{Egypt’s President Al-Sisi, juxtaposed – rightly so – alongside a fearless lion}

IF, even a decade ago, anyone told this investigative journalist that Egypt’s top leader would be held up as a “role model” for Arab/Muslim leadership, well, they would have been laughed at. Scorned.

AND it is surely not lost in this direction, yes, generally, Egypt’s population is highly anti-Israel and defacto anti-semitic. This is undeniable.

From liberals to Islamists, one of the only ideas that binds Egyptians is anti-Semitism. Where did it come from? Why is Egyptian culture so drenched in this toxic ideology? And what does it mean for the world and for Egypt’s future?.

NEVERTHELESS, as proven to be the case, Arab/Muslim nations are best led under pro-western strongmen, even if said sentiment offends some “delicate” sensibilities. Oh dear…can hear the multicultural fantasists whine and opine: such viewpoints are non-democratic!

Hogwash.

ALAS, as always, truthfulness, regardless of its sting, is the ultimate disinfectant: 

The current chaos can be traced directly back to Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s indecorous unseating of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s strong arm dictator for decades.

While hardly a democrat, he understood very well which actors would become unleashed, if the status quo was tampered with. As a result, the much ballyhooed “Arab Spring” turned into an Arab Nightmare, tethering jihadist forces in warp speed. So if blame is to be assigned to the current catastrophe – and it is one – it must start at the Commander-in-Chief’s door, as he shrilly dictated to Mubarak – GO NOW!…..

PLAIN as mud…clear as a bell too. Besides, it will take countless decades – if ever – to imbue this part of the world, its culture, with liberal and enlightened value systems. 

ENTER, Al-Sisi, the west’s main Islamic/Arab hope via this blog’s previous assessment, noted back in Aug. 2013. If anything, this site is hardly Johnny-Come-Lately!

REGARDLESS, that was then and this is now.

‘THE LION OF EGYPT’ President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi doubles down on his call for a total “reformation of Islam”.

Speaking before Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry on New Year’s Day, 2015, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a vocal supporter for a renewed vision of Islam, made what must be his most forceful and impassioned plea to date on the subject.

Among other things, Sisi said that the “corpus of [Islamic] texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years” are  “antagonizing the entire world”; that it is not “possible that 1.6 billion people [reference to the world’s Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live”; and that Egypt (and the Islamic world) “is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”

The relevant excerpt from Sisi’s speech follows (translation by Michele Antaki):

I am referring here to the religious clerics.   We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before.  It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world.  Impossible!

That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world.  It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it from the outside, to root it out and replace it with a more enlightened vision of the world.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma  is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former Egyptian army chief who deposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, is very popular with the Egyptian people as well as the Coptic Christians there.

Legal Insurrection  His popularity has increased enormously during his successful battle against Egypt’s religious extremists who threatened to enact a wide array of “reforms” while they were in power, everything from enacting laws repressing religious freedom to calling for the destruction of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx.

Now, he offered an intriguing new plank on his presidential platform (for which he was condemned by Barack Hussein Obama) by “casting himself as a defender of religion and taking aim at the doctrinal foundations of Islamist groups the state is seeking to crush.”

From Reuters:

Striking a pious tone that sets him apart from former president Hosni Mubarak, Sisi also appears to be taking on the mantle of a religious reformer. He has blamed outdated “religious discourse” for holding back Egypt.

“I see that the religious discourse in the entire Islamic world has cost Islam its humanity,” Sisi said in an interview televised on May 5. “This requires us, and for that matter all leaders, to review their positions.”

With references to God and morality, Sisi may turn out to be the most outwardly pious of any of the military men to have governed Egypt since the republic was founded in 1953.

Al-Sisi’s secular approach also is reaping results. Egypt has just seized the funds of 30 Brotherhood leaders as well as those of 12 NGOs and six companies allegedly affiliated to the outlawed group. Additionally, Egyptian security forces have uncovered at least 44 alleged terror cells with Muslim Brotherhood links and apprehended 225 cells members for targeting the private police positions.

This is not the first time al-Sisi has publicly called for a reformation of Islam:

AS always, the Muslim Brotherhood’s terror leaders – and its supporters – are out in full force, not only to protest the Al-Sisi government, but to utterly destroy the leadership at every turn. They mean DEADLY business, and ISIS is in their corner!

SO, let’s hear it for Al-Sisi and his glorious words, truths which a lesser man would be terrified to utter, especially in light of the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is at his throat; Barack HUSSEIN Obama is “gunning” for him too, and ISIS – alongside every other Islamist group – is encamped in the Sinai region!

TO wit, it is no small measure for this site to nominate any Egyptian leader as “leader of the year”, but these are no ordinary times. Moreover, this public pronouncement is hardly due to TIME’s nomination, declaring him as “the most important man in the world”. Not by a long shot.

TO the contrary…when has this investigative journalist ever gone with the (mainstream) herd? Never and never.

BULLSEYE.

{re-blogged at Islam Exposed}

{re-blogged at Joe For America}