Syria - The outrageous failure of us all

The war in Syria has raged now for what seems ages. We have seen Homs burn and Baba Amr get shelled and Aleppo go down, we have witnessed – if we cared or dared to look – horrific crimes against humanity, against humans – children, women, men. We have seen people vanish who were close to our hearts, lingering in some prisons now we cannot access. We fear for their lives every day – or for all we know for people that are no longer alive. One day we will learn perhaps in bitter truth if our clinging to the hope they might live was a folly – or the undying justified loyalty we feel we cannot let end just because the world goes under.

As the atrocities continued, we shouted and screamed, we pleaded and protested, we urged the world leaders to listen, to act, to intervene and stop the killing. We tried to push them to action by calling out the number of the dead – 6.0123 – 8.689 – 10.413. When we reached 12.000, we knew something would stop this madness. It just couldn't go on any longer. We even braved those who, as always to be expected, pointed out, that this number might just be too high, exaggerated, made up perhaps only to serve a political purpose.

A little later, just two weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published her report and we learned: while we spoke of 12.000 for the world to take note, more than 40.000 had in fact been butchered, with now more than 60.000 dead.

60.000 dead. That means 48.000 humans were killed while we still clung to hope and pleaded to the world to make this end. 48.000 shot, burnt, torn to pieces, while we discussed, what could be done. The time span was merely a few weeks. But to the victims, that time span full with horrors was an eternity.

Now we fall silent. The killing goes on. The shelling continues. Bombs rain down on innocent students in universities or unarmed civilians waiting in queues to get bread. Body parts litter the streets, horrific videos show us the bloodbaths we cannot stop with our calling. We have learned that Russia and Iran will never allow this to end, as long as they must fear that a precedent will be set for dictators to fall when they turn against their own people. So Russian warships have entered the Mediterranean and the lunatic killer that calls himself president feels he is strong and gives orders for more of his people to be murdered. We look away. For we cannot take it anymore. Not the blood. Not the screams. Not our own helplessness, our futile attempts to stop this. We have done, what we could, we know, and we could do nothing. It just goes on and on and on. We are just fools with empty hands.

Are we truly?

These days, in bitter cold Lebanon in the Bekaa valley, a slim Hollywood actress turns to us and says: A tragedy is unfolding, and we – and she means us – do not do enough to stop it. She doesn't mean the killing, we cannot halt, nor the blood of the innocent that spills without us being able to prevent it. She speaks of those who managed to flee the hell of Syria, who left all their belongings behind, travelling by night over unmarked paths and snow covered mountains, whole families, old men, women, children, with hardly enough clothes to sustain in the freezing cold. When they have survived the shelling and shooting that is happening across the border and they finally arrive in the refugee camps of the international community, they fall down with exhaustion. But they are alive. Not shot. Not burnt. Not eradicated, but alive, with the only yearning in their heart to make it.

That's where we come in. But we don't. We watch from afar with the empty hands we think we have, our shoulders pulled down in sorrow and pain after the horrors we witnessed – while others endured them – and think that we have learned that nothing can be done. Not by us at least, for haven't we tried it all? We have, truly, we really did try it all to stop the killing. And because we did not manage to stop the killing – we now believe we cannot help the living. How wrong can we get?

Refugee camp for Syrians in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon

Crushing hopelessness

The refugee camps, comprised of tents and make-shift housings, are icy cold. The snow is everywhere and the wind is fierce. There are no beds to sleep in, just the frozen floor and a blanket. The refugees lack warm clothing, the children are without coats and shoes. The situation is critical for each and everyone who made it to here and has the yearning to live. Thousands are holding out in the brutal cold of the valley, only few find shelter with Lebanese families, of which some open their tiniest lodgings to help. But we, in the shelters of our lives, imagine ourselves to be with empty hands.

Mia Farrow, who has travelled from New York via Beirut into the horror of Syria's refugee reality, sits on a cold floor in a small room and listens, as she listens a lot during these days she is spending there as Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF. The people, so desperate to make someone hear their cries, pour out their hearts, tell stories of unbearable tragedies back where they came from and tell of their devastation in this situation that allows for no dignity. "They are grieving the loss of beloved family members and friends killed in the ceaseless violence. They are traumatised. Again and again they told me how they long for the fighting to end. They just want to go home. Home is Syria - not this heap of icy mud with its crushing hopelessness", she says.

A heap of icy mud? But isn't this a refugee camp of the international community? Are not UNICEF, the UNHCR and partners doing everything possible to ensure decent, dignified living conditions? Are we not all comforted to know that those that have made it out of the hell of Syria are now in the safety of the hands of international aid organisations under surveillance of the United Nations, the international community? What then could possibly go wrong?

A lot, as Farrow points out, for the sheer numbers of refugees and the limited resources create a human catastrophe just after the catastrophe the refugees barely survived. Under our eyes, with our consent. Because if we don't take note that this tragedy is unfolding, we are to blame and not Assad. To us that is new.

The empathy of Hanna

More than 200.000 civilians have fled Syria to save their bare lives. Almost 75% of them are women and children, vulnerable and in danger of diseases in a hostile, muddy environment, unable to cope with the pouring rain and falling snow. The humanitarian workers and aid organisations are doing their best, but there seems to be too little of everything. And for supplies it needs money, but money is scarce. "UNICEF and partners are working around the clock to help the refugees survive but they are alarmingly overstretched and underfunded," says Farrow, and the worries are written across her face. "A lot of help has to come fast, or I just don't know how people are going to make it."

Fact is, under the Regional Response Plan issued in December 2012, US$35 million are at least needed, of which less than one third is currently funded. The United Nations’ US$1.5 billion appeal for the Syrian Arab Republic issued in December 2012 has produced only a minimal response from the members. And a new fierce snow storm at the camp site is expected this coming week. The world is failing. And we are the world.

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow visiting Syrian refugees

In the midst of this tragedy, hearts open up of those who themselves barely have enough to share, as the actress recounts:

»A short drive from the tented community, I visited an unfinished cement house belonging to a Lebanese family - Hanna, her husband, a grocer, and their three children. They had welcomed five Syrian families into their two bedroom home – sharing all they have for the past year with now a total of 45 people.

“My husband was killed in Homs,” an old woman told me as tears streamed down her face. “Never in my life did I imagine we would be with nothing. We were in the street here, with nowhere to go. Hanna lifted me up during my darkest days.” Hanna smiled but brushed off the compliment. "It was just my responsibility as a human being to take them in. Even if they are not my actual family, I feel they are family,” she said.

We were all seated on the floor. You could see people’s breath when they spoke and despite my warm coat, I was shaking from the cold. 

I left that house as inspired as I have ever been. If only the rest of us, as an international ‘community’ could demonstrate a fraction of Hanna’s empathy and generosity – what a very different world it would be.«

Then why isn't it a different world? What is stopping us?

If the international community – that is us, that is you, that is me – can spend billions of dollars on wars, why can the international community not spend millions on saving those, who survived a war?

If those that try to help have to battle with underfunding, we are to blame. We all, no exceptions. We are failing outrageously, if we continue to be timid.

We can turn to our governments and demand explanations why humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees is chronically underfunded. Yes, I know money is scarce everywhere these days. And yet – if we cannot stop the tragedy of the war waged by Syria's president against his people, we at least must stop the tragedy we witness in the refugee camps. Push your government to give more. Call your Senator, Congressman, Member of Parliament, whoever holds responsibility. Push for the funding to go up, so people can live. And if they tell you that there is no money left to spend – remind them of the enormous sums they would easily spend without flinching an eye if a military intervention in Syria would be decided. The millions and billions for armies and navy and air force to be deployed would pour out in streams without anyone asking questions. So a silly million cannot be found extra to fund those who survived? Don't let them lie.

But it's not only them, we must turn to, not only our governments the world over we must push and push hard. It is us too.

How can we be so stupid to think we are empty handed? We all have pockets we can turn upside down, even if richness is not our luck. It does not have to be much, a cent, a penny, a dime. If one million people would give only one dollar, can you imagine how many shoes that would be for freezing children in the Bekaa valley, how many jackets for their cold mothers, how many blankets to fathers and sons?

Children bearing the cold in tented refugee camps for Syrians

We are not with empty hands – they are! The refugees who have nothing but their traumatised life. The humanitarian workers who want to help and are helpless against the underfunding and lack of empathy. It is they, who are empty handed, not us. And they are, because we do not understand that we can stop the killing after all.

We can reach them – Assad can't

If we really burn for saving the lives of Syrian people, what better chance do we have than this?

No, we cannot stop the killing within Syria. But we can prevent Syrians being killed by the horrid conditions outside. And while we thought that we held no powers, with connecting the dots we must finally realise – saving those in the refugee camps is something we can do. And it is the only lifesaving that Bashar al-Assad and his killers will never be able to stop. We can stop the killing. He cannot stop us. If only we truly want to, we can lift up our shoulders back to where they belong and act. For in the light of unbearable human tragedies in Syria we have fallen silent and forgotten the powers we hold after all.

Donate a dollar, a euro, a pound, that is all it needs. And I mean it. It does not have to be much, but DO it. And do it now. If we all give a dollar, a euro, a pound, millions will come together to save those who made it out from Syria's hell.

There is something to be won for us all. For with every Syrian who survives the bitter cold of the refugee camps, the dictator is losing his vicious war against his people. He cannot reach them anymore. But we can. That is our triumph. And it will be the downfall of his inhumanity in the end.


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To donate to UNICEF, read the report on Mia Farrow's visit to the refugee camps in Lebanon. Beside it you will find a red 'Donate' button. Click on it, choose your country, and give whatever you can give. And if it is only one dollar, one euro, one pound or whatever your currency may be – ANY amount can help.

Make this your motto: Better give one than give none.


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Pictures taken courtesy of UNICEF from the video diary:

Mia Farrow: "Let's be a community"

Talk of the Town: Robert Becker - The NGO trial and the assault on dignity

In December 2011, eight months after the revolution toppled Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian police raided the Cairo offices of 10 NGOs that had been working on monitoring elections and educating both parties and voters. Included were four American NGOs - the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), The Freedom House and the International Centre for Journalists. A total of 43 persons, including 19 Americans, were accused of violating the law by not filing registration paperwork fully in accordance with the Egyptian law and therefore receiving illegal funding from outside the country. Amongst others, the German Konrad Adenauer Stiftung was also implicated after having worked in Egypt with the full knowledge and approval of the Egyptian government for over 30 years.

The accusations were widely seen as absurd, especially as many NGOs had indeed filed registration papers that were lying in Egyptian offices for years without anyone dealing with them.

The impact of this surprise raid and the subsequent diplomatic row on international relations was immense, especially with Germany and the US. It was finally temporarily resolved, when the Egyptian government – in return for a substantial payment of million of dollars bail – allowed the foreign staffers to leave the country on March 1 on a US military plane.

One American however did not board the plane: Robert Becker, Political Party Trainer and Election Observer with the NDI, stayed in Egypt despite his NGO employer demanding him to do otherwise. Together with his Egyptian staff he has been facing the ongoing NGO trial ever since, spending almost every 4 weeks for hours in a cage at the Cairo court hoping that one day the verdict will show, that they are all not guilty and can go free.

The next session in the NGO trial will take place on January 10 at 10 a.m. After a year of stressful times spend in a slow-grinding trial it seemed a good time to ask Robert Becker about his motives to stay behind, about the impact the trial has on his life and the life of his Egyptian colleagues, and about the future after a verdict that hopefully will speak in their favour.


PART 1 
The raid - the charges - the interrogation - the training of parties and voters

The raid was a complete surprise to us.

There was no warrant. There was no explanation. They seized files, computers, pretty much stripped the building.

I learned from the charges via twitter. There was a news conference from the prosecutor that a journalist from AJE tweeted. That's when I saw my name and learned I was charged. This is not the usual way it's done.

This was a surprise. This was a real setback for Egypt coming out from the Mubarak regime.

PART 2 
The plane left without him - fired by NDI - in clash with US foreign policy - Fayza Aboul Naga started this smear campaign

I got fired. Did it upset me - yeah, it did. On the other hand I did defy direct orders.

It was an assault on civil society and I personally decided that it was a fight worth fighting.

There was a working theory: If all the foreigners left, the Egyptian government would go easy on the Egyptian staff. To which I countered my working theory, that if all the foreigners leave, they might retaliate against the Egyptian staff.

If democracy is to survive in Egypt following the revolution, the citizens have to be a part of it. People have to not fear organising at the local level. - This democracy won't survive without the active participation of the Egyptian people.

How dare we as an American NGO come to this country and preach democracy and preach human rights - and the first time that we get hit with some paperwork felonies the instinct is to run.

All NGOs felt that they were very wronged in this raid.

The 15 of us that are standing in the cage - I think we all wish our governments would be a bit more vocal.

So far there hasn't been any evidence presented against us.

If you ask me who started this and who I would pin the blame on I would say former Minister Fayza Aboul Naga.

Her testimony was rather outstanding. She proved our point that this is simply a political case. None of her testimonies had anything to do with the charges brought against us.

Is it a "smear campaign"? Yes, it is.

PART 3 
The cage - the judges - the defendants - "The Egyptian defendants are patriots"

It is very difficult to hear, what is being said. People accused of a crime should have the basic right to hear what the lawyers and judges and witnesses are saying.

The one blessing we have is, we have a set of judges that seem to be focused on the facts of the case.

We are required to be there. But there's no active participation in the case. It's a mesh cage and you can't hear anything. We're ushered into the cage and we don't come out until court's adjourned.

There are 13 Egyptians in that case who took these jobs to help improve their country. To me they're great patriots. Their only 'crime' is to work very hard to see a better Egypt.

PART 4
Impact on the Egyptians - Bio is blemished even if acquitted - Impact on economy: Scared off investors - Reaction of Egyptians after the foreigners were allowed to leave on plane: a shift in opinion

Most NDI staff lost job and it hurt their careers. - There is a bit of a stigma.

Tens of millions of investor's Euros are on hold.

Okasha in his talk show was calling for our execution, questioning the patriotism of the Egyptians that worked for these NGOs. You had members of parliament that were doing the same thing. - I had more than a fair share of death threats in January and February 2012.

There was a general shift in public opinions after the foreigners were allowed to leave on that plane. So that I think today most Egyptians are convinced that the trial is a farce.

The future of Egypt is the youth. Egypt needs my colleagues engaged in the political and civil society process moving forward. They need hundreds of folks like that.

I hope that a new NGO law will get us where we were one-and-a-half years ago when there was a general new sense of freedom on the streets of Egypt. Because fixing the problems of 30 years of dictatorship is going to take a long, long time. And Egypt needs the valuable contribution of these Egyptians that are in the cage. I consider them patriots. They worked, really, really hard to make Egypt better.

PART 5 
No change since the Muslim Brotherhood president was elected - Lessons to be learned - What is missing is the thought about dignity

The Morsi administration could have reached out to organisations, parties and groups outside of their folds, in the human rights world, in the judicial reform world, with the liberal parties, to build sort of a national consensus for the need for change. To bring people inside the tent to build a better Egypt. Instead they did the decree and sort of fast tracked this whole process and made it clear that they did not want the help of any outside party.

The lesson that Egyptians in power need to learn: In a democracy there's winning and there's losing. When you win the parliament, you control the spoils of winning. But when you're writing a constitution or when you try to address the nation as a whole you have to reach out and work across party lines, across ideological lines. Otherwise you get into a bunker mentality.

I certainly don't want to spend the next four to six years in an Egyptian prison, but it is a distinct possibility. I have seen stranger things happen in this country.

This is a very political case. And the last thing Egypt needs right now is a guilty verdict on it. Mainly because there is no evidence for it. But as much as the international media has stopped covering it, I bet they would start covering it again if it came down with a guilty verdict.

Moving forward, the Muslim Brotherhood needs to get out of its bunker mentality. They need to start reaching out to the NGO world, civil society world, the political parties, because there are very, very large problems that need solutions.

The thing I think is missing the most now in Egyptian politics from all sides is the dignity. With lot of the economic things that are coming out, there is not a lot of thought process about what this is doing to the dignity of the Egyptian man or woman the way they are living in the country. And the biggest assault I have seen in this country is an assault on their dignity.

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You can follow Robert Becker on twitter at @rbecker51

Information on the ongoing trial you find under the hashtag #NGOtrial

You can view the interview in one complete sequence at the Atlantic Council

It takes all kinds to make a world

As short as the New Year is, I nevertheless already got a huge overdose of racist and misogynistic slurs on social media. And I keep wondering, why is it that people are so afraid of others being different? What scares them so that they would resort to vile attacks, vicious insults and overall defaming of what they consider to be – not in line, not according to their way of living, not being identical with what they think they themselves are? Why is 'different' so scary and needs to be fought so hard against?

The great Austrian painter Gustav Klimt created a masterpiece in 1907 when he finished his famous "Flower Garden". In looking at this painting I have always marvelled at the diversity of flowers that he strew across the green grass. The painting is full of life and beauty where flowers of different kind and colour come in abundance and where diversity is the name of the game.

How often have I wondered how we would look at that painting and what we would think of it if he had left out the splendour of different colours and just gave us a plain green meadow to look at? I doubt we would have been equally pleased. What makes his painting so enchanting – and is in fact the true thrill we feel when seeing such places in real life – is the multiple choices we have of picking colours with our eyes. Yes, we plainly love that there are so many different flowers to be seen and we would be dulled if this was not so.

Why then do we react differently to people than we do to flowers in a garden? While we treasure the diversity in nature, many are plain scared when it comes to the diversity of people, of race, culture, gender, sexual orientation or religion. But is this not too just the richness nature has to offer? Why then feel scared when you can be enchanted? Would a Daffodil be afraid of a Daisy because it's colours are different?

The little brown boy became my friend

When I was a young boy, there was a time when we lived in a little village on the outskirts of a small German town. In the primary school of the village 20 puffed-faced little kids sat in my class and tried to learn the alphabet, knowing nothing yet about the diversity of the world. Most of my classmates were farmer's kids. We made mischief in the barn, rolled around in the straw or – much to the dismay of their fathers – played hide and seek in the corn fields. We couldn't read papers yet and on television we only got to see children's programs. We were a closed little community of know-nots and happy in our childish ignorance.

One day in the second grade – I was seven years old – the door of our classroom opened and our teacher came in with a little, slim boy. He was brown in skin colour, had black hair and dark eyes and twenty white-faced, puffed up little kids stared at him in amazement. They had never seen anything like him in real life. Our teacher told us, the boy came from India and his father was sent to work in the town nearby. From now on he would be our classmate and we should be kind to him and make friends. Twenty stunned kids looked back at her blank.

"Who would like to sit next to him?", our teacher asked, and you could have heard a pin drop. No one stirred. Only my hand shot up, almost reaching the ceiling. "I would", I shouted almost a bit too exited as I could see the scared look on the face of the brown boy, not understanding what was going on but feeling intimidated by the stares of his new classmates. I wanted this boy. I wanted him to be my friend, I so knew it. He was different! He didn't look like us! He was full of adventures! We would have great fun, I was sure of that!

Since no one else stirred, the decision wasn't hard to take, and a minute later the little brown boy with his black hair and dark eyes shyly squeezed into the bench next to me and hardly dared to move. I shared my books with him and my pencils, he nodded thankfully, not being able to speak the language – but before the day was out we both were proud of our achievements. Who needs language when you are a kid, when you've got hands and feet, when you can draw and paint in the air, when you are willing to look and learn and listen to the sound of a voice that teaches you much about the heart behind it? It took us weeks to communicate in broken German, but until then we had long made friends.

None of the others in the class showed interest. And while they kept their friendship with me, they did not interact with him, as if they couldn't make heads and tails of what he was about. I did. He was about difference in colour and language, in the form of living and food (I loved his mom's different cooking!), about religion and Gods. And I remember how much I enjoyed playing over at his house full of mysterious paintings and figurines, how kind his mother was to me, how she catered for both of us equally as if we were brothers. I never ever felt alien when being with them, and in all differences that could be seen, the friendship we had was a wonderful bond no one could destroy. The summer was heaven, and it soon turned out that he was obviously from a good family, well educated and – as I have to admit – much more well-mannered and behaved than me. We made a funny pair, we two, and never noticed the world around us or the stares of the others when we were together. No difference in colour made any difference to us. To us we were one and enriched each other with the cultural backgrounds we made the other come to know.

When the year was out, his mother told us one afternoon that his father had been called to go to London to work there and for this reason they would have to move yet again. My friend and I just looked at each other and couldn't believe this. And when they left, it broke our hearts, and I was returned into the world of twenty white-faced look-alike kids not bothering about other worlds to explore. But my friend and all the adventures he brought into my life because he was different, I could never forget.

The richness of Africa

Two years later it was my mother who told me that my father now was being sent to South Africa and we would move there. And so before I knew it, barely eleven years old, I once again entered the world of differences and came to live in a country that could not be fuller of diversity. It was still the times of apartheid, and the maltreatment of blacks could be encountered everywhere. But to me this seemed no obstacle that could deter me. The blacks I came across were different to the brown boy I had been friends with. They looked different, they dressed different, the spoke a different language and had a totally different culture. For anyone out to explore new worlds and make new friends, as I was once more determined to do, this was paradise.

I remember a class trip we took when I was twelve, when we drove hundreds of kilometres to plunge into the vast, majestic landscape of Zululand that was dazzling to the eye. In a very small village, barely comprised of more than a few huts and a small church with an adjacent little building, practically in the middle of nowhere, we were shown how the women of the village learned to work with sewing machines to make an easier living. Our teacher, who had organised the trip and was fluent in Zulu, asked the lady in charge if the women could sing something for us. And before we knew it, the women got up from their places, gathered at one side of the little hall and without any hesitation started to sing a-cappella the songs they sang in their kraal. It blew my mind away. The intensity of their voices, the volume, the harmonies I had never heard before - all this was so strong that I felt it tore down the walls and barriers around us, flinging the window panes out into the valley below and allowing these amazing voices to fly out into the vastness and grandeur of Zululand, filling the space easily as if it was nothing. There was such an unbelievable richness in what I encountered, I could never after that understand how anyone in his right mind in that country could not see what treasures they had with the diversity of the cultures. Where they only saw black and white, I saw colour. And to this day, decades later, when I travel through South Africa and see the treasures of it's nature, I hear the amazing voices of those simple clad women, beaming with shy pride to show us what they knew to do so well. And the volume of their singing opens up the sky above the majestic Drakensberg mountains telling us there are no barriers for voices that are free.

South Africa had plenty to explore for me, as there were more than 50 peoples living there with different backgrounds, beliefs, customs and languages. They had different ways to build their houses, used different motives to paint their walls, they dressed in different ways and practiced different rituals. For anyone seeing the richness, this country was overflowing with it to make you dizzy. And then there were of course the neighbouring countries to visit, with yet again different peoples - Botswana and Zimbabwe, the wonderfully friendly locals of Malawi and the once again different looking inhabitants of Mozambique. Later I moved to Namibia and met with the proud Hereros and clever Bushmen, again so much different to what I had encountered in South Africa. And on visits to Kenya I learned about even more tribes and peoples and cultures and rituals. Africa, it seemed, was just endless in being different and wonderfully enchanting, like the rich flower garden Klimt presented us with in his painting.

The barriers are gone

Many years later, when we came to live in Cairo, I again was confronted with differences. I learned that there was not the Egyptian, but that there were people from Upper and Middle and Lower Egypt, diverse and enriching the country. And I also learned that there was not the Arab, as Arabs from all parts of the Middle East travelled to Egypt to mingle in what was deemed a more free atmosphere in Cairo. And hardly one was alike, coming from different nations with different backgrounds. Diversity never came to an end. It was as if someone had offered me a huge silver platter piled up high with fruits of all forms and sizes, in red and pink and yellow and green. One as enticing as the next and never of the same taste. If that is not richness, what is?

When I travelled across America, there was yet more diversity to explore. And once again, with the many different cultures of the Native Americans, I saw the treasures of a country that so many simply wanted to ignore, shying away from embracing the 'otherness' and not understanding what jewels of different inspirations and customs were offered to them freely to have and to hold, to learn from and to be enriched by. I have never seen anything scary in 'otherness' and never felt anything bad in people being different. On the contrary. My life could not have been richer to this day than it has been with so many encounters with people and peoples being different to me. The era of internet and modern communication after all teaches us how silly it is to build borders and walls, especially if it's in our hearts. And when once, after having spent four weeks on Aruba, a dark skinned local lady we had befriended looked at my almost equally dark tanned arm and said in joyful surprise: "You're one of us!" - she couldn't have paid me a nicer compliment. She meant much more than just my tan. I was still me. But the barriers were gone.

Don't be afraid

Some say, I have been privileged and blessed with such a rich life so far. And of course they are right. Yet I think about the twenty white-faced kids back then in that little village school and know, they all could have grabbed the treasure when it was offered to them. Because they turned away and I did not, I was blessed with the friendship of that little brown looking boy. Often these days I think of him and wonder if he still remembers his little white friend. At first of course we were shy, and when we looked into books together we couldn't help notice that his arm on the table was brown and mine next to it was white. But as unusual as this was for us kids at that time, the colour never made a difference but for the excitement that there was something different there to be explored. Would we still be able to talk today as adults? Could I discuss with him the perils of modern India, where women are still subjected to horrific abuses just for being 'different' to men? Knowing that he too was confronted at an early age with diversity, I would want to believe I could. While our arms were of a different colour, our hearts definitely were not. We had become friends. Despite the differences.

To those, afraid of anything different, I can only say: don't. Don't be afraid to tackle something new, don't be afraid to learn about other peoples ways, their customs, their beliefs. The diversity we enjoy in the painting of Klimt is the richness of our world. We could go out there forever learning and listening and discussing, and not a dull moment in sight. Why anyone would not want that, why anyone would prefer the look-think-talk-alike version of life, is beyond me. There are treasures out there to be found, if only we are willing to take the risk. But taking it will enrich us in a way we could never imagine. After all, it takes all kinds to make a world. And in the end, at least for me, thinking about my Indian friend and the many other friends of different colours and races I later made, the truth is really pure and simple: If everyone on this earth would be like me, I'd be bored to death.

Love is what it is

When night falls in Egypt I see tweeps on my timeline opening up, thinking of love, yearning for warmth and often too afraid to give it a try. The wonderful Austrian born poet Erich Fried, who lived in London but wrote in German, composed a beautiful answer to that, which inspires us to take the risk of losing our heart. Because there is no other option, no matter what we think.

Because love is what it is.

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What it is               (by Erich Fried, 1921 - 1988)

It is nonsense
says reason
It is what it is
says love

It is a disaster
says calculation
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It is hopeless
says intelligence
It is what it is
says love

It is ridiculous
says pride
It is careless
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is
says love

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Alber Saber – And all is well in Egypt

Imagine it is night. In the darkness outside a mob is congregating around your house. They scream, they hurl death threats, they say they will burn down the house and kill you. You and your mother are scared to death. Your mother calls the police by phone. They must come and protect you or something terrible will happen. Then the police come. They intrude into your apartment, but instead of calming the crowds and stopping their illegal doings – the police arrest you, drag you out of the house and through the cheering crowds that continue in their death threats while shouting Allahu akbar. Your mother is left behind without someone protecting her. And you cannot do anything, because the police have handcuffed you and drive you away. It is almost midnight and the horror has gone on for hours. You are scared stiff and don't know where the police is taking you and what will happen to your mother.

Imagine arriving at the police station at the middle of the night with no lawyer to help you, no one to turn to. Imagine the police officers, who came not to save you but to arrest you, hurl insults at you, push you, beat you, then throw you into a dark cell where there are other inmates already. Imagine one police officer shouting to the inmates that you have insulted the Prophet, that you have been blasphemous, that you don't believe in God – shouting it so loud that everyone is getting agitated and angry. Imagine the frustrated inmates, furious at the police for treating them like dirt, now turning their fury on you, because they need an outlet for their anger, need a scapegoat they can blame everything on. And imagine how they fall on you, shouting, pushing – and how then one inmate grabs you from behind, pulls back your head and slashes your neck with a razor blade until you bleed. While the mob around you want to kill you and the police officer grins his dirty grin.

Your adrenaline will pump in your head, you are so scared to die there and then in this shitty police hole of a cell, with the blood already running down your neck and into your shirt, you sweat yourself wet and your heart pounds so hard that it hurts and you know you are going to die any minute at the hands of this incited mob – and then the police officer finally shouts for them to stop and they let go of you and the police officers move away and you have to spend the rest of the night in a corner of the cell not knowing if they will come at you again, if they will take that razor blade again and slash you to death. And you feel the blood running down your body and into your trousers and you don't know if the mob on the street has killed your mother or not. It is so dark in that cell, so unbelievably dark. And you lose all grip on yourself because you don't know if you'll survive the night.

Imagine all that. And then wonder what you have done that could have caused this. Not in the Middle Ages. Not in the middle of nowhere. But in Cairo. In 2012. Under the regime – or is it a government – of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Then you hear that the mob has told the police officers that you had posted that anti-Islam movie about the Prophet from that disgusting American on your facebook site. But you know you didn't and you know they are lying. And you don't understand how you can almost die in front of the police who never investigated anything when they where called to save you from the mob, but instead threw you in jail. Without evidence, without any reason. In Cairo. In 2012. In September.

And later you learn that the investigations of the prosecutor indeed show that you have not posted that shitty film on your facebook page, and that therefore they should never have arrested you and thrown you to the furious inmates inciting them to injure you. And you learn too that the General Prosecutor, who has already done his evil work under Mubarak and never cared for the murders of almost 1000 innocent Egyptian protesters, is still allowed to be evil and still allowed under President Morsi to continue in his evil work. And you think about the promises of this new President, who said that all murders of the revolution will be solved and all martyrs will get justice. And you know this will never, ever happen with this General Prosecutor, who did not care about the young protesters getting killed and who does not care to do what the new President tells the world in his interviews, and who still does not get sacked but can continue to be a felool, while the President just allows it to happen.

And then you learn, while you got your head shaved and have to share a dirty cell with too many inmates and get hardly something decent to eat and have to shit in front of the others while the cockroaches run around your feet, that the prosecutor knows you are innocent, but that he still won't set you free. Because he found out that you thought about religion and God and that you don't know who to believe, and to him this is worse than insulting religion, this is so evil that he would like to kill you and is sorry he can't, because there is no law for that in Egypt. And you learn that all evidence is withheld from your lawyers that your mother and human rights groups have now engaged for you. That the prosecutor is not giving it to the lawyers although he must, but he does not care for the law. He is above the law, as he was above the law under Mubarak and is now above the law under Morsi, because this new President is not better than the old one and does not care. And you learn that the prosecutor hisses at your lawyer how he can defend you, when you don't believe in a God! And you wonder why he knows nothing or cares for nothing that is called judicial procedures and defence of an accused or the rights of someone who has not been proven guilty. And you know, if he could, he would order you to be lashed or again thrown to inmates that try to kill you. And he would laugh about the blood running down your body and would go home not thinking about it anymore. Because his life is fine. His life has not changed. No revolution has forced him to change his evil way. He does not have to care for the law or human rights or the big words from the President. Because the President allows this to happen. In Egypt. In 2012. And so the prosecutor can say to the press that he demands the full punishment for you – for what?, you think – and no mercy, no mercy!

And the President says nothing. Only big words on television. And grins. Like the General Prosecutors grins. And you wonder why in God's name – yes, in his – you and your mother so often have risked your lives back then in Tahrir, when you fought for the revolution – that now eats you up like the regime before wanted to eat you up. And you ask yourself why so many died in Tahrir and around Egypt when what you got is only what you had. And you think that if you had wanted to be thrown in jail for nothing, you might as well have achieved this under Mubarak and that you would not have needed a revolution for this. Because what you get today is the treatment you could have gotten before. So why the fight and the many deaths? It has all been futile.

You are 27 years and of Coptic origin. You are not dumb. You have been taught to think and use your brains to question. And you have questioned. You have looked at the three big religions with their contradictory statements and their unequivocal belief only they are right, only their God is the one and only right God, and you looked at all that and were confused. Yes. You were a young man and you were confused. Now they hold that against you. Your crime, they say, is that you asked questions, that you tried for your life to find answers you could live with. Your crime, they say, is that you dared to use your own brains, that you not simply behaved like a sheep and said "blah, blah" when all demanded you to say "blah, blah" and not think, and not question, and obey blindly under the sword of religion that to you is not solace but confusion. Your crime, they tell you, is that you did what hundred thousands of people and philosophers have done before you in thousands of years that this world exists, trying to find answers to riddles that are so difficult to solve, trying to see light in dark tunnels, trying to find a personal way to understand life.

That was your crime. In Cairo. In 2012. In the 21st century after a revolution and under a President who says that now all are equal in Egypt. And he tells it to the world in staged interviews, grinning and smiling as if everything is in order. But he does not tell to that world that he is lying, that the Muslim Ahmed Mohamed Abdallah (known as Sheikh Abu Islam), who burned a Bible at the U.S. embassy protests and who was filmed doing that and who said that next time he will "urinate on it" and who too is charged with blasphemy, is free and not in jail and not beaten and not slashed with a razor across the neck and does not have to sit in a cage like an animal for all to watch and scorn at and has no mother who had to flee the angry mob threatening to kill her and burn the house down and who cannot return to her home because the Egyptian police is only protecting the mob but not the innocent woman. And who is not sitting in a dark, infested, dirty cell at night with unruly fellow inmates and is scared stiff that he will be sentenced to years in prison and never see his mother in freedom again and will not be able to protect her from the mob that still wants to kill her. In Egypt.

In the Egypt, where the President Morsi says, all now are equal. And where lying is still the name of the game in the presidency, in the judiciary, in the society. And nothing has changed from Mubarak times. Nothing has changed, just nothing. And they drag you from the cage after a futile court date, where your lawyers not even got the evidence against you into their hands, where the prosecutor molests your mother and treats her like dirt so that she weeps and weeps, and where you are insulted and degraded and can't help her from out of that cage. And they lead you down the stairs to the truck waiting to bring you back to your cell, and they need five men, five grown men to shove you down one single staircase, though your are handcuffed and thin and skinny from the shit treatment you had to endure already for weeks, and you can't look at your mother one last time because they won't let you, and you know that Abdallah is free and that the mob is free and that the General Prosecutor is free. And all are grinning and smiling and free. Because the President says in an interview that now all is good in Egypt and all are equal before the law. And you know you will spend your nights and days until the next court date in weeks in that infested, dirty cell, degraded, humiliated, treated like dirt. Because you too are an Egyptian. And equal. And you wonder what Morsi means, when he says "equal", and whether he knows that he is lying, and you don't know how you will survive.

Just imagine all this would happen to you. Your name would then be Alber Saber. And you would not understand why the world, why Egypt, why your fellow Egyptians, why the President Morsi is allowing all this to happen. But as this did not happen to you, you are not Alber Saber. That is wonderful. You will sleep well. Because Egypt is well. And all are equal now. And all is good now. And the President will not lie anymore and means what he says. Because he is not Mubarak. No. Mubarak is gone. There was a revolution, remember? Now all is well. And Egypt has nothing to fear anymore. Never again.

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Alber Saber was arrested on September 13, 2012 on false charges in Cairo, Egypt. He has not regained his freedom.

Report on the trial – The Washington Post

Report on the case – Daily News Egypt

The arrest video – "Alluha akbar"

Denying sexual assault on women assaults them once more

The accounts of horrific sexual assaults against women in Cairo have been accumulating in the last weeks on social media and garnered a lot of attention by users of twitter and facebook. Reports of women attacked by mobs - sometimes up to a hundred -  of sexually crazed men, ripping off the women's clothes in public places, raping them with fingers and tearing at them to a point where the victims believe they will die, are hard to bear - both in their description of an unimaginable amount of aggression as in their conveyance of utter helplessness and anxiety on behalf of the victims. Reading such accounts can be a harrowing experience and is an emotional challenge to say the least.

Perhaps this is the reason for reactions that - to put it mildly - are hard to take for the victims on top of the horrors they experienced. When Natasha Smith, a British freelance journalist and documentary film maker living in Cairo, published the account of an unbelievably horrid and aggressive sexual attack on her by hundreds of men during the celebrations of the outcome of the presidential elections in Egypt, the social media world was in shock. Comments of disgust and true compassion made the rounds and her blogpost describing her ordeal was posted and reposted in huge numbers.

Not long after the blogpost got viral however a reaction set in that seems to become typical in such cases: the questioning of the credibility of her account. Was it true what she told us? Could this have happened in the way she described it? Was the account logical and coherent or were things missing, unclear, incomprehensible? Was she in fact just making all of this up to be in the limelight, get attention and become famous?

Apparently there are not few who think that writing in detail about how you get gang raped is a pleasurable way of garnering attention and becoming famous. The numbers of those who seemed to think so and started questioning the credibility of Natasha Smith rose after the first tweet started to tip off the wave. As with a rumour that spreads, the discussions in minutes flushed across social media platforms, now concentrating on the questions "who is she?" - "has she ever done something credible before?" - "is she lying?" - "does she want to makes us believe...?" - and away from the actual thing that needed discussing: the indisputable gross sexual aggression against women rampant on the streets of Cairo.

Often women deny it happened

While it is always good to not immediately fall for every story that is posted on the net the willingness to suddenly flatly reject the possibility of this sexual assault happening came close to denial. And the most troubling - and this I have not seen for the first time - was the fact, that it was almost only women who quickly jumped on board and called out that this female not necessarily had to be trusted. Not because they know her personally - but because ... - Yes, because of what?

Why is it that women much more than men so often in such cases resort to insinuating the story of sexual assault by a woman is fabricated, is a lie, is only made up to garner the attention of the world? Why are women not naturally inclined to take the side of the female victim that after all represents them as possible target of another assault tomorrow? Wouldn't this be the natural reaction and not the opposite?

Psychologists have studied for decades the reactions of humans on emotionally charged and troubling accounts of victims and found several reasons why one of the reactions almost always is to deny the victim's credibility. There are reasons that both genders have and reasons that are specific to women when it comes to accounts of sexual assaults and rape. In both cases it would be good to reflect on them.

It didn't happen, so I have nothing to fear

One of the main reasons in both genders for denial is the urge for 'self-protection'. By discrediting the victim's account one can brush it off with no fear to become victim oneself one day. Humans need a feeling of safety to live and continue to do what they are doing without the constant fear that all this could - as in the case of the victim of the accounted assault - break into pieces within minutes and shatter their lives. By looking away and denying this truly happened, lives can continue trouble free. And apparently this urge is so intense that inflicting hurt on the victims by discrediting them or questioning their credibility is willingly accepted.

It didn't happen, so I don't have to get emotionally involved

Another reason is the emotional self-protection many feel in need of. Getting emotionally engaged in what horror has happened to another human is energy draining to say the least and can seriously jeopardize being able to continue a happy, contented life. Empathy, showing sympathy for a victim, almost always needs a lot of emotional power that people are not willing to sacrifice for someone they do not know. There seems to be the belief that resources on this per person are limited and one better be stingy. And the easiest way to do this without feeling remorse for being selfish or cold hearted is by doubting that there is any story that would need such an input in the first place. If the victim's story is fabricated, no emotions, no empathy is needed, no energy must be put up and now power sacrificed. There is nothing to be empathetic about because there is no assault that happened. The human mind is full of tricks when it wants to get off the hook and shy away from personal responsibility and the urge to emotionally protect oneself and not get involved seems to be intense in many.

It didn't happen, so men are not as bad after all

While these reasons are common in both male and female they do not satisfactorily explain why so many women especially dispute the credibility of sexual assaults recounted by other women. There must be additional reasons for this reaction that surprisingly is quite the opposite of the solidarity one would have expected to find.

One reaction that one encounters is the unwillingness to accept the other gender as potentially dangerous and harassing as it often is. As one female tweep wrote to me on one such occasion a few weeks back when I was criticizing men for assaulting women: "You are not allowed to speak like that of men! I like men! And I want to love men!"

Fine. But what if they don't love you back? Is that too hard a truth to take? Apparently so, for the amount of energy put up in defending the men - be it in an isolated incident or as a gender - is often remarkable to read. In denying the victim's story the attempt is clearly made to rehabilitate the men that are accused in the account, men as such, men women need, men women don't want or cannot be without. A natural reaction, one would say, as there is only one other gender for any one of us to have (leaving out those for a moment who find more inventive ways to solve the drawbacks of this minimal variety on offer).

Of course, if women would have to concede that men are sexually assaulting animals the idea of bonding with them for partnership would seem less tempting. Yet hormones do not care, so for reasons of hidden forces steering the gender through life, the urge to acquit men of blame is going strong in women. Men must be likable, lovable for partnerships or marriages to work. In blaming men, this dream many women have of men - the most intense version is of course the famous knight in shining armour - would be crushed. Then what? - As this is not allowed to happen - acquitting it is.

But if men are not to blame, the victim surely must be the one to take responsibility. The easiest way for this is discrediting her credibility. If she told a lie, if this horrific report is untrue, it only proves what we have known all along - that men would never do such things to women, that some, few women only make this up. - And women would find peace of mind that life with a man is yet possible and something to strife for. No questions asked. Mission accomplished.

If it happened, it was probably her, so it can't happen to me

The other only method of reaching acquittal of the men is to acknowledge the incident happened - where witnesses attest to it so that the truth of the story cannot be denied - but immediately asking questions if not the victim is to blame for this in the first place. "Why did she have to be there at such a time?" is a common question posted on social media, basically saying nothing else but that no decent, acceptable woman would have gone to a place like that at such a time and therefore would not have been attacked. As - for all to understand - undoubtedly the author of such a line only proves too well. She didn't go to such a place so she didn't get assaulted. So clearly it is the victim's own fault if something goes wrong  - which also relieves of the task to ponder on the men's behaviour that is part of this story. In more blatant versions one can even read a "well, some men are like that" - which is usually accompanied with a shrug of a shoulder ("such is life") - and the pointing out that everyone knows this and who doesn't act accordingly has to blame only herself.

A remarkable way to get the attacking men out of the limelight and an astonishing lack of solidarity. And that for a good reason that once more is embedded in the wish to self-protect. If as a woman I have to admit to myself that vicious attacks by men on women actually happen and - worse - can happen anytime to any women, I as a woman will have no peace of mind anymore. If however I pinpoint the blame for this assault on this one particular woman (aka "slut" in worst versions) then of course I myself will not ever get into this trouble and can wholeheartedly be both denying such incidences for myself and thereby be at peace of mind. A famous example of this is the Muslim Brotherhood MP Azza El-Garf who pointed out to the stunned Egypt that there was no sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo, as she herself had never been harassed. A flawed logic taken up by others who now point out that they too were in Tahrir joining the celebrations on presidential election and - take note - it did not happen to them! So clearly, again - was Natasha Smith making this up or doing something wrong? Was she perhaps to blame?

Men would not do it if women would not tempt them

Often the attacks by women on female victims of sexual assault are clear and outspoken. She dressed wrong. She walked wrong. She did not wear a veil (which as experience shows does not protect from sexual attacks). She was blonde. She looked foreign. She wore high heels. She looked men in the eyes. - The possibilities are innumerous and all boil down to the same: it was her that was at fault to produce this reaction in men. She alone is to blame, so I - as a women dressing rightly, covering up, lowering my eyes - will never have to fear such an attack (oh please, dear God, please!).

The almost unbearable extreme of this thinking - powered by fear the story could be true after all - is to blame the victim of such an assault to make the streets more dangerous "for all of us" by inciting men to think along the lines of attacks. Which - clearly - men do not do on their own if women do not make them. An even more flawed logic that perfectly blends in with the identical conviction of men in patriarchal societies who do not tire to point out that women are an evil temptation that make men do what they would never otherwise do. Hence the covering up, the shutting out, the keeping them in the house. Women who echo this logic resemble people handing the key to their prison cells to the warden asking them to shut them away. One would think this impossible but unfortunately one reads more of this on social media than is imaginable.

To the victims of sexual assault this is impossible to bear, because the collaboration with the attackers feels as if the rest of the women condone what happened and leave her, the victim, with the guilt. And psychologically it boils down to another attack on top of what was endured already. It will leave even more scars on the victims souls that will need years - if ever - to heal. Inflicted this time not by the men that sexually attacked but by the women that pretend to find fault in this only with the female victim and not with her attackers.

For the egotistic urge to have peace of mind and be at peace with men these women sell off their sisters who are in pain. And thereby too allow these gross human rights violations against women to continue.

Telling of sexual assault to become famous?

But blaming the female victim for apparent misconduct is usually only done when all else fails, when for reasons of witnesses present the incident as such cannot be denied. Where this is not the case, the easiest way yet to get out of the fix remains to dispute that a sexual assault as described in a testimony ever happened. For this, any argument will often do. As someone with regard to questioning Natasha Smith's account wrote on twitter yesterday: "I'm not suggesting she's making it up but people lie. Gay Girl in Damascus anyone?"

A not too convincing argument, for if one points out that people lie one is of course already short of suggesting "she's making it up". Why else would one doubt her credibility and point out that "people lie"?

The comparison to the Gay Girl in Damascus - which was in fact a 46 year old idiotic American male obviously lacking all comprehension of what empathy and human feelings are about - is in addition flawed, because it ignores the fact, that as much as the Gay Girl in Damascus wrote fantastical stories, 'she' never pretended to recount a story of a sexual assault on herself with vivid details of her genital zones.

That's where the thinking once more goes wrong trying to ward off the horror, a victim of sexual assault could actually tell the truth. A truth one would have to face, which apparently is harder for many women to do than to spread doubt it ever happened.

The insinuation that a victim only tells such a story to become famous and interesting shows an astonishing lack of understanding what telling such a story for the victim actually means. It is not like telling some story of everyday life or political pressure, as the Gay Girl of Damascus did. Telling of a sexual attack is like stripping yourself in public, giving people insights into the worst happenings to your private parts, which doesn't come easy to anyone. It's for a reason we call them 'private' parts, because out of shame we do not expose these voluntarily in public. To tell the story however how men groped and shoved their fingers into your private parts, these become public. And it feels like you might as well stand on the market square and rip off your clothes for all to see and watch you naked - knowing well, all will. No one wants to be stared at, but in recounting such a story of sexual assault this will happen, if only in the minds and imagination of the readers.

That is a very unpleasant knowledge the victim has and is anything but easy. To imply anyone would do this just for getting attention or becoming famous shows that the critics - luckily - have never experienced sexual assault personally and do not know what goes on inside a victim when it takes the courage to tell the world.

To recount a sexual assault is a horror relived

A few months ago one night on twitter a hashtag suddenly sprang up called #IDidNotReport. With starting their tweets with this hashtag women suddenly began to recount what happened to them days or years ago with regard to sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and even rape. "I did not report", they said, and went on to explain what it was they did not report and why they didn't and why now they thought it was time to let it out. The accounts that were coming in suddenly with the force of a tidal wave were harrowing and innumerous and tweeps I followed started to open up and tell stories I would never have imagined happened to them. I was stunned, shocked - and paralyzed. For I too did not report many years ago and had promised myself never to tell.

As I saw a wave of testimonials sweep across my timeline and women showing an unbelievable bravery in speaking out what had happened to them, I began to realize the importance of not hiding what happened, of not pretending it didn't, which obviously - see above - is so much easier for society to bear.

It took me a while and I first confided silently in a woman friend, but then I took up my courage so as not to fail these brave women speaking out and I started to tell my story. I thought it was important, that a man too admits that this happened to him because especially men think such assaults are 'unmanly' and are convinced that they should never tell. As did I.

It took seven or eight 140 character tweets only in which I described that I did not report the sexual attack on me many years back on a trip home in a sleeper from Luxor to Cairo, when I was seriously ill with high fever and the elderly tourist in the bed below made use of my incapacitation and assaulted me in my sleep. Due to my illness and very high temperature I could hardly fight him off, battled what felt like hours until he seemed to give up and I fell asleep again exhausted. When I woke up the next morning he was gone from the compartment and so was my necklace. He had been at me once more at night and to this day I don't know what else he did after I had fallen asleep again.

Telling this story in those few lines on twitter without going into any more detail was sheer horror. I had always imagined to have put off this unpleasant incident long ago and never felt it had in any way interfered with my sexual well-being or self-confidence. I worked this out for myself, classified it as an unfortunate incident that I could not prevent - wrong place, wrong time, wrong circumstances - but not as something that could easily happen again any day to come. That probably made it easier for me to put it aside. So much more surprised and shocked I was to see that when that hashtag appeared on my timeline and I started to read all the reports from others, this long settled story came up like a wave of hot and cold hitting me and the idea of telling the world what had happened - 26 years after the assault occurred - seemed impossible to do.

After I had pulled myself together and had told my story in those few tweets, a wave of positive reactions set in with tweeps - both female and male - praising me for my courage and telling me how undoubtedly strong and brave I was. Only to the woman friend from before did I confess that I was neither, but that I was in fact and literally shaking, trembling and sweating to such an extent that I had to take a shower at 2 o'clock in the morning to get back into normal life. Sweating like this, feeling dirty, abused, disturbed, hurt and confused on an incident that had happened so long ago - only because I took it upon me to finally speak about it. And only in a few tweets.

There is nothing more hurtful than to encounter disbelief

If this personal experience is anything to go by, I can assure you that telling the story of how you were sexually assaulted - and that even in detail and only a few days after it happened - is anything but easy, is anything but something you would do for fun or to get attention or to get famous. You would more than gladly miss out on such fame, thank you very much, if only it didn't happen or if it did you could keep quiet about it. Anyone taking up the courage to tell his story however to alert the world that these attacks happen, that sexual assaults must be taken seriously and not ignored or put off as figments of the imagination, suffers hugely inside and will encounter an anxiety that compares to the initial horror experienced.

For this reason the attempt to discredit victims of sexual assault - be they female or male - by insinuating they only tell such a story to become famous and garner attention borders on the malicious. It blatantly ignores the pain inflicted by recounting such an attack and the emotional stress a victim is going through when it tells of what happened, knowing only too well what images the account will invoke in the readers. The private parts will become public parts, the readers will visualize what you tell, you will thus become the victim again to what happened - only this time it seems in front of everyone's eyes. And what after that? Will you still be able to hold your head up high now that everyone sees you as a "sexual victim", sexualizing you in every aspect as if this was what you were made up of, the only thing that mattered about you?

It is incredibly difficult to do. And if Natasha Smith told her story the way she did - and others did before her too - then partly due to still being severely traumatized but also because with every detail you describe you know that the imagery in readers minds will begin to tick like a clock gone wild. And these images will stick to you - and it will be difficult to rid yourself of this knowledge.

To whoever picks up the courage nevertheless to tell the story of sexual assault in order to shake up the world and say: Hey listen! This happens! - there is nothing more hurtful than to encounter disbelief, discrediting, ignorance of the pain inflicted. The worst that victims of such crimes report when going to police stations is having to face officers who shake their heads in disbelief, disinterest, disregard and show willingness to believe the accused more than the victim - is to be treated like a liar, not taken seriously - left in the end alone with the horror one barely survived.

There is no excuse for this at all. In all statistics done on women reporting sexual crimes the number of fabricated stories turned out to be insignificantly low. And yet disbelief rather than belief seems for many the initial name of the game. Apparently it still makes more sense to doubt the credibility of a victim than to trust that no one in her sane mind would make up such a horribly story - which once told excessively burdens the victim and her sexual privacy. Not only after surviving such an assault but too after telling about it, nothing for the victim will ever be the same. To imply a women would do this easily, is baseless and inexcusable. If not malicious, it can only result from the sheer ignorance of what truly goes on in a victim after a sexual assault.

With denial the victim is assaulted a second time

With all the stories we find on the internet, posted and reposted via social media tools, it does make sense to be cautious and awake and to think twice when hearing a story that is unpleasantly bold. However in the case of sexual assault testimonials this has become an automatic reaction for many, and sadly many women. The shying away from the horror told and the wish not having to acknowledge the truth about such attacks leads into denial mode and starts to discredit the victim. With that nothing is gained. The situation - for all women believe it or not, not only for the 'liar' or worse the 'slut' - will stay like it is, but above all the victim will be hurt even more.

And if you find out Natasha Smith did not lie about the assault but told it as it is - will you then let the horror of what happened to her reach you or will you find another reason to not let it touch you? - And will you then apologize to her for inflicting even more pain on her by doubting her credibility? - Or will you just pretend your public doubting never happened and look away? - How decent is this then? Is it truly her story you worry about or not much more your own?

Even if the urge is felt to go into denial mode for reasons shown above, the victim will seriously feel that it is assaulted a second time - on top of what it already had to endure. Out of of fairness, compassion and responsibility it would therefore be vital and wise to tread softly. If you are in doubt, wait and watch and do research if you must but don't discredit publicly, creating wrongs that cannot be undone. And don't think it is cool - when others show empathy - to go against the wind and openly question the victim's credibility. There is nothing cool about being in denial and the issue at hand is too serious to use it for playing games.

It would be better to first give the victim the benefit of the doubt and not the culprit. Otherwise, whether you like it or not, you become unwillingly the collaborator to such horrific, inexcusable attacks on women. And then, as much as you deny it to yourself now, the next victim could be you after all.

Let us learn from the Nile

Looking at the Nile I see the river flow with serenity, murmuring calmingly along, not getting into a frenzy, not easily disturbed.

There is a grandeur in this flowing that surpasses momentary irritations and will endure all fights and tribulations, glowingly.

Sometimes I wonder why that beautiful Nile can't pass its silent wisdom on to the people who live at its shores.

Much would be won for Egypt.