One Arab World

I'll be in Cairo on Saturday for a week. If anyone wants to meet up over shisha and shai to get obnoxious over politics call me at 0101192244.

See you soon sexy.

This is the entire interview in its raw form. Only about a third of this is going to make it to print so please feel free to suggest which parts to stress. It’s an interesting read but unfortunately didn’t capture exactly what I was hoping for. Actually the first response really threw me off and there is a bit of evasiveness throughout. Most of you will certainly see basis for my opinion of Chomsky by reading this.

There may be a few minor mistakes. I still haven’t gotten the chance to go through it again and I wasn’t the one who converted it to text so please point them out. A full wav file and video clips will be available soon.

Interview with Professor Noam Chomsky

Karim Elsahy (E): Many feel that the first true democratic election in Egypt will be its last. This is on the basis that though a democratic process can help a group running on a religious platform attain power, the resulting conflict between said group’s baseline and democracy will prevent it from continuing such a process further than the election it just won. How does one deal with such a predicament or, as some see it, paradox? Also, since this all done under the strife for democracy, is there a democratic, “democratic process” that can prevent such an occurrence? And with that in mind, how do you feel about the MB’s recent growth in the Egyptian Parliament?

Noam Chomsky (C): Well the problem of democracy in Egypt is not a religious problem, I mean Nasser was secular but it wasn’t democratic, Musharraf I suppose is more or less secular, but certainly not democratic, I mean there is an autocratic tradition and there has been a long standing, not only in Egypt, but through the Arab world. Many efforts to open the countries to more democracy and so on, usually they have been blocked by the imperial powers, who pretty much prefer to deal with dictatorships or maybe formal democracies which do not really function. I think that remains the problem, I don’t see any reason why a country with a religious majority can’t have a democracy.....

Karim Elsahy onearabworld.blog.com copyright  2005

The Chomsky interview went well. It was more a lecture than an interview… the man talks. He is an incredibly sweet man though. The interview ran from a scheduled half hour well into an hour but I still only managed to get only four questions in.

I wanted to wait until after the interview to say this. Personally, I am not a very big advocate of Chomsky’s thought. Many figured me for a big fan because I chose him to interview. He is too extreme for me. Though I find his ideas factually correct and certainly logical, I find them lacking a certain “on the grounds” reality that makes them, in the end, often pointless, sometimes counterproductive.

I found a piece that sums up a lot of how I feel in a fairly unexpected place. Chris Rock Standup.

“In the whole country we’ve got this real fucked up gang mentality. Republicans are idiots, Democrats are idiots, the conservatives are idiots and liberals are idiots. Pretty much anyone that makes up their mind before they hear the issue is a fucking fool…OK? Everybody wants to be in a gang so bad… I’m conservative, I’m liberal. Just be a fucking person. No decent person is one thing. OK? Just hear it out, let it swirl around then form your opinion. I’m a person, I got some shit I’m conservative about, I got some shit I’m liberal about. Crime, I’m conservative. Prostitution…I’m liberal.”

I am very much a centrist. That said, while I find the left sometimes annoying I find an equal percent on the right flat out dangerous. And I’ll take annoying over dangerous any day.

There are other reasons that lead me to pick Chomsky. There is an underling motivation and message to the readers of Egypt Today that through him I wanted to represent. I should have the interview up by tomorrow or the day after.

- Karim Elsahy

I try to keep this blog intellectual and focused but this was too funny and since no one was here to share this with here you go. For all you Ali G fans.

The authorities in Kazakhstan, angered by a British comedian's satirical portrayal of a boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter, have pulled the plug on his alter ego's Web site.

Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat in his "Da Ali G Show" and last month he used the character's Web site www.borat.kz to respond sarcastically to legal threats from the Central Asian state's Foreign Ministry.

Afterwards, Kazakhstan 's Foreign Ministry said it could not rule out that he was under "political orders" to denigrate 's name and threatened to sue him.

Cohen, who is Jewish, responded to the legal threats on the www.borat.kz site in character, saying: "I have no connection to Mr. Cohen and fully support my government's position to sue this Jew."

Also there is a little known interview Ali G gave Noam Chomsky in the “unseen shit” part of one of his shows DVD’s that is worth a check. Season 2