Sometimes I Wonder If There Will Be A Moment When Reality And Myth, Truth And Lies, Will Collide

by i Tue Aug 23, 2005 16:18

Egypt is in presidential election campaigns.

"For decades, Egypt's biggest and oldest opposition bloc, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, kept a relatively low political profile, while simultaneously gaining street credibility for social programmes that helped people at the grassroots level. More recently, the group has asserted itself in the country's professional syndicates and associations, virtually dominating some of them.

These days, with the opening up of an increasingly heated political scene, the Brotherhood has become a force to be reckoned with. According to Islamist lawyer Montasser El-Zayat, the group has no fewer than two million active members and another three million supporters nationwide.

It's no wonder, then, as the 7 September presidential election nears, that the Brotherhood's support is being sought out by several presidential hopefuls. The group itself is still undecided -- both on the matter of taking part in the poll in the first place, and if so, as to which candidate they might support.

In all cases, the illegal but tolerated Brotherhood is clearly able to mobilise a constituency. In the 1984 parliamentary elections, the Wafd Party allied itself with the group and won 58 seats. Today, without the Brotherhood alliance, the Wafd has four. Recent Brotherhood demonstrations have gathered as many as tens of thousands of people in 18 different locations. The latest demonstration, which took place on Sunday, featured thousands of participants.

Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, the Brotherhood's supreme guide, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, said the group was "consulting with members and reviewing the candidates' platforms," aiming to make a decision on the matter by next week."

read more at Al ahram (aligned to egyptian state media)
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/756/eg11.htm

by Kevin Quinn Sun Aug 21, 2005 15:11 keviquin at rogers dot com

There's a disturbing, for me, theatre of the absurd in all these current events.

I find it virtually incredible that so many people can accept the media and political spin as Truth - I guess it's because the alternative is totally in contravention to what we percieve ourselves to be.
If it wasn't for the fact that it's all about messing up the rest of the world, it might be entertaining.

The Palestinians were robbed. And now the robbers are giving some loot back in order to 'make a deal' to keep the greater part of what they've stolen.

These settlers - in neocon-speak 'squatters' if it was happening in Amurrica - by and large North American Aliyah types, bring an interesting frontier western aspect to the whole thing. The men are steely-eyed defenders, quick on the trigger the women fecund and sassy - all with a slathering of Yiddish meshuggeh-ism. We see them being 'torn from their homes' - most other people would have packed up long ago, given the hefty compensation rates and the opportunity to move into more secure settlements in the West Bank.

Iraq is just plain tragic. It's business, or holidays, as usual at the Bush Ranch. It's back-to-school shopping season and getting the young folk off to college for those not too intimately involved with the National Guard. I guess 'keeping on' is the best way to 'honour the sacrifice' of those poor slobs who regularly grace the news media in their borrowed A1dress, standing, proudly, before the Star Spangled Banner for their training graduation photo. The recruiters, however, are running out of 'Mall Rats', and I don't think even the courts can help them keep their quota.

'Gonzo' went out in a blaze of hollywood pyrotechics, but then he was already dead, and cremated. Too bad the poor sap doing Haliburton time in Iraq still has to have all his nerve endings intact when he (she) sees the light.
It's all part of the play, and all plays eventually reach a conclusion.