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Op-ed: Egypt’s radicals eliminating country’s connection to West, but does

anyone care?

 

Guy Bechor

Published:12.22.11, 17:34 / Israel Opinion

 

It was barely mentioned in the Israeli and global media, but the following event pertains to the whole of Western civilization: Last Saturday, violent groups of Islamic-Salafi radicals burned the famous scientific institute established by Napoleon in Egypt after its first encounter with the West. Some historians consider it the start of modern times in the Middle East.

The site, L’Institut d’Egypte, held some 200,000 original and rare books, exhibits, maps, archeological findings and studies from Egypt and the entire Middle East, based on the work of generations of western researchers. Most of the artifacts were lost forever, burned or looted.

It’s difficult to understand the modern Middle East without these studies, which were overcome by an immense fire. The large building was situated in the center of Cairo and torching it was a symbolic, intentional act. Those who burned the building and its artifacts meant to burn the era of logic, enlightenment, research and individualism.

This was a grave provocation against the whole of Western civilization, a desire to disconnect from science, research and modernity, while cynically using a Western means – that is, democracy – in order to take power.

One need not go all the way to blowing up the pyramids, as some of Egypt’s Salafis wish to do after they seized some 35% of the new parliament seats (alongside 40% of the Islamic brotherhood,) and there is no reason to go as far as Afghanistan, where the Taliban blew up the huge Buddha statues. The elimination of Egypt’s non-Muslim past is already here.

Anything that dates back to the Pharaohs, that is ancient, or that is Western is destined to be destroyed, and the mission has already been launched in the most symbolic manner: The outset of Egypt’s modern era, which the Salafis seek to erase, and in fact rewrite. This is a battle for writing the history of Egypt and of the Arab and Muslim world.

UNESCO’s silence

This isn’t a new phenomenon, and in Jerusalem as well we see elements associated with political Islam trying to erase any presence of the 3,000-year Jewish existence there, on Temple Mount for example – existence that pre-dated Islam.

In 1258, the Mongols burned the immense library in Baghdad known as the “House of Wisdom.” It held rare writings that have disappeared forever, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and the other cornerstones of Western civilization. All we know today is that these books existed, yet following the terrible fire in Baghdad they were burned forever. The Mongols sought to secure the same objective as Egypt’s Salafis: Erasing the past and keeping only their present.

All of this is happening while the confused West is lauding the new democracy established in Egypt, without understanding that this democracy is erasing the historic Egypt that was intimately connected to the West and its culture; a new Egypt shall rise on the ruins of the great fire. What we are seeing here is not a battle for power, but rather, a battle for perception, memory, heritage and historiography; that is, the writing of history.

Oddly, this is happening in Egypt of all places, a state that always demanded the return of the archeological findings taken from it as part of its national ethos. Artifacts of the era of the Pharaohs are still held in London and in Paris, yet Israel already returned all the archeological findings it discovered in the Sinai. Now, it is doubtful whether Egypt would be able to safeguard its own museums, which are also facing the threat of fire and looting.

And who is supposed to raise a hue and cry over the burning of Egypt’s Western past? Who is supposed to be greatly disturbed by the fact that Egyptian authorities are having trouble protecting their own museums? UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Yet not much is happening there. Well, we can’t blame this organization; after all, it is preoccupied with admitting “Palestine” into its ranks.

 

 

 

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

9 Replies to “Welcome to Cairostan”

  1. Western art history surveys I took at eciad, before they were being taught by a self-described millitant lesbian marxist feminist, all incorporated vast amounts of material from Egypt and Messopotamia. I see my heritage going up in smoke from a salafists torch. May the bastards burn in hell.

  2. How many hundred-thousand Muslims are we letting into Canada every year? Has it ever occurred to the government that this might not be such a good idea? Why don’t any governments anywhere seem to be intelligent enough to be able to see this? I really don’t get it. If they ever get to be a majority they will certainly do to us what they are now doing to Egypt.

  3. The only artifacts of ancient Egypt that are to survive are the ones in the hands of Western Museums, the ones that the left has spent so many years trying to get returned to Egypt so the Moslems can destroy them.

  4. Look on the bright side: there wont be anything valuable to loose when we carpet-bomb the shit out of it.

  5. Soon the pyramids will be lost forever. Mark my words. They have stood supreme for milennias but their end will finally be at the hands of the Arselifter Brotherhood.

  6. They would have been destroyed centuries ago if they could have stolen the technology from us to destroy them.

  7. Carpet or pattern bombing will not be used, it was used in WWII because the bombers were lucky if they could get their bombs within 2 miles of the target, we now have the capabilities of hitting the target and won’t waste ammo on civilians.

    The idea of winning the war by bombing the enemy cities flat doesn’t work, the people get angry and remain in the fight to the bitter end.

  8. You know, before we start bombing cities flat, maybe we should start a little smaller by at least defining who we are fighting and then by working up the nerve to say it like it is. We are under attack by the religion of Islam, as defined by the Quran, the Hadiths, and the opinions of the most important and influential Imams. To date, I have heard no world leader speak these simple and truthful words. The fact that they are fooling us so successfully and forcing us to wriggle and squirm as they laugh at our sheer cowardice, is the first battle that must be won. Who knows? If they knew that we knew that they knew that we knew, maybe they would take their Jihad and shove it back in its box for another hundred years. I’m serious. The trouble is that we keep letting them think that they might just win and that can’t happen if we don’t let it.