What Egypt can learn from Hypatia Alber

I'm not the type to go into frenzy over a baby, I shamefully admit it. It is not, because I don't love children, on the contrary, I adore them and believe they are our most precious key to a future. But in general I feel – other than the parents escorting them – that one baby in a pram pretty much looks like the next, a little ruffled, much confused over the many faces that pop up over the limited horizon the little carriage offers, not very communicative – and often plain asleep. While I of course understand that to the mother or father next to it this baby is, no questions asked (dare you), the most wonderful, beautiful baby that ever graced the face of the earth, I – silently – beg to differ but naturally assure the good parents that this indeed is one exceptional offspring. Which is true, seeing it is theirs and not somebody else's. So I am not really lying.

There is one baby however that has truly captured my heart for many reasons these days. And yes, even I find that she's not only exceptionally nice to look at (who could not fall for this cute smile?) but also someone very special, with a really beautiful name to go by: Hypatia. Hypatia Alber.

The little one was just recently born by her mother to the most proudest father you probably can come across, one, who already posted photos of her when she was still inside her mother, constantly having her hands at her head and her head often down to which he excitedly exclaimed: "That's my girl!"

He should know. For he is a man who uses his head a lot himself and almost got killed over this only a year ago: Alber Saber.

For those, who are not familiar with his story, which I wrote about a year ago on this blog (Alber Saber - And all is well in Egypt), let me give you a quick sum up: Egyptian, intelligent, 27 years old, thinking aloud about religion and God and trying to find his way in the labyrinths called religions. A Copt, I should add. And all and all, in the Egypt that was 'ruled' by President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood this was a toxic mixture.

A year ago this time, Alber Saber rotted in an Egyptian jail, awaiting the outcome of his trial for alleged blasphemy. In the aftermath of the riots around the vile anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims", tensions against Copts ran high and Alber's posting of his contemplations on religion angered his Muslim Cairo neighbours who on 12 September stormed the house where he was living with his mother and threatened to burn the place down – with them inside. In their fear, mother and son called the police to protect them, but when the Egyptian police arrived and barely were able to make their way through a hateful, shouting mob, there was no interest to protect the Copts. The police sided with those attacking them instead, confiscated Alber's computer and arrested him, leaving the fear stricken mother alone with the death threats hurling crowd.

What followed was horror

Alber they took to the police station where he was thrown into a cell with criminals, not without shouting first that he had insulted God and was an infidel, so that the cellmates turned on him, beat him badly, and one slashed his neck with a razor blade. He had to spend the rest of the night in a corner, bleeding and scared and not knowing if he would ever come out of this alive.

His trial lasted almost three months and was an incredible, hate filled farce. On 12 December the judge ruled that Alber, in criticising religion, had incited 'tensions among Muslims and Christians' and therefor was guilty. The verdict: three years in prison. The chances of him ever getting justice in an Egypt full of sectarian strife under Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood had been crushed.

Five days later, as an appeal had been launched and due to the publicity his case and the unjust verdict received world wide, Alber Saber was freed on bail until the resuming of his trial in January 2013. On the day his appeal case was to start, Alber Saber had left Egypt. He knew, he would never get justice if he stayed.

The months that followed for him in Europe were both challenging and depressing. The freedom he gained was a wonderful gift, yet being torn apart from his family was extremely hard. He missed his wife, his mother, his friends. But had to grit his teeth and go on. His safety was at stake.

Then slowly things began taking good turns. The family situation became sorted out and a safe place to live was found. With a heavy heart still over Egypt and those left behind Alber Saber started to do what was his right as a young married man, to live and to love. And to become secure in his life.

It was at this time that a little human started to appear on the horizon, shy at first but bigger and bolder as the months went on, and a living proof that even after troubling times in an Egyptian jail good things can come out of it if you are released on bail. For this little one was conceived when freedom was restored, and it was for her the most that Alber had to make sure he would not rot in prison but be free when she would decide to enter this world.

And enter she did. With a smile so cute, it melts your heart, with wide awake, open eyes to observe and take in, with a twinkle in those eyes, as if trying to say that living after all is real fun and should be enjoyed and that sorrows surely are not part of the universe – and if ever they were may easily be forgotten.

Hypatia, as she so beautifully was called, was the biggest triumph over sectarian hate and police brutality and rotting in dark cells with cockroaches, violent guards and aggressive inmates. She was – and is – the epitome of life and what it is all about: Hope and humanity, compassion and happiness, and the wonderful right to own a future. For everyone. Even for her father who, only a year ago, had to endure such horrors.

The truth about being a father

It was one of the most dreaded parts of Mubaraks rantings, when the old dictator kept referring to Egyptians as 'my children'. When he called the men and women of Egypt 'my sons' and 'my daughters', though he never had a hand in their coming to this world and even less in their making a living and being allowed to live. While he named himself their father, he did not hesitate to make their life hell, neglect them, terrorise them, allow them to be beaten, arrested, tortured and even killed. Something a true father would never have done.

After he was gone, others came pretending to be different but picking up the same sick line of 'my children' and the farce of being a loving father. They too now are history, and how much the current strong man of Egypt, el-Sisi, feels to be the father of Egyptians has yet to be seen. But the well known, albeit dreaded, version of fatherly love from above is lurking once more around the corner.

Enters Hypatia again, full of innocence and natural trust, crouching into the arms of her real father, who could not be prouder and happier, and teaching those old Egyptian wanna-be fathers the simple lesson what being a father to a child really means. Three words are needed only: Love, security and trust.

If you see Hypatia's face, you know what Egyptians expect from their fathers and what they deserve. It is, with all those father figures, high time that the expectations finally are met.

If anything, Egypt can learn a lot from Hypatia and her wonderful smile: That it is worth living more than dying, that trust is the essence for happiness, and that without true, compassionate love, people should not even dream of calling themselves fathers. Only in the arms of a father of love, says Hypatia, can I cuddle securely, dream my little dreams of happiness and fall soundly asleep.

Which she promptly does.

Hush, Egypt, hush. It is time to become quite and contemplate what life is really about. From the darkness of jail hell to the brightness of pure happiness is but a short way. Choose the latter, come on. And while you still ponder on this – make sure please that you don't wake the little one. Psssst ...


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All pictures © Alber Saber - reproduced with kind permission

The labels of otherness in our heads

On the sad anniversary of 9/11 listen to my thoughts on what really tears us apart. The categories in our heads and the never ending labels of otherness we can't get rid off. Written as an Op-ed after the bombs went up in Boston killing and wounding people, here you can now listen to them in a podcast. In the hope, that one day we'll be able to stop the hate that kills and maims humans like you and me.

Boston: Where the Bombs Begin

Two bombs that exploded next to the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday killed three people and injured over a hundred. U.S. President Obama vowed to bring to justice those responsible for this "act of terror".

Egyptian journalist and blogger Nadia El-Awady voiced her reaction to the bombings in her most read worthy post: Boston: Why Arabs Like Me Are Horrified

In it, bravely and frank as is typical of her, she describes her reactions to the attacks on September 11, 2001, and the fears with regard to the new attacks yesterday in Boston. Her courage to tell what others rather keep a personal secret, is admirable. I felt compelled to answer and urge you to first read her post, before continuing here to read my reply.
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When I saw the second plane fly into the WTC on September 11 – there was shock on my face and horror. Not, because this happened to the U.S., but because I knew that this happened to humans. The single mother battling hard with her two children after her husband had left her, the young man aspiring to become a scientist finding a cure to diseases, the old woman who had lost her husband and son in a car accident early and been alone and brave for 30 years, the businessman from abroad on a strenuous conference trip, working hard to ensure a living for his family and education for his daughter and son, the over 600 Muslims working in companies in the towers, being unaware of getting killed this very minute by so called 'Muslim' brothers – who were in fact no brothers nor Muslims but cold, pathetic terrorists and murderers.

These were the pictures that flashed through my head in a fraction of a second as I watched the plane plunge into the tower and explode in a fire ball. How could I have smiled, knowing that humans, real living human individuals were pulverised to nothing in this very moment? It wasn't the U.S. that was getting attacked in that very minute, it were humans, humans of flesh and blood, all the humans I had in my mind. And it was visible if the vision was not, for whatever reason, blurred.

I have had more than my fair share of anger over the U.S. (and that is putting it very euphemistically). But when the bombs exploded in Boston yesterday, I only saw the people, the humans torn to pieces and killed. The 8 year old boy, who was so proud that his father had run the marathon and reached the finish line, or the woman who had perhaps managed to fight a terminal illness and was just getting back on her feet, the young man, who had successfully made it through high school and thought his whole life lay before him – how could I see them other than 'humans', how would any other 'label' fit but 'humans'?

Some say: The U.S. was attacked. And to them that is the truth. That was the plan of those who planted those bombs. They wanted to 'attack the U.S.', and sometimes this gives a feeling of satisfaction to people, who do not realise that they are falling for the trap laid out for them by the bomb planters.

No, whatever they tell us or want us to say, it wasn't the U.S. attacked yesterday in Boston but innocent human beings: boys, girls, women and men – humans like you and me. And vice versa it also wasn't 'an Arab' or 'a Muslim' or whoever who planted those horrific bombs, but a coldhearted, pathetic murderer, like you sadly find them in any society around the world. There are murders happening in the Western world by Westerners that, regarding brutality, easily match this bomb attack. Not in numbers, but in ruthlessness. So how can a label of nationality or religion explain anything where inhumane horror is concerned, where we are talking of tearing young children's bodies apart for the sake of power and greed?

We must learn to do away with these labels that never tell us any truths but only help to manifest what the murderers want: That as a human community we fall apart, that our compassion for our fellow humans is halted, that we become divided into labels and camps of 'U.S.' and 'Arabs' and 'Muslims' and 'Christians', of 'Blacks' and 'Whites', of 'good' and 'bad' – into labels of 'them' and 'us' – of 'they' and 'we' – into never making it together.

A mother crying over her bomb torn boy cries the same, whether in Baghdad or Boston. The pain is no different. Why then should we allow the killers, who inflict these pains, to divide us into groups where the same very horrific pain over a dead child becomes a 'their pain' over an 'our pain'? Why play into the hands of those who kill and triumph if we fall for the categories they have decided for a distorted world of hate and power?

It is the categories in our heads that tear us apart. The bombs come later. If we would understand this, there would be no room for smiles, nor now for the fear to learn of the nationality of a bomb planter, of hearing, he might be "one of us", of dreading to "learn how far behind we will fall yet again". Because, no matter what he says and perhaps even believes, he did not plant that bomb as an Arab, or a Muslim, or a Christian, or an American. He planted these bombs as a pathetic, mentally disturbed, sick person full of hatred for himself and others. And he wants us to join him in his madness of thinking so he can feel that he's not alone with his disease.

I won't go along. You were never an Arab to me Nadia, and not a Muslim. You were a human being. The rest was a colourful and wonderful add-on that helps shape your personality. Nothing more. But nothing less. Like my add-ons, you like or dislike. Some we share, some we don't. But your tears are like mine, your smile is too – well, your laughter is a lot louder than mine, I admit it, but hey, there's got to be some difference! – you're a woman, I'm a man, you're a human, and so am I.

If one day – God save us from this – we both should get killed in a bomb blast in a terrorist attack, will you die as an Arab and I as a Westerner? Or won't we both die as the humans we were? Will anyone try to tear us apart even in death, in you 'the good' and me 'the bad' or vice versa? How dare anyone? We are humans. And as such we meet, and if fate wants it, we die.

Let us embrace our heritage, our cultures, our beliefs, our nationalities, as a unique personal gain and a richness of our diverse world. Let us respect and treasure it. But in the end – if we don't remove the labels of otherness from our heads in life and in death we play into the hands of those who plant bombs and horror. And with that we will never be able to stop the terrorists from doing their horrific deeds. Not on the ground. And – much more dangerous – not in our heads.

It's there after all, were the bombs begin.