Censorship

Two days ago, the Egyptian daily El Masry El Yom published the first half of this interview with a founding member of the Muslim Brotherhood, about the relationship between the brotherhood and the revolution, announcing that the rest of it would be published the following day. Yesterday's edition appeared with no trace or even mention of the unfinished interview. Was it censorship from above? Was it self-censorship? Or was the paper paying heed to angry Nasserists? Nobody knows. None of us know our rights and obligations as citizens of our country. I would be impressed to meet anyone who has actually read a copy of the constitution, I personally have never read it, or seen it for that matter. And even if you do know your constitution, the law doesn't really matter in they eyes of the enacted emergency laws.

Another case of self-censorship was the Grand Imam of Al Azhar. At the beginning of the "cartoon war" he gave reasonable statements to downplay the original act of provocation and put it in its suitable place. Soon after however, he succumbed to pressures and criticisms coming from all different directions and was seen on national television leading a demonstration in the streets against the cartoons.

Also there is our Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, who appears to be reasonable and moderate to anyone who hears him speak, and who recently gave the welcome statement that Sufism (Islamic mysticism) may contain the answer to our problems. Suddenly, and as if to dispel harmful rumors in our part of the world that the entrusted interpreter of the word of God is open-minded, I read yesterday that he proclaimed as haram (forbidden by God) the decorative adornment of houses with statues. Once again, the root of all intransigence in the three Abrahamic religions: the archaic concept of Idolatry.

Those of us who have brains are afraid to use them. And those of us who use them make it a point to conceal them. Meanwhile the only ones who are stepping into the void, besides the organized groups of religious fundamentalism, are the Nasserist opportunists* (* the Nasserists, not Baheyya) who are trying to re-write history.

It's an Orwellian state of total intellectual confusion. And I for one find this very depressing.