We sexualise things

I was in Alexandria for a vacation couple of days ago, you know, it’s a beautiful coastal city, lots to enjoy and beauty of nature to set eyes on along with malls, so it kinda suits all tastes. But this isn’t what I wanted to write about.
I was indulging myself in the beauty of sea one day, meditating, watching the beauty of mother nature around me then decided it’d be nice to go for a swim, which I did.
There were two newly wed couples hugging each other in the water, talking and swimming, you know, like what any two newly wed couples would do and that’s cool. But what wasn’t cool was the comments of the people about them, all implying sexual stuff, even one kid, about a 7 or 8 years old said:”if they are doing “this” in front of people, what are they doing when they go home?”. Now, “this” he was talking about was the act of them hugging each other in water.
You’d think that because we are such a “religious” society, a society that loves “morals” so much, a “conservative” society, we would be a little less pervert but it doesn’t look like that’s right.
We are a society where 80% of women have experienced some sort of sexual harassment on the street. And I think that story I just narrated in the above lines explains part of the reason why sexual harassment has become such an infestation in the society.
We always, in one way or another, think about sex. We have many words, and even numbers (and I’m not talking about the famous 69), that are expressions of sex, or imply something sexual. Even when we speak about something, in my opinion, spiritual, as marriage, which I see as a sacred union between two people, somehow, the talk always turns sexual.
If you keep constantly thinking about a certain thing you’ll never feel like you had enough of it, that’s a theory of mine, this is why when you think too much about sex, in the way I just described, it’s normal that you can’t get enough of it and thus it’d be normal that sexual harassment become such a problem, especially when you sexualise everything, kisses, hugs and even, in sometimes, holding hands. Then you start thinking about sex most of the time, trying to get satisfied is something you mainly think about, sometimes to the extent that one woman is just not enough.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk about sex, but in an enlightened way, a scientific method that would help us know better about sex, respect it and know that it’s something to be honoured not made fun of, or spoken about so lightly, to be the talk of the gathering when they run out of topics to have conversations about. Also know that when a person wants to fulfil his sexual desires he has to do so without harassing other women, without showing disrespect to them and their bodies.

Parenting: How much parenting is good parenting?

I have a great interest in reading social issues related polls on Facebook or any other site out there on the internet, checking out the results, reading hashtags that talk about social issues on Twitter and so. After all, who isn't curious to take a look inside people's homes, even if it's just a glimpse through poll results, or funny tweets in a hashtag on Twitter, mo matter how shallow you might perceive it, if you looked closely and carefully, you might see something deep in them.
From these readings and looks, glimpse here and a glimpse there I realised something: our homes (may be it's just in Egypt ,since most of the polls and hashtags I read are about Egyptian society, but I think this may be a world wide thing) really are more or less alike, as one user described it on Twitter:" I feel as if they made copies of my parents and put one copy in every home out there :D".
He might sound like he's joking but that is true, it's like there are some parenting rules that parents follow, or an instinct, something in our genes that no matter how we think, or well, our parents, think they're different from each other, they're actually the same deep down. Even if they look at themselves as being "more liberal and open minded" that "open mind-ness" is still limited, it's just that some have different boundaries or some have different fields upon which they impose such limitations (like parents who have limitations regarding social issues, others have limitations regarding political issues, or imposing their opinion on their kids because "we're older so we are just right"). Only few make it out of these limits or rules but they say irregularities emphasise rules (or so they say here in Egypt).
Parents are our safety nets, they're are..well, our parents, they protect us, they may get even too protective while doing so, but we can't blame them, they want what's best for us, they see themselves more experienced and they want to pass this experience along to us. They want us to avoid making the same mistakes they once did, to avoid living through the rough circumstances they had to live and go through.
But how much protection is too protecting?how much guidance is allowed before guidance and advice turn into interference in your kids's lives that cancels out their personalities, making them grow up so dependent on you that they can't cut it out their on their own because they have been floating in a jar filled with your ideas and opinions about life that they can't make their own while living out there in real life, just like a fish dragged out of water to land?
One thing I noticed in common between Twitter users and poll takers on the web, they have an issue with their parents because their parents want to choose for them, of course the problem ranges, some parents interfere about what college should the kids go to, what classes to study, what jobs to seek, some even interfere about who to marry or even what political point of view or party to adopt and follow. The problem can be felt in Egypt because of the different social standards, customs and habits of the Egyptian society from say, a western society. We grow very attached to our parents.
Our religion, as muslims , asks us to be good and kind to our parents, look after them and obey them, within limits of course, but in a society that uses religion to impose ideas and wrong concepts even if they're not mentioned in religion, the society has a good talent of twisting religion, and pretty much anything, to give power to ideas it tries to impose on members, especially those who think differently (try being a socialist in a capitalism-loving family or a social reformist in a family that believes in old values that you're trying to fight and reform).
Take for example a well know argument they resort to when they speak about how obedient you should be to your parents, when they speak about prophet Ibrahim (Abrahams in English if I'm not mistaken) and how his son agreed to be slaughtered when Ibrahim said that he saw a dream of him slaughtering his son, or when Ibrahim asked the same son to divorce his wife, after she complained about her husband, Ibrahim's son, and how poor they are and how Ibrahim's son doesn't spend more money on the house (both stories are in our religion) , but they forget one thing: they're not prophets. Their opinion can be right as much as it can be wrong.
What they can do is pass us, their kids, their knowledge, their experience and their points of views to help us make a more enlightened decision, because after all, this is our life, if it's a good call we yield the results, if it's a bad one, we are the ones who have to deal with consequences.
Yes, we are young, sometimes foolish, from our parents point of view, but you can't try to put pressure, use your kids love to you for instance, in order to push your kids in the direction you think it's right, because the prospective of right and wrong can change from person to person, can vary according to goals and circumstances, what was right few years ago may not be right now, what's right for him may not be right for you.
And yes, kids will err, they will fall and they will hurt, it's nature of life, hold on too tightly and this would be damaging to them than actually erring and learning from it, they may try to get some freedom of their own, snitch some when you're not looking, resulting in quiet a reckless personality or would result in a weak one, but if you let go too much it won't give nice results either, families have been destroyed because of letting go too much, something between both will do the trick.
Support them when they fall, guide them out of the trouble if you can, the whole "I told you so" or "I was right" attitude would award you being their last resort when they're in trouble, and no parent would want to be his kids last resort, right?

Be friends with your kids and listen to them, after all, all what you wish for them is a happy life not to be their boss or prove to them that you are always right.

This is not Islam

Took me a while till I decided to write my opinion about the recent events of attacking the US embassies in Egypt and Libya.
I'm aware of the attack led by the Republican party in the US, especially that of Sarah Palin, saying that president obama must "grow sticks", and that may be one of the motives for me to write this article.

First, I'd like to express my deep sorrow for the attacks, and the murder of the US ambassador in Benghazi, who was considered by some Libyans as a personal friend, was held in a great esteem especially by the Libyans because he was one of the first diplomats to support the Libyan revolution against the Gaddafi and their claiming of their rights, also was one of the first diplomats to enter Libya while the bombing and the fights were on (if my information was correct).
What happened is something against the teaching of prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) and the rules of Islam, the late Ambassador trusted the Libyans with his life and as an Ambassador, he's like a messenger in medieval ages, we are supposed to protect him, as muslims, even if we loath his country (which we don't, we may object to some decisions of the American government but we never hate the American people).
Prophet Mohammed himself didn't respond to those who insulted and hurt him, in fact, he spared the lives of those who hurt him, tortured the weak muslims and even killed his uncle and some of his companions. He taught us to forgive and ask God to guide for those who insult us or our religion.
Our religion tells us not to dis other people 's religion, not to curse and make fun of other people's Gods.

Second, I'd like to remind Mrs. Sarah Palin of Afghanistan and Iraq, how "growing sticks" in the times of the Bush administration resulted in millions of lives lost, on both sides and lose of trillions of dollars, and for the sake of avenging the victims of a terrorist attack (which was carried by people who claim to be muslims yet everything they did was against our religion, even if we are at war with another country, our religion asks us NEVER to kill an innocent civilian, so definitely our religion doesn't ask us to go to another country and kill thousands of innocent citizens there, including muslims among them) caused a huge cripple in the economy, resulting in the death of 25,000 American citizens due to lack of health care every year.
Growing sticks doesn't solve problems, it helps to make them worse, it causes deaths, it causes American families pain because of the loss of sons, fathers and brothers.

I am aware the American government has nothing to do with the insulting movie about the prophet Mohammed and I don't blame them nor do I blame the American people.
I think that we as muslims should have responded to the movie by ignoring it, it wouldn't have spread like that if we ignored it in the first place, or even better, help people know better about our religion, tell the people how forgiving our religion is and how civilised it really is.

In the end, I'd like to repeat my apologies for the murder of the Ambassador in Libya and the attack on the Embassy in Egypt, this really has got nothing to do with our religion, it's against it actually.

Give me an indonesia style!

I have recently read this article in Nytimes about the vision of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, when it comes to social life at least.
It's practices like these that led to people all over the world to reject the authority of religion and theocracies over their life, determining their rights because they know these people who speak for religion, claiming they represent religion, will always resort to manipulating people, shifting the meanings of clear verses, bend the truth for their benefit.
And I think that thing we saw couple of weeks ago, regarding the loan Egypt just took out for 4 billion dollars, proves my point. Truth was bent, supporters of MB who used to say that interests of loans are religiously forbidden suddenly started claiming that they are just "administrative fees".
Worse thing is, no one talked about the effect of the loan on Egypt, no one cared, everyone was on about "the MBs are hypocrites, they do what they rejected and objected to when Mubarak was in charge" or "they didn't do a Mubarak strategy taking out a loan, it's perfectly "halal" because the interest is an "administrative fee"".
This really does prove that the MBs are not visionary leaders, they claim they have "broad lines and framework" for most of the aspects concerning Egypt, economically and socially..etc, but I don't think that claim is good either.
Any one can have a broad line, I had a broad line and framework for Egypt since I was nine because we had to write one in the "paragraph" back in school (a question where they ask you to write couple of lines on a certain topic and end up giving you 7.5/8 no matter what you wrote as long as you wrote many lines).
But, I digress, this article is mainly intended to show how the MBs don't like setting boundaries and exact definitions for most of the expressions they use as mentioned in the fore mentioned article of NYtimes. Such shortage of definitions and strict boundaries and limitations, along with their claiming to be speaking for religion, twisting facts and religion to merely serve their needs and support their decisions, would led to people, fed up of them.
People don't want to be oppressed, suppressed, women role cut, I know I don't want that, so they be just a follower in society (this is so not from the religion because actually, prophet mohammed used to ask his wives for advice, even because of an advice from one of his wives, muslims were saved on the "Hudaybeya" treaty).
Then, we might either end up having a Sudan style revolution (I really don't hope much for that, enough blood has been spilt already) or an Indonesia style rejection of MBs.
I hope if any MB member read this to take it as a wake up call, having a vision, a solid one, and announcing it to the public is a lot better than being like water, shape according to the situation to the extent that you lose your true face, people don't like that, voters don't like shape-shifters.
Even if people didn't like your vision, then you can have a nation wide discussion concerning that vision, but people will a lot more safer than trying to speculate what you got in your head for them.