Sean Rocha

The Egyptian police beat protesters senseless

This video of Egyptian police beating protesters senseless is hard to watch.  Yet, amazingly, the debate in America has become so disconnected from facts on the ground in Egypt that the longest thread of comments on the Atlantic website, which has a post about this video, are about the Qur’an, as if what is happening in this video is a religious matter.  I have marveled before at the disdain so many show for the wave of revolutions that has swept through the Arab world this year.  I would have thought the sight of police beating the hell out of protesters with wooden bats — or, indeed, this video of the military running over civilians with APCs — would affirm the need to overthrow the regime but instead, in some quarters, it is taken as proof of a cultural or religious pathology.  Here are a few of those comments from the Atlantic:

rnagel 19 hours ago

They don’t seem to have much of a taboo over mistreating women when they want to rape them. I think they talk a good game, but in the end they are animals, aided by soft headed intellectuals in the west. They don’t take in normal people, because normal people don’t dance on the head of a pin in making arguments to justify obscene Muslim behavior. The taboo crud mentioned is an attempt to deflect attention from the fact of male brutality towards women in Muslim lands.

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sally 19 hours ago in reply to rnagel

In Islam the prophet Mohamed (saws) when his daughter would walk in the room he would stand up as respect for her and kiss her on the forehead and give her his seat when she came to him. This was in an age when people preferred sons and looked down on having daughters…I’m with you that male brutality towards women in Muslim land exists but somehow it’s related to the culture more than the religion, if every man in the world treated women like the prophet used to the world would be a better place

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Emma Garcia 18 hours ago in reply to sally

[This comment was flagged for review.]

Mahmoud Abdelazim 18 hours ago in reply to Emma Garcia

Emma, I would suggest your read more about Islam before you state such more claims. There are too many aspects to the stories you have said and you are only mentioning the bad parts of it with out looking at the bigger picture. Religion is a relation between man and his god and not just strict rules that they have to follow.

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kim holleman 6 hours ago in reply to Mahmoud Abdelazim

I think part of the problem. My problem for sure is that you say Religion is between a man and his god. I am not a man and I do not believe in god, certainly not a Male god. So where does this leave me? I am a woman and want no part in your or any man’s religion or male god. Do you see my point?

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imkh 4 hours ago in reply to kim holleman

God has no gender in islam.

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Tom Williamson 6 hours ago in reply to Mahmoud Abdelazim

Why do Arabs always encourage people to “look at the bigger picture” when trying to excuse the un-photogenic aspects of Islam? Are you trying to make the picture so big that the ugly details disappear?

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Saffron Sariya Hattersley 6 hours ago in reply to Tom Williamson

Islam is perfect. There are no unphotogenic aspects. Maybe if you opened up the Qur’an you’d see for yourself? Blaming this violence on Islam is like blaming the atrocities committed by the KKK on Christianity.

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GardenGnomeLF 6 hours ago in reply to Saffron Sariya Hattersley

Islam is so ‘perfect’ that Islamic countries forbid a discussion of Islam on pain of death.

Muslims always say, you don’t understand Islam. When you point out the Koran demands Muslims to kill those that do not submit to Islam, and you see Muslims who kill those that do not submit to Islam while they quote the very verse that demands the murder, they say, “Oh, you do not understand Islam.”

The real understanding of Islam lies not with the brutality and violence (especially against women and homosesuals) that are committed by devout Muslims, but with the Muslims who consider them to be heroes.

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Saffron Sariya Hattersley 4 hours ago in reply to GardenGnomeLF

The Qur’an does not demand Muslims to kill those that do not submit to Islam…

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GardenGnomeLF 3 hours ago in reply to Saffron Sariya Hattersley

You lie:

Quran (8:12)

– “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”

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saidulislam 3 hours ago in reply to GardenGnomeLF

don’t go around and paste whatever you find in whatever hate site you go to show your anger. did you actually open the book and read the surah you are supposedly citing here? first, get rid off your anger, then arrogance and when you have a sense for an intellectual discussion, stop by and write something. The surah you are supposedly citing 8:12 (Surah Al-Anfal and ayat 12) doesn’t have anything similar to what you are suggesting. Why do you have so much hate? So the Muslims are bad and how are you better?

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GardenGnomeLF 1 hour ago in reply to saidulislam

Muslims are blind to their own violence.

Hate has nothing to do with seeing a stream of violence flow from Islamic countries. I see the videos of Islamic police beating woman who aren’t properly veiled. I see the bombs. I see the wars. I see the Muslims calling for beheadings of non-Muslims.

You expect me to ignore reality because you say Islam is peace? Muslims display who they are through their actions. Muslims show what Islam is through their bombings. Muslims show their brutality by supporting brutal Islamic leaders.

I hope you find peace. It won’t be through Islam. You need to explore other options.

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There is quite a bit more where that came from.  As I have written before, for many years Arabs were denounced by certain factions in the US for their supposed failure to demand freedom and democracy; now they are risking their lives for those very values and they are disparaged for being insincere or culturally incapable of believing in these things.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2011 at 12:31 pm. It is filed under Travels and tagged with Cairo, Egypt, Middle East, North Africa, politics, revolution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.