{"id":1507,"date":"2012-05-24T10:45:47","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T14:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2012-05-24T10:49:51","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T14:49:51","slug":"the-veil-is-on-my-face-not-my-mind-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2012\/05\/the-veil-is-on-my-face-not-my-mind-egypt.html","title":{"rendered":"“The veil is on my face, not my mind” #Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Google logo for the Egyptian Election<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sometimes, Twitter’s forced succinctness produces the most insightful commentary<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Almost fell over when a niqabi in Luxor told us she voted for Hamdeen Sabahi. “The veil is on my face, not my mind,” she said. #Egypt<\/a><\/p>\n

— Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) May 23, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hamdeen Sabahi<\/a> is the leader of Egypt’s Dignity Party<\/a>, one of the leading figures in the secular opposition running for President. He espouses a left-wing Arab nationalist worldview that is almost completely at odds with what you’d expect conservative religious Muslims to embrace. That’s the beauty of the quote above – it destroys so many preconcieved notions about Egypt and muslims in one shot that it deserves to be highlighted. <\/p>\n

Egypt has always been the living heart of the Middle East and now is blossoming into a true democracy in its own right (putting the final nail in the coffin of the old propaganda claim that Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East”). And unlike “Iraq the model” it achieved it organically, from within rather than imposed from above. Egypt’s success only underlines the profound tragedy of the Iraq War as democracy-promotion policy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, Twitter’s forced succinctness produces the most insightful commentary: Almost fell over when a niqabi in Luxor told us she voted for Hamdeen Sabahi. “The veil is on my face, not my mind,” she said. #Egypt — Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) May 23, 2012 Hamdeen Sabahi is the leader of Egypt’s Dignity Party, one of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[41,131,42,120],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nation-building","tag-arab-spring","tag-democracy","tag-egypt","tag-iraq"],"yoast_head":"\n"The veil is on my face, not my mind" #Egypt - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""The veil is on my face, not my mind" #Egypt - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sometimes, Twitter’s forced succinctness produces the most insightful commentary: Almost fell over when a niqabi in Luxor told us she voted for Hamdeen Sabahi. “The veil is on my face, not my mind,” she said. #Egypt — Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) May 23, 2012 Hamdeen Sabahi is the leader of Egypt’s Dignity Party, one of the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2012\/05\/the-veil-is-on-my-face-not-my-mind-egypt.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-24T14:45:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-05-24T14:49:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2012\/05\/EGYPT-ELECTION-GOOGLE.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"The veil is on my face, not my mind\" #Egypt - 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Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1512,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}