Republication. Done to correct the linked title. Please forgive....
Unless you follow the Arabs and world press you are not going to see the answers to this mystery. NY Times got in a one-sentence mention after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Nothing you'd call substance. You will see no extended media reports except among the Arabs and in Iran.
What is it? A quote from Terry Jones, the crazy Quran burning pastor in Florida? Louie Gohmert? Pat Robertson? How's about Ayaan Hirsi Ali? She has her wild moments.
Got an anti-Arab favorite? Hey, Steve King or Bill Maher or Bachmann?
Well, no.
Try Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the president of Egypt. And the title elements are the least of it.
At the great Al-Azhar university he questions telling the difference between right and wrong. What constitutes a holy work, a legitimate part of Islam. Then it's getting a grip on morals.
How Islam terrifies the whole world.
It is inconceivable that the ideology we sanctify should make our entire nation [the Umma, all Muslims, heavily the Arabs] a source of concern, danger, killing, and destruction all over the world. It is inconceivable that this ideology... has reached the point that [our body of non-Quran writings] is hostile to the entire world? ... Is it conceivable that 1.6 billion [Muslims] would kill the world's population of seven billion [to have things their way?]
Please, contrast this intelligent, self-questioning approach with our teabagger proponents of American Exceptionalism.
[Here's the misquote that forces republication: "We are unable to produce one single manufactured product that competes successfully on world markets." A statement close to that sentence appeared as a question in an interview of el-Sisi. Then a blog entry from Mark Silverberg, a professional Likudnik, presented it as a quoted extension of an actual el-Sisi quote. That is not el-Sisi. No way. No shape. No form.]
Defining incompetence -- Egypt does not have a Common Core standard -- is just the start of his political party's effort to modernize the Egyptian education system.
Corporate media here in America will have nothing to do with it. Arab intelligence does not belong in their universe. They're up to their ears selling us a bamboozle about the Arabs. Self-awareness at this level has no place in the bamboozle.
El-Sisi challenges the top religious academics at Al-Azhar University to carry out "a religious revolution."
A Reformation, if you will allow a rough analogy.
When he says "ideology" in his speech this is a subtle echo of arguments within Islam that object to elevation of the Sunni Haddiths from the first seven caliphs. Politics invaded religion. And stayed through the centuries. (What could go wrong?)
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Transcript/translation below the fold.
The next day Washington Post ran a piece "Why don’t more moderate Muslims denounce extremism?" The piece says that they do denounce extremism. Gives a number of examples. The timing was an accident.
WaPo failed to report on the blockbuster in Cairo, so we do have an answer to that question. And WaPo has never caught up, other than a blog entry from Eugene Volokh of UCLA Law. Their experts don't know what to make of it.
Guess this is not news. el-Sisi pretty much declares war on the Islamists and it's not news.
Charlie Rose talked with el-Sisi. Here's a PBS hour (53:14) of follow up:
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What? Does that match your ideas about Arabs? He takes the worst of what happens head on. Instead of noting that Egypt has generated a 5% growth rate with his regime, he addresses competition for his Arab world as a worldwide problem.
And how does el-Sisi's speaking voice compare with the likes of Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush or the GOPer dwarfs? el-Sisi has done the hard work. Seems to me that he has developed a tone quality and delivery that reach in to the emotional "Why?" of his listeners' decision making processes.
Whatever you do, don't tell Republicans about el-Sisi. He's an Arab, after all. They don't do Arab unless there's bribes involved.
They also don't know that Egypt is in Africa. Really, they don't. They find out about that, they'll start calling the Muslim Brotherhood "Free Egyptian Army." Want to start killing people asap.
Worst case for PR: they send McCain over there. Make all of us look like fools.
Text/translation below the fold.
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi:
We spoke earlier about the importance of the religious discourse, and I would like to reiterate that we are not doing enough with regard to true religious discourse.
The problem has never been with our faith. Perhaps the problem lies in ideology, and this ideology is sanctified among us. I am talking about religious discourse that is in keeping with its times.
[…]
I am addressing the religious scholars and clerics. We must take a long, hard look at the current situation. I have talked about this several times in the past. We must take a long, hard look at the situation we are in.
It is inconceivable that the ideology we sanctify should make our entire nation a source of concern, danger, killing, and destruction all over the world. It is inconceivable that this ideology… I am referring not to "religion," but to "ideology" – the body of ideas and texts that we have sanctified in the course of centuries, to the point that challenging them has become very difficult.
It has reached the point that [this ideology] is hostile to the entire world.
Is it conceivable that 1.6 billion [Muslims] would kill the world's population of seven billion, so that they could live apart ?
Inconceivable.
I say these things here, at Al-Azhar, before religious clerics and scholars. May Allah bear witness on Judgment Day to the truth of your intentions, regarding what I say to you today. You cannot see things clearly when you are locked in ideology. You must emerge from it and look from outside, in order to get closer to a truly enlightened ideology. You must oppose it with resolve.
Let me say it again: We need to revolutionize our religion.
Honorable Imam [the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar], you bear responsibility before Allah. The world in its entirety awaits your words, because the Islamic nation (Umah) is being torn apart, destroyed, and is heading to perdition. We ourselves are bringing it to perdition.
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From Wiki:
El-Sisi was born on 19 November 1954 in Cairo, to parents Said Hussein Khalili al-Sisi and Malika Titani. He grew up in Gamaleya, near the al-Azhar Mosque, and in a quarter where Muslims, Jews and Christians resided, and in which he has recalled hearing church bells and watching Jews flock to the synagogue unhindered. ...
As a teenager he did his homework
at the nearby library at al-Azhar University.
El-Sisi graduated from the Egyptian Military Academy in 1977.
War Course, United States Army War College, United States, 2006.
An Egyptian Eisenhower ??? We should be so lucky. His poll numbers in Egypt as elected president run to high levels of approval. Roughly twice what Obama scores in similar polls.
In practice, today, el-Sisi is the prime leader of the Arab world. And everyone over there has seen that clip or a longer take from the same presentation.
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UPDATE/WARNINGS:
Apology for the republication. The original title picked up a misattribution. Doing a re-pub is the only way to undo the title error and do away with copies that appear elsewhere online.
Also....
The comments include near 30 copies of the same statement from H. Turtledove.
The misattribution at issue (a quote) was recognized and corrected asap. A misleading construction led to confusion and incorrect attribution. A propaganda trick? Seems possible in a partisan effort to defame President el-Sisi.
And of course the core of the article is the two videos plus my usual complaints where corporate media have failed to address major events.
Egypt's president takes on the Islamist scourge full force but for MSM that is not a major story. He addresses education as the key to taking them on.
Meanwhile, next door on the map, MSM had Netanyahu "winning" the Israeli election in March where his coalition actually lost seats. But now that he has had to ask for a two week extension to try to form a new government, there's nothing but silence about that mess. Demands to remove the basic powers of Israel's Supreme Court from a RW party have led to stalemate there, so far.
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