Oh, Sandmonkey!!

When I first met you, I knew you had something special. Good luck with that.

"Egyptian blogger and political activist Mahmoud Salem, more commonly known by his online persona Sandmonkey, filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday, January 26th against the well-known and influential Salafi preacher Yasser al-Bourhami for the latter’s incitement of violence against Coptic Christians. While the details of this suit are still emerging, they deserve serious domestic and global attention: if methodically pursued, the case could form an important challenge to Egypt’s still-persistent culture of legal impunity for violence and discrimination against members of the country’s significant Christian minority. It could also deal a painful blow to the prestige of Salafi Islamists, whose political rise has been accelerating unimpeded since Egypt’s revolution. The success and long-term ramifications of this lawsuit rest, however, in the specificity of Salem’s charges and their appeal to civil rather than theological protection."

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"Sandmonkey’s lawsuit is significant because it holds the potential to draw long-overdue attention and accountability to the dangerous rhetoric and actions of the country’s emboldened Salafi zealots, and to the genuine threat they pose to Egypt's Coptic minority. It is also important because Mahmoud Salem is well-positioned to make this happen: he was one of the bravest and most vocal critics of the Mubarak regime at a time when his fellow bloggers were being tossed into prison, and since the revolution, he put his words into action with an electoral bid for parliament, albeit an unsuccessful one. His effort deserves support."

Let me stick my neck out and say that you will be for the new Egypt and for the Middle East at large what Gamal Abdul Nassr was for Arab Nationalism. A new day is dawning, and, although I may be long gone by the time you and Egypt achieve this new society, let me just say, I'm glad I was privileged to know you, even if only online, through your blog and others. Do you remember the game of hide and seek we played on several blogs? That was fun. I'll never forget your description of the Arab Parallel Universe - the APU.

Good luck, young man and stay safe. Egypt needs you.

As an aside, when the war began in Iraq and in the months that followed when the going got so tough, I thought there were three forces at work, not just in Iraq but in the wider Muslim, and especially, Middle Eastern world. Those three forces were, on the one hand, Arab Nationalism, a creature that arose in the dieing days of the European empires, and which, as we've seen was dealt pretty much a death blow by the Arab Spring; Islamism on the other hand, which is much older and much more backward and traditional, but nevertheless very opportunistic and a third force, which was the quiet middle ground of Arabs and Muslims who want to modernize and adopt the best of what the West has to offer. You sir, are with the third group. Godspeed.