A Quote by Maajid Nawaz

If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular. — © Maajid Nawaz
If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular.
The death of Abdel Nasser on September 28, 1970, was an irreversible setback for Egypt.
My parents' generation grew up high on the Arab nationalism that Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser brandished in the 1950s.
Many people are quick to say that we are not recognized by Muslims in the East . And I start with the Honorable Elijah Mohammed. In 1959, he went throughout the Holy City of Mecca to dine and wine with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and all of the black, mainly the rulers of the Islamic countries.
Our quarrel is not with Egypt, still less with the Arab world. It is with Colonel Nasser. He has shown that he is not a man who can be trusted to keep an agreement. Now he has torn up all his country's promises to the Suez Canal Company and has even gone back on his own statements.
Rulers like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser started subsidizing bread as a way to buy loyalty, or at least obedience, and this system became so pervasive that the Tunisian scholar Larbi Sadiki described countries who used it as dimuqratiyyat al-khubz - "democracies of bread." But the problem with this system of offering bread in exchange for genuine democracy is that it can never last - sooner or later, the bread will run out, and people will start demanding bread and roses too.
Gamal Abdal Nasser, the nationalist leader of Egypt, was described by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden as an Egyptian Hitler. Then it carried on like that. Saddam Hussein became Hitler when he was no longer a friend of the West. Then Milosevic became Hitler.
When at just 27 years old, Qaddafi, colonel in the Libyan army, inspired by his Egyptian colleague Abdel Nasser, overthrew King Idris I in 1969, he applied important revolutionary measures such as agrarian reform and the nationalization of oil.
When Mubarak does die, he will be remembered as the most bland of those military men turned dictators: compare him with Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Anwar Sadat. The legacies most associated with him are a network of bridges and highways and 'stability.'
The anchors of the Arab consensus have long been Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and both are now weakened forces in Arab politics and diplomacy.
The good thing about Egypt is, between the two World Wars, Egypt was - had a liberal society. It has a political life. It has parties. It was not - it was dysfunctional in many ways, but it was not a very repressive regime. Egypt, at one time, was the bellwether of the Arab world, was the trendsetter, created great culture, movies, cinema, you name it.
If I can be a positive Arab figure on such a large platform such as the WWE, and become some sort of an inspiration to an Arab kid in Lebanon, Egypt, or Jordan, then that's amazing.
It was, however, in the interest of Osama bin Laden for us to destroy a secular Arab leader; it was very much in the interest of the Iranians because they wanted revenge against Saddam Hussein for Iraq's invasion in 1980.
Good relations with Egypt are extremely important to us. Egypt is our neighbor and the largest Arab country. The people in all Muslim countries are on our side.
The sooner we put Egypt on the right track, the sooner we would be able to have an Egypt that is modern, that is moderate, and that is acting as a beacon for freedom and liberty across the Arab world.
I am familiar with what goes on in the Arab countries, and I'm sad to say that most of us want to annihilate Israel. We want to kill all the Israelis... Do you know what they used to say in the mosques in Egypt? "We want to go to the White House and turn it into the Islamic House..." We call upon the Arab countries to stop teaching hatred to the Arab children.
The Arab Spring is a true phenomenon. Embrace Arab Spring; embrace the aspiration for freedom of the people of Egypt, Syria, and Yemen.
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