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Rich Egyptians weigh emigration as Islamists surge
AFP ^ | December 02, 2011 | Hania El Malawani

Posted on 12/02/2011 6:40:27 PM PST by george76

For decades, Egypt's Westernised elite kept the country's growing religosity at arm's length, but a projected Islamist surge in the first post-revolution polls has driven many to think of moving abroad.

Sporting the latest fashions and mingling in upmarket country clubs, Egypt's rich fear a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood and hardline Salafis in the first phase of parliamentary elections presages change ahead.

"I hope they don't impose the veil and ban women from driving like in Saudi Arabia," said coquettish fifty-something Naglaa Fahmi from her gym in the leafy neighbourhood of Zamalek.

In a nearby luxury hotel, Nardine -- one of Egypt's eight million Coptic Christians who are alarmed by the prospect of a new Islamist-dominated parliament -- is pondering a move aroad.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: christians; coptic; copticchristians; egypt; islam; muslimbrotherhood; salafis

1 posted on 12/02/2011 6:40:30 PM PST by george76
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To: george76

A gift from the W.H. occupant that will keep on giving for many years like Jimmy Carter’s Iran !


2 posted on 12/02/2011 6:44:02 PM PST by CORedneck
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To: george76

Bring them to America. We could use their wealth and firsthand knowledge of the enemy. They need to leave their corruption and cronyism at home, though.


3 posted on 12/02/2011 7:00:16 PM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: george76
I'd take the Coptic, although that is really a shame, as they have been ther longer than the muslims.

We would never let in a persecuted Christian minority though.

4 posted on 12/02/2011 7:05:21 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: 1010RD

Leave the Islam and mullahs at home.


5 posted on 12/02/2011 7:09:39 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: george76

The islamification of Egypt

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/02/01/am-i-the-only-one-troubled-by-cairo-street-scenes/


6 posted on 12/02/2011 7:18:50 PM PST by listenhillary (Look your representatives in the eye and ask if they intend to pay off the debt. They will look away)
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To: george76

As they should. Get out.


7 posted on 12/02/2011 7:20:36 PM PST by allmost
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To: george76

A smart choice indeed. Run for your lives!


8 posted on 12/02/2011 8:23:38 PM PST by catbertz (Easter egg...I wants it.)
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To: george76

As the robot in ‘I, Robot’ screams to Will Smith:

“RUN!!!!!!”


9 posted on 12/02/2011 10:27:55 PM PST by Levante
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To: listenhillary

Dubious future in Muslim heartland

STEVE HUNTLEY

shuntley.cst@gmail.com
Last Modified: Dec 2, 2011 05:21PM

The turmoil, upheaval, voting for Islamists and inbred distrust of the West that are roiling the Muslim heartland portend at least an unsettled future and maybe one filled with conflict and strife at odds with the hope inspired by President Barack Obama’s outreach to the Islamic world and by the Arab Spring.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Pakistan, where each new development seems to be a new crisis plunging relations with Islamabad to a new low and undermining prospects for a successful outcome in Afghanistan. The latest is the battle across the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan that left two dozen Pakistani soldiers dead in NATO air strikes. The details of how this open warfare between supposed allies broke out remain murky pending an official investigation.

Pakistan’s army blusters about “blatant aggression” by America. But the embarrassing fact is that the army’s intelligence service funds and provides support to our enemies operating out of safe havens in Pakistan. Afghan sources say coalition forces were attacked by militants firing from positions that turned out to be close to two Pakistan military outposts. Given the history of Pakistani duplicity and double-dealing — as in Osama bin Laden hiding virtually in the shadows of Pakistan’s version of West Point — there is little if any reason to doubt this account.

Pakistan used the battle as a reason to pull out of an international conference aimed at reassuring the world that Afghanistan will emerge from war as a place safe for investment. One can wonder whether Islamabad worries that such reassurance will attract business to Kabul from Pakistan’s arch-enemy India, which already is committing resources there.

Next door, Iran flaunts its contempt for the West and international law by sending thugs to invade, trash and briefly kidnap diplomats at the British embassy. It was shades of the 1979 invasion and hostage taking at the U.S. embassy. And it comes only weeks after the disclosure of an Iranian plot to assassinate a Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington. The mullahs paid no price for that outrage, which perhaps encouraged the attack on the British. Who knows what’s next? A Persian nuclear bomb, most likely.

Iran’s bravado isn’t lost on the Islamic world. Spitting in the eye of the West always plays well in the Arab Street. No one should forget that amid all the talk about moderate Islamists making gains in the upheaval brought on by the Arab spring unseating dictators.

Consider Libya. Islamist-led forces throw off four decades of oppression, economic stagnation and torture under Moammar Gadhafi, and what is among the first priorities for their new regime? Reinstating polygamy.

In Egypt, ask Coptic Christians how moderate they rate the Islamists who are rushing in to fill the power vacuum left after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. They’ll tell you about mobs burning churches and murdering Copts. Followers of this ancient faith, predating Islam, are leaving Egypt, literally running for their lives. One-hundred-thousand Christian families have left Egypt since Mubarak’s overthrow, reports the New York Times.

Christians also are fleeing Holy Land areas dominated by Palestinians. The Christian organization Open Doors finds Christian churches persecuted in Islamic countries ranging from Iran to Saudi Arabia to Iraq to Yemen.

Resurgent political Islamism has hardly shown itself to be an open-arms, peaceful movement.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/9178089-452/dubious-future-in-muslim-heartland.html?print=true


10 posted on 12/03/2011 7:34:36 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: george76
and yet ...While the international community and much of the world's media has been focused on the so-called "Arab Spring" and on events transpiring across the Middle East, they seem to have turned a blind eye to South East Asia and in particular on West Papua and the plight of the West Papuan's...

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

11 posted on 12/04/2011 2:46:47 AM PST by expatguy (The Expat Needs Beer Money - Cough Up!)
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