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Letter from a Cairo jail

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on May 31, 2009

In Cairo just before the Egyptian government cracked down on democracy activists. (Courtesy: Tara Todras-Whitehill)

This Thursday, President Obama will deliver a highly anticipated speech to Muslims — and he’ll be doing it from Cairo.

While many gush and fawn over Washington’s new approach to diplomacy, not everyone’s convinced. Consider this email from Robert, a friend of mine who happens to be an ardent Democrat:

“It is hugely disappointing that [President Obama] is going to Egypt to talk about his outreach to the Muslim world. Who is he going to be addressing as his local audience — Hosni Mubarak? The Muslim Brotherhood?

I wonder if dissidents and reformers who are behind bars will even be able to see or hear the speech (not likely). Such audacious hope our President will be inspiring that day.

And to follow it with a trip to Normandy to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landing, which was the beginning of the end for Hitler and Nazi fascism — liberating continental Europe to allow for democracy. The mind reels.”

Obama’s got other speech problems. Read this email, recently sent to me by Harudin in Malaysia:

“Are you sure you are a faithful Muslim??? Why you are too fear to this religion??? Are you working with white house???”

Translation: Even in the age of Obama, the White House represents a den of oppression to many a Muslim. This, despite the president’s emphasis in his January 20 inaugural address that America will resume its perch as a champion of human rights everywhere. As he trumpeted that day:

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history…”

But in choosing a theoretically democratic, actually authoritarian state as the soil from which to be giving his speech to Muslims worldwide, Barack Obama has some ’splaining to do — both to Democrats like Robert and to Muslims like Harudin.

Robert ended his email to me this way: “I know how fond you are of Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I wonder if you might write something from the perspective of those who are looking to the US for hope from a Cairo jail.“

Superb idea — but it ain’t me who should pursue it. It’s Ahmdollah. He’s a young Egyptian who contacted me exactly one year ago. Here’s part of his email:

“… why the media in egypt shows israel as the evil enemy? you know [Ariel] sharon’s son is in jail while gamal mubarak [son of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak] rides government cars with a huge security?

why really a young egyptian engineer fly away and hits himself to the walls of world trade center and what was the message he was trying to say and what kind of education pushed him to do such a stupid thing?

the problem i believe is we r living in continuously suppressed-thinking STATE. i mean we egyptians have the right to shout loud in a football game but we doesn’t have the right to protest against any political or religious affair.

do you know that a girl was arrested because she made a group on the facebook - calling for a strike? and a famous journalist was jailed because he said that mubarak is maybe ill because he doesn’t show up at a recent ceremony?

i don’t think that the problem is islam but I doesn’t think anything else because in my country I doesn’t have the right to think at all.

oh irshad sometimes I dare to ask - while I am hiding in dark - is there hope for us?”

Not a bad start to the Letter from a Cairo Jail.

My own commentary is coming. Stay tuned.