"the egypt blog" - 5 new articles
Fi Balad El Weladفي بلد الولاد
"في بلد الولاد"، من تأليف مصطفى فتحي، هو كتاب يسرد قصة حياة رجل مثلي مصري بحلوها القليل ومرها الكثير في هذا البلد المسلم المحافظ الذي يرفض المثلية الجنسية. هذا الكتاب هو الأول من نوعه بحيث أنها المرة الأولى التي يسرد فيها كتاب مصري مشاكل المثليين ويدعو إلى تقبل واحترام المجتمع المثلي المقموع في مصر. الكتاب متوفر بمكتبة البلد مقابل الجامعة الأمريكية في وسط البلد بالقاهرة. ثمن الكتاب 10 جنيهات.  My first HIV test at a government labTo my amazement, the way I was received by the doctors prior to the actual testing was pretty welcoming. I found that they didn't ask for a name, but rather for a pseudonym and a birthdate to be my identity there. Then, I was sent to a counselor whose job was to give simple information about AIDS and HIV. The guy didn't show any signs of disrespect for the fact that I'm going to check if I have HIV, which was astonishing. I heard that until very recently AIDS was seen as such a tabboo even by doctors. And after the counseling session they gave me a few condoms and lubricants, and three booklets with information about AIDS, and then I went to have the test. I'll go get the results next Sunday, hopefully it'll be negative, wish me luck!! :-)
 Egypt moving forward?I've been hearing from people who work with UNAIDS in Egypt that we're moving forward as far as AIDS patients are concerned. As I mentioned years ago, there's now free AIDS medication and testing. There's also been talk that we're getting one step closer to gay rights here. A new book about to be published on July 1 discusses the dilemmas that the gay community faces in Egypt, so it seems that things are not as much of a tabboo as they used to be, following the openly gay characters in recent Egyptian movies. It seems like Egypt is trying to clean its dirty human/[sexual-]minority rights history now.  Another 30 years like theseBy Zvi Bar'el Source: Haaretz.com It's hard to say about the peace between Israel and Egypt that "time flies when you're having fun." This week will mark 30 years since the signing of the peace agreement, and Egypt is still suspect. It never passed the test of "tourist peace"; masses of Egyptians never came to vacation on Tel Aviv's beaches. Israeli authors do not appear at Egyptian book fairs, and the Israeli embassy in Cairo is closely monitored, not only by Egyptian intelligence but also by intellectuals, journalists and reporters ready to pounce on any Egyptian "spy" who penetrates the besieged structure to ask for a visa to Israel. Professional associations forbid their members from visiting Israel, and when an Egyptian parliamentarian wants to insult his colleague he tells him that "even the Israelis would not do what you are doing." This is a peace that from the start was based not on love but on the slogan that has remained so important for Israel: "No more war. No more bloodshed." A peace not only free of war but also from the threat of war. Because of this peace, the Arab world's leading country found itself isolated by the Arabs, but maintained its diplomatic ties even when Israel occupied another Arab country, Lebanon, killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of homes over the past 30 years. And it has kept these ties going even when Israel's current foreign minister-designate, Avigdor Lieberman, called for bombing the Aswan Dam, and when Israel embarked on a war in the Gaza Strip. One can only guess Israel's reaction if some country did to the Jewish people even one tenth of what Israel has done to the Palestinians. And after all, Egypt still lauds Anwar Sadat as "the hero of war and peace," and President Hosni Mubarak continues to challenge extremist Arab leaders by saying that anyone who wants to wage war on Israel should do so from his own territory. Egypt took the strategic decision not to play this game. True, the Egyptian ambassador may not participate in the 30-year anniversary celebrations because Lieberman is about to become foreign minister, and Egyptians prefer to celebrate the victory of the October War and not the day that peace was signed. But it is only in Egypt where the head of Israel's Shin Bet security service and the head of the military wing of Hamas have been within touching distance of each other. Cold or hot, this is a more successful peace than that between India and Pakistan, Syria and Lebanon or Egypt and Syria. All maintain full diplomatic ties, replete with a deep sense of revulsion for each other. This is a strategic peace between states and not between nations. A peace of interests, the kind that suits precisely the threats that Israel has tried to neutralize. Its test, like that of the peace with Jordan and the peace Israel aspires to have with Syria, is not in the "quantity" of normalization but in the number of border incidents that are prevented. A peace where the meeting of intelligence chiefs is considered by both sides to be a greater achievement than another meeting in Cairo or Jerusalem between an Israeli and an Egyptian author. The expression "cold peace" has carved out a place in Israel's diplomatic and public lexicon. But it is interesting to speculate how Israel would respond if a million Egyptian tourists visited Tel Aviv's beaches, hitting on Israeli girls and flooding the hotels, and the Egyptian dialect was heard in every corner of the malls of Rishon Letzion or Ga'ash. And what would happen to that same peace if hundreds of thousands of Egyptians tried to take advantage of it to work in Israel, or if Egyptian businessmen bought strategically important Israeli companies? Are you feeling a little nervous already? Yes, we want a warm peace with Egypt, but at a distance. Tourists from Scandinavia? Yes. French apartment buyers? Sure. Just not Egyptians - Arabs, I mean. It seems that both sides enjoy the peace's coolness. In Israel it serves as an excuse for lazy diplomacy because, after all, it's not worth giving up territory for a "cold peace" like this. For Egypt, this "cold" grants it the appropriate degree of distance that allows it to enjoy the status of "respectability" in the Middle East. All we want is to have the opportunity to reach another 30 years of this sort of peace.  Popping up once moreI haven't been doing much writing much lately, true. The thing is, well, sometimes I regret having told so many people about this blog that I can't really use it anymore as my own, secret place, if you will. You know, my own dirty place where anything can be thrown in and off my back.. So, other than all these cultured articles, the political talk and the religious talk and the minority talk, not much personal talk can be spat out here, 'cuz it'll probably end up the talk of my surrounding society heheh. There's all sorts of shit in my life that I'd like to share with you here, but don't have the courage to risk it being known by my mom for instance (mom, are you reading this? ;-).  More Recent Articles |
