First Things First

OK, so this is officially my first post ever. Who am I? I'm just a liberal Egyptian. I've always been into politics, but since politics was dead in Egypt prior to the January 25th revolution, I was merely a spectator. But now there are no taboos in Egyptian society anymore right? Well, no. And that's where this blog comes in.

Egypt is a conservative country. Egyptians are religious, conservative people. One might think, especially someone who is not familiar with MENA (Middle-East and North Africa), that after the revolution we have been liberated from all the shackles that have been holding us back as a country and as a people. Things like religious freedom, tolerance, gender discrimination, ignorance, poverty, religious fanaticism.

Addressing these taboos will be what this blog is about. Everyday there seems to be an new controversy spurring dialogue (or to be more precise, argument and bickering and name-calling). Controversies that are either political, social or economic in nature. What I'll be trying to do in this blog is address these issues from a liberal standpoint.

I believe in liberalism. I believe in its logic and its practicality. Ideologies that are impractical are doomed to fail, because the world has real problems than need real solutions. Most Egyptians don't know what liberalism is, probably due to the fact that the old regime scored political points by labeling liberalism as closet-atheism. That liberals are people who fornicate and drink and party with no regard to cultural norms. This blog will try to give its readers and idea to what liberalism would look like in a conservative society like Egypt's, and try to address everyday problems that we as a people need to solve, rather than sweep under a mat.

Thanks for taking a few minutes of your time to read this opening post. Now let's get to work.