Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Go Easy on Mubarak — For Now

Our Russian correspondent Russkiy (who reads Arabic) has been monitoring some of the Arabic-language material on current events in Egypt. He sends along his translation of a reader comment on the BBC website, and includes this note:

You may find the comment below (from BBC Arabic) about the situation in Egypt interesting.

I thought that the author was playing taqiyya and trying to encourage others not to make comments damaging to the revolution; however, I searched on his name and found that he is actually pro-secular government in Egypt.

His translation:

I think that the Mubarak regime is playing for time. However, time is against him. I hope that Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood refrain from statements about what’s happening in Egypt so that they don’t arouse fear in the West that this is an Islamic revolution on the model of Iran. The position of the West at the moment is in the interest of the Egyptian people. I call for personalities having an “acceptable” image such as Dr. Mohammed El Baradei and Dr. Ahmad Zuwayl to be positioned to speak of the demands on the behalf of the demonstrators so that ruptures in their lines with regard to the leadership don’t appear at this current stage. Of course this is only a transitory stage.

I thank the Egyptian Army for their position on this matter.

Ibrahim al Jandi (Egyptian Journalist)
Washington DC

The same text in Arabic is posted below the jump, for those who can read the language and are interested:

أعتقد ان نظام مبارك يلعب على عنصر الوقت ، على الرغم ان الوقت ليس فى صالحه ، اتمنى على ايران والاخوان المسلمين فى مصر التوقف عن التصريحات الخاصة بما يحدث فى مصر حتى لا تثير مخاوف الغرب من تكرار النموذج الايراني فى مصر ، فالموقف الغربي والامريكي تحرك الان لصالح الشعب المصري ، وأناشد المقبولين شعبيا كالدكتور محمد البرادعي والدكتور أحمد زويل قيادة مطالب المتظاهرين حتى لا تبدأ الانقسامات فى صفوفهم على من يقود المرحلة ، مع التأكيد على انها مرحلة مؤقته ، شكرا لموقف رجال الجيش المصري

صحفي مصري
ابراهيم الجندي واشنطن العاصمة

8 comments:

Richard said...

I hope he is right but I am afraid that the Moslem Brotherhood is going to end up in control. They already have Elbariadi (sp) in position to take over the government, and he did everything he could to prevent the west from stopping Irans nuclear program.

1389 said...

I am certain that it IS, in fact, a hard-core Islamist revolution in progress. Worst of all, the Obama regime not only supports it, but helped to bring it about in the first place:

Obama supports Islamist takeover of Egypt

Henrik R Clausen said...

I believe the MB was taken by surprise by this, but will end up in control eventually, unless WE in the West discredit and disown them.

Guys, this is our job. Read (urgently), post information and links regarding the Muslim Brotherhood.

Over at EuropeNews, we have made an editorial decision to make MB the top issue these days. You'll find much material there that you can read and/or refer to elsewhere.

(Baron: Mild apologies for the link-whoring. This matters.)

Armance said...

The way Westerners interpret the turmoil in Egypt represents just another proof of the fallacy regarding democracy as an universal concept, which applies to all the people in different parts of the world.

It's of secondary importance if Muslim Brotherhood is indeed involved in the Egyptian protests. Because with or without the MB, the Egyptian protests will turn into a vehicle for implementing Sharia. The features of Islam - Ummah as a solid block of believers and the mosque as the centre of community life - make any attempt to give power to the demos inevitably paving the way to Islam as arbiter of the social life.

Probably a handful of idealist, Westernised Egyptians, as well as the majority of the Western public really believe that this time is going to be different. But giving complete power to the people in a Muslim country is like spreading democracy in a high security prison. It's predictable that the inmates will vote for firing the guards and will make robbery, murder and violence as the rule of the place. Muslims are inmates in a mental prison which is called Islam.

Hesperado said...

Armance above is of course correct -- unremarkably so. I don't understand why even people in the anti-Islam movement even allow themselves to think for one second about the possibility of "secularist" change in a massively Muslim society like Egypt. It's a sad testament to the PC MC virus still resident even within the anti-Islam movement.

On the correspondant's claim about his Muslim source -- "I searched on his name and found that he is actually pro-secular government in Egypt" -- I'm not a betting man, but I bet a few minutes of Googling will yield me plenty of Islamic dirt on "Ibrahim al Jandi". Let's see...

Hesperado said...

Well, well, well.

I just Googled "Ibrahim al Jandi". Here are my results:

1 result (0.19 seconds)
Search Results

1.
Gates of Vienna: Go Easy on Mubarak — For Now
Feb 1, 2011 ... Ibrahim al Jandi (Egyptian Journalist) Washington DC. The same text in Arabic is posted below the jump, for those who can read the language ...

___________________________

How could a journalist based in Washington DC not yield multiple hits?

Baron Bodissey said...

Hesperado --

You have to remember that the name was transliterated for this particular translation. As you know, transliterations of Arabic names can vary widely.

Not only that, this transliteration was not made by a native English-speaker. French, German, Italian, and Russian conventions for Arabic transliteration are quite different.

His name could be Jandy or Jandiy or Gennadi or some other variant spelling on his US visa.

Anonymous said...

See here.

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Philip Daniel