Which belonged to a different era, that is, a few decades ago when Egypt "was very liberal, very tolerant. You had the bars, you had the synagogues, you had the churches, you had the mosques. Everyone was absolutely allowed to practice religion, to go and drink or whatever."
"Religion, decrepitude threaten downtown Cairo bars," by Paul Schemm and Sebastian Abbot for the Associated Press, December 13:
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Armed with a bottle of Egyptian brandy and a bowl of steaming chickpeas, Hatem Fouad keeps watch each night over a historic slice of Cairo that is in danger of dying: the bars that once flourished amid the sweeping boulevards and graceful roundabouts of the city's European-style downtown.The former police officer is part of a cadre of older Egyptian men who frequent drinking holes and belly-dancing cabarets chronicled by Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz in the 1940s and popular with Cairo's artists and intellectuals until the late 1970s.
Many of these establishments have fallen into disrepair and disrepute as Egyptians grow more observant of Islam with its prohibition on alcohol, and the country's elite migrates away from the traffic-choked streets of the now crumbling downtown.
"They were part of an Egypt that doesn't exist anymore," said Alaa el-Aswani, who immortalized the remnants of the downtown bar scene in his best-selling 2002 novel "The Yacoubian Building." He was talking about the heyday of the bar and nightclub era — when anyone from King Farouk, Egypt's last monarch, to the British playwright-composer Noel Coward, might show up in a Cairo club.
"This Egypt was very liberal, very tolerant," he said. "You had the bars, you had the synagogues, you had the churches, you had the mosques. Everyone was absolutely allowed to practice religion, to go and drink or whatever."
Cairo at the time was filled not just with Egyptians, but with Greeks, Italians and other Europeans who frequented the bars and restaurants sprinkled among the downtown's ornate belle epoque buildings. Mahfouz's novels describe the wealthy patronizing these establishments and the denizens of Cairo's medieval back alleys sometimes venturing into the brightly lighted downtown for a drink.
The 1952 ouster of Farouk and the nationalization of businesses chased away many of the Europeans. Then, in the 1980s, millions of Egyptians returned from working in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia with both money and the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam.[...]
HA!...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM_A4Skusro
Mohammad with a milk moustache.
That'll soon replace the pyramids.
That was Morocco, but yeah, same story. Except that no Casablanca Marriott, to my knowledge, turned away an 80-year-old Jewish couple with reservations who lived there before the "Nakba" and then called them a "dissident group" to anyone who complained.
This is the fate of everything that once exhibited life under Islam.
Perhaps they should dismantle the pyramids since they are anti Islamic.
"This Egypt was very liberal, very tolerant"
'This Egypt' was an aberration...a secular hang-over from the "bad old days" of colonialism. What is emerging is the re-establishment of Islamic orthodoxy...
...which is why the great historian Will Durant was so mistaken in the magnanimity he displayed towards the Muslim world in his 'Story of Civilization' series; he wrote about that world during a period of its eclipse, and the generosity of his assessments must be seen in that light.
The Muslim world is no longer in eclipse: It is endowed with oil billions, it has penetrated the West with its immigrants and culture, and it threatens the very foundations of civilization with its intolerance and its violence.
One wonders what Will Durant might write today.
On the contrary, Mr. Fitnah, Egypt, unlike every other Islamic paradise, can embrace their jahiliya. They can only do so selectively, however, since anything Christian is haram. But the Pyramids were built by Jewish slave labor. Egyptians embrace their jahiliya anti-Semitism and actually use it to justify their supremacism.
I had a discussion with this idiotic Egyptian chick on her blog who tried to tell me that Egyptians had the first religion (before she banned me for jacking with her ignorance). They actually believe that craziness. The Chinese had them beat by 10,000 years, Jews by nearly 1000, and the Zoroastrians by at least a millenium. It is a parallel universe unto itself, Egypt, and they justify everything they ever did with lies and craziness. There's not a soul left with a legitimate education, and they live under pervasive milieu control so they never learn. That's why I'm in grad school with people who think the Earth is flat.
Perhaps they should dismantle the pyramids since they are anti Islamic.
They did, that's why the outer limestone layer is all gone and the pyramids are decaying. They removed it to build mosques. They probably would have used the stone blocks too if they had any way to move them.
Besides, if they demolished the pyramids (as they did the ancient Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan), Egypt would go bankrupt tomorrow, because the income brought in by tourists is a major source of that country's income.
Then, in the 1980s, millions of Egyptians returned from working in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia with both money and the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam.[...]
That last line tells all. Same in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines...
A bit like pre Clinton Bosnia then?
Initially, reading this headline, I thought it meant the demise of Egypt's legal traditions, since bars would be haram in an Islamic paradise called Egypt.
Oh, they did away with legitimate education and accreditation decades ago.
The Egyptian bar is not entirely dead. The Stella Bar on Talaat Harb St is operating, with the same (lack of) atmosphere it had 35 years ago, as I can attest. I peered in just three months ago, and "Voila?" - just like the good old days. This notwithstanding the fact that Cairo atmospherics have indeed greatly changed and Islamified since my student days many moons ago. But all hope is not lost. Alcohol is still sold openly (if with an eye cocked towards the local fanatic enforcers of purity) in Cairo (and in Luxor) and the good news is that you can obtain overseas brands at reasonable prices, thus avoiding blinding yourself drinking the local brew.
"[Islamic] Religion, decrepitude..."
Isn't that redundant?