Our admiration for Obama is grounded in what he represents: fairness. He is the product of a just, democratic system that respects equal opportunity for education and work. This system allowed a black man, after centuries of racial discrimination, to become president. This fairness is precisely what we are missing in Egypt.
That is why the image of Obama meeting with his predecessors in the White House was so touching. Here in Egypt, we don’t have previous or future presidents, only the present head of state who seized power through sham elections and keeps it by force, and who will probably remain in power until the end of his days.
Accordingly, Egypt lacks a fair system that bases advancement on qualifications. Young people often get good jobs because they have connections. Ministers are not elected, but appointed by the president. Not surprisingly, this inequitable system often leads young people to frustration or religious extremism. Others flee the country at any cost, hoping to find justice elsewhere.
We saw Obama as a symbol of this justice. We welcomed him with almost total enthusiasm until he underwent his first real test: Gaza.
This essay does have some interesting points, but at the same time, much of it reads like non sequiturs – there does not appear to be any link to reality.
Justice in Gaza – huh? Justice in Gaza requires the terrorists who have been setting off missiles – over 4,000 in the past 3 years – from schools, neighborhoods, hospitals, and mosques to be held accountable. Perhaps if the “Muslim world” really had a sense of justice, Israel wouldn’t have had to strike in Gaza.
And, actually, I listen to the new messiah’s words of apology and wonder what world he has been living in. Obama seems to be totally disconnected from reality. See Charles Krauthammer’s recent column for a dose of reality:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/us_respected_and_bled_for_musl.html
I think that the article would make more sense if the Honorable Justice Thomas was used instead of he who is likely an affirmative action president.
Don
While Israel is a signatory to the Geneva Convention, it (and the US and UK) has not signed Protocol 3 of the Chemical Weapons treaty. White Phosphorous was also used in the Iraq war by US and UK primarily for providing a smoke screen.
Geneva notwithstanding, white phosphorous aka whiskey poppa, is a legit and valuable munition.
Lot of wooly-thinking here, racial claptrap. Obama’s elevation has nothing to do, contrary to the writer’s assertion, with ‘fairness’ or ‘qualifications,’ but everything to do with his electoral majority. And: Do Egyptians, as the writer hints, feel that an American president will embrace their agendas because he doesn’t look like the other American presidents? Has political thinking turned so childish that people of color, especially darker-toned Nubians, are dancing in the streets of Cairo? Does the president’s skin color mean that lighter-complected peoples, including white Americans, and many Israelis for that matter, ought to be in a deep funk?
Well, Israel does include a number of black Ethiopian Jews.
[blockquote] Israel used White Phosphorus against HAMAS targets in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. This violated no international laws or conventions.
White Phosphorus (WP), known as Willy Pete, is used for signaling, screening, and incendiary purposes. White Phosphorus can be used to destroy the enemy’s equipment or to limit his vision. It is used against vehicles, petroleum, oils and lubricants (POL) and ammunition storage areas, and enemy observers. WP can be used as an aid in target location and navigation. It is usually dispersed by explosive munitions. It can be fired with fuze time to obtain an airburst. White phosphorus was used most often during World War II in military formulations for smoke screens, marker shells, incendiaries, hand grenades, smoke markers, colored flares, and tracer bullets. [/blockquote]
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm
What you cannot do is use it directly as an anti-personnel munition.
WP is especially useful as a “smoke” screen if the enemy has thermal imaging technology. It is a perfectly legitimate munition for it’s intended purposes.
Of course, the Israelis don’t have to clean White Phosphorus up.
It is still useful to get the other side, and the beginning of disillusionment.
I do know Egyptians who support the Israeli action against Gaza and do not support Hamas.
The writer’s view of “democracy” in Egypt is accurate. However, people are very afraid that real democracy would result in the election of a Muslim Brotherhood government. If that happened, I would leave, and a lot of Egyptians would want to.
Not too many Nubians in Cairo. They live mostly in Upper Egypt, where they were resettled after Nubia disappeared under Lake Nasser. I do see Africans here. We see a lot of Sudanese and Ethiopians at church. And when I went to the bazaar in November a Kenyan jewelry seller was pretty jazzed about Obama.
However, I have an odd observation, having been in India for two years and now Egypt for one year. Both Indians and Egyptians think, of themselves and not because of any outside ideas, that paler skin is better and more attractive than dark skin. This may be from socio-economic or tribal feelings; I don’t know. But it is true in both countries that people think more about skin color than many white Americans do, especially younger white Americans. Many Egyptians I know think of beauty through a color lens — the paler, the more beautiful, without regard to the actual features of the person in question.