(Jerusalem Post) Hayat Alvi-Aziz - Cairo taxis, shops, homes, offices, and even medical labs have recitations of the Koran blaring in their audio speakers. The sheikhs in the local mosques shout and scream into the loudspeakers during Friday sermons, scaring people with warnings about the evil deeds that will land them in Hell. There is no talk about the daily things in life that affect us. The sermons do not speak of providing better health care, cleaning up the environment, eradicating illiteracy, improving living standards, or contributing to the progress and development of society. The silence regarding pervasive human problems itself represents a crisis of denial in Islamic societies. The preoccupations are mainly with worship, dress codes, "moral" principles, gender segregation, and condemning the U.S. and Israel. The writer is an assistant professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.
2005-04-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive