36 Replies to “Those Moderate Muslims!”

  1. Why would any westerner want to visit any of these barbaric countries? Isn’t there any sun and sand in the free world?
    mike

  2. They were right to ban alcohol and bikinis. That’s what attracts the Mossad-trained sharks.
    But seriously, we know what are getting when we go to Egypt (or Cuba, ect.) so one should not go.

  3. Fundamentalism is found in the Middle East – in both the Islamist and the orthodox Judaic realms.
    In Israel, the orthodox insist that women sit at the back of the bus. This is on regular public buses. Women are having to fight back but, the orthodox are fighting these women!
    http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/tags/gender-segregation/
    In New York, there’s a private bus company, funded by state funds, that goes between an orthodox community and the town; women and men are divided by a curtain.
    These are semitic cultures, both very old, and both tribal – with strong similarities in the role of the family.

  8. Mike said: “Why would any westerner want to visit any of these barbaric countries?”
    Because Dover is frickin’ COLD. Bars in Ibitza probably account for a good few percent of Spain’s foreign income. Egypt would be pretty nice in a cold crappy English January, and I’ll wager the ones making a fuss about Islamic Values are not the ones running beach resorts.
    If the Egyptians go with the Islamocrazy, look for a big tourism boom in Israel.

  9. The first couple of comments covers it perfectly. Why do so many tourists, including Canadians, feel the need to spend money in barbaric countries? Cuba is probably worse than Egypt, when you come right down to it. There are plenty that deserve honorable mention. Israel may have a few ultra-orthodox nutjobs, but the police and military aren’t backing up their actions. Muslims, in general, do not and will not believe in the separation of Church and State.

  10. The Turks adopted a balance in the past. I’ve seen Russian ladies topless on the beach with drinks in hand and the restaurant in the hotel served bacon at breakfast. During Ramadan, a restaurant opened an upstairs room away from the prying eyes of the imams so we could eat before sunset. It is possible for there to be moderation in Islam but it is, admittedly, getting tougher to find. Alas, Turkey (the new preferred spelling is Turkiye) has gone downhill under the current PM and I would not be surprised to see Egypt follow with a MB majority.

  11. Last time I was in Egypt was 1973, not to many bikinis back then. We had a couple of days of shore leave so me and the buddies rented dirtbikes and headed up to the mountains for some site seeing and a few drinks. On the way down we pulled over at this local Egyptians version of a roach-coach pulled by a donkey. That peta bread stuffed with fried veges, a real hot sauce and some mystery meat was just plain delicious, and he did not mind taking our American money either, and I even traded him a pack of Marlboro’s for a couple of those sandwiches to go.

  12. Egypt has nothing without tourism. For that reason alone, I don’t believe the Islamists will be long in power. Revolutions often produce tumultuous aftershocks which can take years to run their course, but they do, eventually, end up in a better place. People need jobs. Islamists won’t be able to deliver them. Read the comments from Egyptians below the article.

  14. Here’s a thought. I wonder if these Islamic Extremists will ever decide to tear down the great pyramids one day as not falling in line with Islamic teachings or some other excuse. Just a thought.

  15. A. Cooper at 4:26 PM: “Nuke Mecca.”
    ===============
    Start with Medina. Holding pattern over Mecca until we see how they react
    Back to Egypt, and what it has for tourism. Ever seen the pyramids, Karnac, the Tomb of Tutankamen, to name just a small number of sites worth seeing?
    These ancient places will take your breath away. Without a vibrant tourist industry, Egypt will be much worse off than they were under Mubarak. All those Egyptians who work in that industry will not take to being unemployed thanks to the prudes who make up the Muslim Brotherhood.

  16. I wonder if these Islamic Extremists will ever decide to tear down the great pyramids one day as not falling in line with Islamic teachings or some other excuse. Just a thought.
    It’s been done in Afghanistan were all Buddhist statues were all destroyed. Some fun loving bunch.

  17. There is a shipload of beaches in other parts of the world. I have avoided dictatorships and communist countries in all my travels and do not feel in the least diminished. If they’re not democracies, they won’t see my dollars.

  18. This is where the starvation of a Nation begins. How can you feed a people that can’t earn money for food when your land can’t even support them?
    Just another example that most famines occur because of human stupidity.

  22. Louise at 5:13. I agree with your comment; I don’t think the Islamists will be long in power.
    Islam is a tribal mode, socially, politically and importantly – economically. It rejects individual freedom and thus, a private sector market economy, i.e., a middle class of free agents in the economy. But, Egypt’s population has risen over the last few decades and a state distributionist economy can’t sustain this size of a population.
    They have to move into a private sector capitalist economy – which means – Islam and its rigid restrictions against individuals – can’t maintain its power.
    Egypt’s key economies were tourism and Suez canal tolls; these remain important but they aren’t enough to sustain the population. Islamism is a phase; moving into a capitalist economy and constitutional democracy isn’t easy but – there’s no choice.

  23. Never seen the pyramids, have you Scar. The Buddha statues in Afghanistan were nothing compared to the pyramids. A bit of carefully placed explosives was all that was required.
    Same goes for the temples on the southern Nile. Massive, massive structures, the mystery of how they could have been built, still, to my knowledge, has not been unraveled. Lots of theories, none satisfactory.
    Afghanistan had nothing to attract tourists before the Taliban took over, so it’s not a great loss, as far as a national industry is concerned. Egypt is a different case, entirely. At least Afghanistan can export it’s most lucrative industry, as long as there are heroin addicts around the world. Egypt depends entirely on bringing in people from all around the world. Sharm el Sheik was only established recently, BTW. The archeological sites, and archeology itself, are the very lifeblood of Egypt.

  24. Abe Froman at 5:41 PM, that’s good news. I suspect we can thank Geert Wilders for that. If he’s been successful in winning that argument against the established elites, perhaps Europe does have a chance.

  25. Ratt at 5:04 PM, I was in Egypt in 1973, too, and Lebanon. In the southern Nile area, and among the very poorest in Cairo, one could see women wearing the black Chadoor, but no face veils in either country. What you did see, in Egypt, especially, was the influence of the Soviet Union and the still deeply embedded hatred of Israel. We left Cairo about three days before the Yom Kapur war and you could see the army mobilizing in the streets of Cairo. Tanks all over the place. Egypt could do a lot better, if they sent Islam and Isalmists packing. I suspect the average Egyptian identifies far more closely with their ancient forebears than with the import that goes by the name of Islam.

  26. Abe Froman at 5:44 PM, thanks for that link. Since my Dad was one of the Canadian soldiers who helped to liberate Holland during WWII, I especially appreciate that The Netherlands has decided to step back from the brink. That is very good news. And thanks, also, to Geert Wilders.

  27. Louise,
    I understand where your coming from, really, but the world is not fair and it doesn’t work like that, and its a good deal more Wahabist influenced since the 1970’s.
    Tourism is nothing, just take foreign aid to Egypt and just from the US, no where else just the US, its somewhere in the region of 400 – 500 million US dollars per year and thats not including the military budget.
    Its Islam … your missing the point, they don’t care if the population starves, no really they don’t, you think the few in the tourist industry aren’t silence-able, if you think that losing westies tourism money is going to affect the nation you are very very naive

  28. The retarded thinking of militant fundamentalists is breathtaking. What dumbasses.
    What surprises me is that the tourism is only down by a third.

  29. exactly my thought mike, why would anyone want to visit a country in the middle of turmoil?
    The article says tourism is down by a third. that doesn’t sound like a serious enough situation, or that people are staying away in droves.
    sure, it is a third, but 2/3 are still coming for some unknown reason.
    plus tourism is only 10% GDP. That isn’t a lot, what is the other 90% consist of?
    Again, large numbers, but not enough to collapse a country. Maybe more people will visit now that Egypt is sin free.
    cough.

  30. In light of the tempest in a lefty teapot over Kenney’s insistence that Islamic women take off their veils when taking the citizenship oath, it seems to me that the Islamists want us to abide by their rules when we visit their countries, but they want to abide by their rules when they visit our countries.
    What’s wrong with this picture?

  31. If you want to see Egyptian artifacts, go to the British Museum in London. If you wany to see the pyramids in Egypt, they’ll always be there but more and more locals will have RPGs aimed at your tour bus.
    Allah Akhbar!

  32. DSV at 7:07 PM, you have a crystal ball, I see. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why Egypt is doomed to fall prey to a relatively recent political movement, just because some folks here at SDA can’t see anything else. If the Islamists can’t deliver, which they can’t, what makes anyone think the Cairines will not be able to do a retake of January 25, 2011?
    It’s by no means a foregone conclusion that Islamists will win out in the end. Arab Nationalism didn’t fare so well, why would Islamism?
    And BTW, I could very well be old enough to be your mother, so don’t talk down to me like that. It reflects badly on you.

  33. I don’t think they need to worry, once the Islamists take over no westerner in their right mind will go to Egypt. Tourism, the only viable source of foreign income in Egypt will blow away like a desert wind storm.

  34. Louise:
    By your comments you seem to indicate that the Muslim movement is seperate from the people and that if they cannot govern to the people’s material benefit then they will be ousted. The Muslim Brotherhood has been active in Egypt back to at least the ’70’s. They are a grassroots movement and provide social assistance to many Muslim families.
    If you think they will be tossed out then who will replace them? It still has to be determined whether the military will actually stand down but they haven’t delivered the goods either.
    The Turkish government which did deliver the goods for several decades has been replaced by an Islamic government. The Islamic agenda in that country is slowly eroding the open nature and democratic institutions that existed. The bottom line is that Islam supercedes human conventions and evolves into religious autocracy.

  36. Louise
    You may very well be old enough to be my mother, I don’t follow what that has to do with anything, unless you want to live in some sort of private world where age trumps everything.
    But I digress, crystal ball, no I don’t profess to have one, what I do have is a grasp of reality and history.
    If you don’t see why Islam is the future of Egypt, and you would like to think that the Cairines will retake what ever it was they think they took in Jan, then you haven’t been following the plight of the Copts over the last decade. A segment of Egyptian society that covers, privileged, middle, working and beggar class and are incidentally are what would be termed a “sizeable” minority of the population, certainly numerically more than the turn out of people in Tahir square in Jan.
    You may also have failed to notice the way Islamist regimes (as opposed to “Nationalist” regimes) such as Iran and Turkey, et al. treat dissent. Both countries have a “democratic” mandate from the people.
    I believe what my own observations show me to be true, not some “hope” in what I’d like to happen.
    I work doing constant risk analysis, most people I know do, after years of working like that it enables you to make some pretty fair stabs at what likely outcomes are going to be.
    I don’t gamble but if I did I’d be sure Islam in Egypt is a one way street, if only because there is no evidence to the contary of it happening anywhere else at any time other than by foreign intervention in bygone times when armies where not constrained by niceties such as the Geneva convention.

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