers. The effects of what this decision for a long time for other Sunni Muslims were minimal; this was until now when people living in a historical warp want to return to a political equation which did not exist for many centuries. Some Sunnis feel that re-creation the Caliphate will give Muslims a purpose the so lacked in the past.

Humans and God

Karen Armstrong in her History of God makes – amongst many others I shall list later – a very interesting observation on religion nature of human beings:

Humans started worship gods as soon as they had become recognizably human.
It was not tacked to a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings or priests but was natural to humanity. Indeed current secularism is an entirely new experience unprecendented in human history. We have yet to see how it will work. Our ethical secular ideal has its own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people faith in ultimate meaning of life that were provided by more conventional religions. It is impossible not to have a religion in this sense.

Thus religion is something innate in humans at one level - and also something cultivated at a different level, which is rather like art or poetry. At one level everyone can proclaim a belief, but real iman (faith) has to be cultivated – and not by therapy or new age yoga sessions. It takes a person greatest effort to achieve this strong and all-encompassing faith; this is not achieved by idle speculation about Holy Books – for this is irrelevant for a true mystic.



The greatest error of those who assume that God is an objective reality – a Being to be supported and fought against – is that they fight or support something that does not really exist. Here both sides of the argument are rather irreligious or faithless for they attach attributes to God, attributes that are human and emotional.

As Hadith Qudsi says “ I was a hidden Treasure and I yearned to be known. Thus I created people to be known by them”. There is no rational proof of God’s sadness; it can only be deduced from our perpetual longing for the embrace with the Absolute. Each human being is a unique epiphany of a Hidden God, manifesting him in a particular and unrepeatable manner.

Book of the Spirit

I am in the middle of (actually on the second volume!) going through Great Turkmenbashi's Magnum Opus. It is called Ruhnama or "Book of the Spirit" and I have to admit it is the best book ever written by a crazed dictator. I have read them all - I went through Das Capital (abridged), and Little Red Book by Mao, and (in my youth) through Che's Diaries. I read Qaddafi's Green Book too. But they are all dwarfed by Asiatic splendor of this one. Most of those other books are full practical advice of how to run a dictatorship or start a revolution. Not so Niyazov, who claimed divinity - a rare thing in our day and age. Without breaking away from Islam - he send himself (by a jumbled and incoherent style of the book I assume it was him who wrote, or at least dictated it) on an interesting spiritual journey through mysticism and Islamic heterodoxy. His poetry is childish but sincere in its attempts to deify Turkmen nation and its spirit. Good thing it did not work.

It starts most strongly in the prophetic vein:

This book, written with the help of inspiration sent to my heart by the God who created this wonderful universe I wrote this book containing the nation spirit,
its morality and historical immortality. My dear Turkmen nation, in order to urge your soul and mind to fulfill these duties an to raise a strong faith in your heart for self-confidence, and to be a support to you, I have written this book, Ruhnama. You are the meaning of my life and source of my strength.

Blissfully unaware

This was sent to a mailing list I subscribe to.

There are many incompetent people in the world. But a Cornell University study has shown that most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent.

People who do things badly, according to David A. Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.

The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, the researchers -- Dunning and Justin Kruger, then a graduate student -- suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

``Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices,
but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it,'' wrote Kruger,
now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dunning.

This deficiency in ``self-monitoring skills,'' the researchers said, helps explain the tendency of the humor-impaired to persist in telling jokes that are not funny, of day traders to repeatedly jump into the market -- and repeatedly lose out -- and of the politically clueless to continue holding forth at dinner parties on the fine points of campaign strategy.

Some college students, Dunning said, evince a similar blindness: After doing badly on a test, they spend hours in his office, explaining why the answers he suggests for the test questions are wrong.

In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning tested their theory of incompetence. They found that subjects who scored in the lowest quartile on tests of logic, English grammar and humor were also the most likely to ``grossly overestimate'' how well they had performed.

In all three tests, subjects' ratings of their ability were positively linked to their actual scores. But the lowest-ranked participants showed much greater distortions in their self-estimates.

More Poetry Please .... Nesimi again

These are my translations of few of Nesimi Rubayi quatrains:

I am a slave of Truth, and bringer I was made of news
By Grace of Allah, bring the His knowledge for you to use
There are so many Worlds – Ten Thousand to be exact
But God is One, and everywhere He is true

*****
Don’t waste your time, as only foolish people can
Do understand: Creation of the world is Man
And in his eyes – The Meaning of the Universe
And everything that God had said and planned

*****
We always look for meaning, always argue in emotion
The Ignorance is Enemy. It can destroy – so hear my caution
Lo! Hear those who understood of Love, who cry. For them
An Ocean into teardrop changed, and drop became an ocean.

And this translation courtesy of Poetry Chaikahana which I did not have time to over.

I'm thought and beauty. I am attributes. I am desire.
I am the portrait, and the lover charmed by it I am.
I am the balm and doctor, the recovery and pain.
The sufferer the relief of suffering I am.

I am the Holy Book, its letters, he to whom God spoke.
The word, the one who spoke it and the argument I am.
The bearer of the cup I am, the wineseller, the drunk.
The spring of Heaven, the winepourer, the wine and cup I am.

I am much-repeated prayer. I am hypocrisy.
I am the one-God faith and of that the flame I am.
I am the Joy-provider, the All-merciful, the Wise.
Beatitude, Eternity and Paradise I am.

Know God, acknowledge him, Nesimi! You are mankind's son
And I am he who did receive from God the name of Man

Happy Muslim Year 1429 indeed.

Conform but never change...

We all tell lies and hide our true feelings, for complete free exression is a social impossiblity. From an early age we learn to conceal our thoughts, telling insecure people what they want to hear, lest we offend them. For most of us this is natural - there are ideas and values that most people accept, and it is pointless to argue with them. It will make life harder for us.

There are people however, who see such societal restraints as an intolerable restraint on their freedom, and who have a need to prove the superiority of their values and beliefs. In the end, their arguments convince only a few and offend a great many. The reason that arguments do not work is because most people hold their ideas very dear to their heart; they do not want to rework their habits of thinking, and when you challenge them diretly through your arguments or your behaviour they become hostile. Without employing other tactics, only brute force can resolve issues then.

The problem with those who persist in their arguments against such a tide of human inertia, that they rarely succeed and succeed in only hurting themselves. The blame - and they rarely blame themselves - is really on them and their inability to get in any sort of compromise with current situation. Being a rebel is a personality trait and has nothing to do with intellegenence and honesty, yet these types of characters are valued highly for their uncompromising stands on issues.

Wise and clever people learn early on that they can display conventional behaviour and mouth conventional ideas without actually believing in them. This is not a hypocrisy -as rebel may think - the wise people share their originality with those who are sure to appreciate their uniqueness.

A Better World...

Humans have an overarching need to satisfy their spiritual matters -and Religion (here I want to avoid a discussion of a a particular Religion, for in my understanding the core of all religions is one and the same – even in polytheism) quenches the humanity’s thirst. Whatever the criticism of religion says about it, it is right in one thing when defining it as “backward”. Religion is a Faith in One Deity married to – or even better said - grounded in a Tradition, and as such it is always inward looking rather than a forward looking. Some impatient madmen who want to separate from the flock attack Tradition, considering it to be a chain to break free from, but Humanity appreciate its cohesive power, its soothing comfort in the time of need, its healing quality.

Modern life is full of complex questions to which no science can ever prescribe an answer to. Governance based on the Spirit of God, can help people to feel their lives with meaning, if they so choose, - it can help but it should be no overbearing parent. What is spiritually guided government in practice is hard to define for this is a matter of great concern for those irreligious people who consider it a threat to their freedom of conciseness.

In the next few paragraphs I will try to emphasize several key points associated with my concept of what this could mean in practice. I believe that the value based society should be about 1) Harmony, 2) Charity and 3) Manners. I will explain this strange choice.

Harmony as Conflict Avoidance

Harmony is a most important aspect of a morally guided society. Harmony emphasizes individual and communal responsibility for actions and thoughts expressed in an unwritten code of behaviour. (emphasize unwritten).

Harmonious society evolves around the principle of conflict minimization, recognizing that a degree of conflict will remain – and maybe even be beneficial. Members of this type of society are distinguished by a certain degree of conformism that comes from adherence to a set of community values. Hence, the dominant community will define set of values to conform to – in Muslim countries it is Islam, in Christian ones – Christianity and so on. This could be called a positive hypocrisy – both majority and minority recognize boundaries they can and can not cross and behave accordingly within the cultural orbit of the society.

Majority should take great care in protecting and truly befreinding minority populations – friendship being a next step from tolerance towards love. Respect does not imply acceptance – nor does it imply surrender but simply an understanding of diversity. Protection against provocation from within to destabilize harmony should be build into the fabric of dominant society. This can and should be done through propagation of the maxim “To each his own” as opposed to fundamentalist oppression. This should again be taught and emphasized time and again.

Minority, however also has a responsibility towards maintaining self-censorship against the wild and dangerous elements within it, who are intent on destroying the delicate balance - unless, and only unless the communal rights of the minority are truly in danger. In this condition it will be imperative for a minority to be vocal, because it is physically threatened. By this time, however the society had ceased to be in harmony.

Charity and Respect

In the West many of the societal and racial inequalities are only hidden by a veneer of correctness, and glued by law enforcement.
There is no mechanism in which this translates into individual and communal responsibility.

In the spiritually guided society so called family values will be emphasized. Charity towards fellow humans is a basic need that is important to fulfil as the first step in building communal relationship between the weak and the strong, between possessor and dispossessed. Respect to private property is another key value to instill – It is still sadly lacking in formerly socialist countries.

Proper Conduct

Modern society deemphasizes importance of good conduct putting formal education ahead of “making a good citizen”. To me manners and politness are not just nice to have – they are what glues the people together by an unwritten law of respect. Muslims are supposed to follow this conduct which I call “adab” – although good conduct and politeness are sadly lacking in us, probably due to Mediterranean temper.

This creates all sorts of conflict, which has long moved away from a generational conflict into adult scene – where politeness is viewed as old fashioned bollocks. Things unacceptable years ago are deemed .de rigueur now – like profanity -and discussed on the TV. Take teenage sex – which existed at all times - teenagers being sexually active, but it was never preached as virtue. It is now. I don’t think there is good evidence that acceptance of a certain problem as a fact – like teenage pregnancy – leads to the diminishing of thereof. If anything it probably does the opposite (and don't cite Holland as an example) as permissiviness opens many barriers.

Break-down in human conduct is the first step along the slipper slope to breakdown of law and order. This can not be tackled by tough policing as Britain is sadly finding out – but only by nurturing a different culture.

Time
All of this will take time – a lot of time and this is not a place for an impatient policymaker.

Fear and Loathing

American newspaper notices in glee:

Riva Kastoryano, an expert on immigration at Sciences Po in Paris, argues that the root of greater apprehension among mainstream Europeans is a fear of the spread of Islam. "Much of the old xenophobia about foreigners in Europe has been recast today as a perception of 'Islamophobia,' " she says.

Slowly, as trust erodes and suspicions mount, attitudes will harden. With yet another bombing (and sadly, there will be more, even if 5 or 10 years down the road) more draconian laws will be passed, limiting freedoms of ethnic and religious minority, not only limiting but halting immigration from specific groups of people. As for people already in Europe -because of practical impossiblity to segregate by religious affiliation - the attitudes will affect the ethnic harmony currently existng in the West. Citizens will accept this limitation on freedoms without a second thought - for they believe, rightly, that protection against perceived attack justifies limitation of certain freedoms.

I have always believed that liberal attitudes are a luxury to be disposed of in real or perceived times of hardship they are as unnatural as feeling of satisfied stomach during a gunfight. I do not wish that repression shall rule over Europe - on the contrary I love freedoms it enjoys - but I note that it is impossible for society not to change as a whole into something humanity is more accustomed to - authoritarism. One can not institute repression against a particular group and hope not to be affected by it. We disentegrate through fear - an ultimate executioner.

The culture of fear rules in the Western media on the subject of Islamic Terrorism, which, although a threat that can not destroy anything beyond few buildings -a destructive and mindless force - reigns supreme in Western mind. I have noticed this based on the overblown reaction on recent Azeri incidents : when I arrived in Baku yesterday there was no agitation, no heightened security or even a worry that thing like this may have happened. And I suspect this is true for many other events in places so that overall the picture is being created of despair, misery and failings around the Globe. I somehow suspect that even in troubled country of Pakistan people live their lives without a worry or second thought, and yet people who are infinitely safer and are protected by hundred a barrier, inexplicably feel unsafe and unsecure in their own homes and under attack. Some people loose sleep at night, others avoid their darker skinned neighbours with the same action they avoid feisty gangs of teenagers - by crossing to the other side of the street. They look at every dark face with suspicion, every beard with fear, every hijab with apprehension. And I would do the same.... Or would I?

A question of cleavage

A little lighter note with respect to previous posts on a future of the World.

Just yesterday me and my mother were talking to a lady, who shall remain nameless, in a lovely setting of a Chinese restaurant. Subject of the conversation shall also remain nameless, it only suffice to say that it concerned some internal Azeri matters. However what should be made known - and I know the lady does not read this or any other blog - is the cleavage. Yes, I saw what one can consider an full view of the lady's breasts - no disrespect intended. Now, people can accuse me of being a prude - which I am not, for those who know me well - but I thought this quite inappropriate for a setting and a subject of conversation. I fidgeted and fidgeted trying not to notice practically exposed bust, but this was hard to achieve during a conversation since it required looking straight in the face. I could never dream of raising any objections but this made me uncomfortable (which I survived) but the following thoughts arose in my mind. Am I a Muslim bigot unable to stomach a full frontal view of woman's breast in public or there are limits on a behaviour in public, which can be applied to a person of any creed and persuasion. In other words - am I rude for judging her in my mind a certain way, or is she rude in behaving a certain way towards the person she held a conversation with. It also suffices to say, that she did not notice anything or considered her behaviour in any way offensive.