Right, I had promised myself not to get involved in politics any more. Those of you who have been following me on this blog and my various social media accounts probably already know this, but recent events have woken me from my slumber. I can no longer watch the events unfolding without expressing myself in writing. So here goes, my first political blog in I don’t remember how long. Neotheone is back.
Category Archives: Politics
Why I am against Morsi’s declaration
I am writing this post to document my objection to the latest constitutional declaration announced by Egypt’s president Mohammed Morsi. My problem with the constitutional declaration is that it is, for all intents and purpose, a declaration of dictatorship. Not unlike the Enabling Act of 1933, which made Hitler a dictator in Germany, this constitutional declaration makes a dictator of the president of Egypt.
My isolation bubble and why I keep myself there
I am Egyptian. That, in itself, should tell you a lot. My country has gone through a lot. At first, I was an active participant in events unfolding. I eagerly joined my fellow countrymen, both online and offline, in our quest for freedom and justice. Even though the Mubarak regime hadn’t done me any personal harm, it had destroyed my society. It had made corruption endemic and made a mockery of democracy. Sham votes kept Mubarak on his throne, and the promise of more of the same in support of his heir, Gamal, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He who has ears, let him hear
Once upon a time in Germany, an ultra-nationalist and extreme right wing party, the Nazi party, came to power. The leader of this party, Hitler, was a Catholic Christian who thought that non-Germans living in Germany were destroying “German culture”. He was particularly pissed off with the Jews. They were a religious minority in Germany that did not follow the beliefs of the majority. To make matters worse, they were generally well off since they tended to choose careers in commerce and finance. These people, in the opinion of Hitler, needed to be taught a lesson. They needed to be told who was in charge, they had to be cured of their belief that they were equal citizens of a state that respected all its citizens regardless of their religious affiliations. Germany was a Christian state, and those upstart Jews needed to be taught a lesson.
The saga continues…
Those of you who know me, probably know that I have a problem with rent controlled tenants in my apartment building. Today, the saga took another turn. After a lot of negotiations and, sometimes heated, discussions, I finally reached an agreement with three out of the four tenants who rent the stores in my building last week. Specifically, I would pay them an amount of money — I think of it as blood money — and they would hand over the stores. I thought that I had finally solved part of the problem that has been plaguing me ever since I became responsible for the family finances after my father passed away.
Why abandon nuclear energy?
Ever since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, there seems to be a global trend towards phasing out nuclear energy. A lot of countries seem to have decided that the risks associated with nuclear energy are too high for them to bear.
Definition of opportunists
- You do not join a revolution until you see that it is winning, and then you try to position yourself as a major player in the revolution.
- When the revolution is threatened by the people holding transitional power, you do not object and, worse, ask your members not to participate in protests against this mismanagement because the result, if left uncorrected, will be in your favor.
- You object to a statement of civil rights principles because this will detract from your ability to impose your agenda on the people.
- When said civil rights principles expand to include articles that give the current transitional powers a continued presence, you demonstrate for one day because this also detracts from your ability to impose your agenda on the people.
- When other political forces join this demonstration and continue demonstrating against the transitional power because of it’s mismanagement of the transition to democracy, you leave them and withdraw because this might delay the sham elections which you know you will win.
- Not only do you withdraw, but you bad mouth the protesters and try to suck-up to the transitional power by saying that you support their continued existence in their current position.
- Next, you try to divert attention from the protests against the transitional power by trying to create a completely ridiculous parallel protest for a Palestinian issue, thus attempting to distract attention from the glaring flaws in the transition to democracy.
Can you guess who you are?
What referendum?
Once again, we find ourselves in a difficult situation. The powers controlling Egypt seem determined to foil our transition to democracy. I had previously written a post about the fallacy of the “majority is always right” mantra that certain people seem to espouse without second thought, and I think it is time to revive the arguments I made in that post.
Why the party-list system makes sense
I recently had a discussion with some of my friends about the electoral system in Egypt. During that discussion, the merits and demerits of the party-list proportional representation system as compared to the individual candidate system came up. In this post, I will try to explain why I prefer the party-list system. However, for the sake of being impartial, I also enumerate some of the disadvantages of the party-list system at the end of the post.
The dangers of the filter bubble
Personalization has become a new buzzword. All major websites are now offering personalization services to make your experience on their site unique. Also, there are several social news apps, like Flipboard and Zite, that personalize your news-reading experience by serving you articles that they believe you would be interested in.