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 ...
A gift from the W.H. occupant that will keep on giving for many years like Jimmy Carter’s Iran !
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.
We would never let in a persecuted Christian minority though.
Leave the Islam and mullahs at home.
The islamification of Egypt
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/02/01/am-i-the-only-one-troubled-by-cairo-street-scenes/
As they should. Get out.
A smart choice indeed. Run for your lives!
As the robot in ‘I, Robot’ screams to Will Smith:
“RUN!!!!!!”
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 Obamas 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.
Pakistans army blusters about blatant aggression by America. But the embarrassing fact is that the armys 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 Pakistans 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 Pakistans 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 whats next? A Persian nuclear bomb, most likely.
Irans bravado isnt 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. Theyll 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 Mubaraks 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
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