Turkish leader calls Xinjiang killings "genocide": REALLLLY!

The tragic sectarian clashes in China between the Uyghur (Muslim Chinese who speak Turkish) and the Han (main ethnicity in China) are grabbing headlines all over the world. It is reported that 157 people are killed so far, the actual numbers are a mystery.

The interesting thing is that; today, the Turkish prime minister called the clashes "Genocide", REALLLY!!

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE56957D20090710
I will leave the experts decide if it is a genocide or not, but the fact that the first to call it a genocide is Turkey is puzzling me!!
For those who don't know, During WWI, the ottoman empire (the predecessor of the Turkish republic) massacred and transfered millions of Armenians and Assyrian, resulting in the death of 1 million Armenian and half million Assyrians. Many countries call what happened "the Armenian Genocide". Turkey refuses to confesses its crimes, ignoring the sufferings of millions of people. More interestingly, anyone in Turkey who mentions the Armenian Genocide is charged with treason if not killed by right-wing extremists.

Here is a link from the British National Archive about the Armenian massacre/genocide http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/armenian.htm

“How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Luke 6:42)

Contra Mundum: the Copts in Australia

I came across this very nice article in an Australia newspaper.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/node/333/page/2

Obama's speach in Cairo

Fareed Zakaria's interview with Gamal Mubarak

Watch the interview with Gamal Mubarak. Gamal is the son of the Egyptian president and a powerful figure in the ruling party. Many believe that the regime

in Egypt is preparing him to be the next president.

I like his political views, he speaks wisely as his father. I highly doubt his domestic agenda though!

Extreme Pilgrim in the Coptic desert

The Pilgrim of an English pastor, Peter Owen-Jones, in the Coptic Monastery of St Anthony! He spend 3 weeks in Fr Lazarus's cave in solitude. He experiences the solitude monasticism. The interesting part starts at minute 24 and it gets very interesting at the end :) Enjoy ;)

http://blip.tv/file/1762501/

Ayman Nour's release in return of Obama's visit to Cairo

Ayman Nour, the leader of El-Ghad (the Future) libral Egyptian party, who was the only serious contender in the last presidential election and finished in the second place, was released from jail today after being held for 4 years. He was accused with forging 1000 out of the 2005 signatures he provided to establish his party. The accusation was clearly false as he needed only 50 signatures and more than a million voted for him for president, thus there was no need for him to forge them. US pressured a lot for his release but Bush administration was in deep trouble in Iraq and can't afford offending the Egyptian regime that much.

It seems that Nour's release today for medical reasons was under pressure from Obama administration especially that Nour's health was very bad two years ago and his medical release was denied multiple times. We all know that Obama promised to address the Islamic world from an Islamic capital in his first 100 days in office. Cairo seemed a natural fit. The capital of the biggest Arabic state, the heart of the Islamic world and a strategic ally to US. The biggest hardle was human rights. Cairo has a very bad record, It seems that Nour's release was the price tag Washington put on Obama's visit. 

It is definitely good news though :)

Coptic at Harvard

So I started attending this Coptic class at Harvard School of Divinity. The instructor allowed me to attend the class on the condition of doing the HWs and the quizzes. They teach the Sahidic dialect which is the dialect of the ancient manuscripts. It is a bit different form the Boharic dialect which the church books use. From pronunciation point of view it is slightly different from Bohiric and a bit different from the Greeco-Bohiric which is chanted in the church. It is very interesting though. Now I have a better idea how the words originally sounded. Because the Coptic is basically the ancient Egyptian language written in Greek letters, the people of upper and lower Egypt wrote their pronunciation of the words in different ways resulting in two writings for the same word.For example, the word "and" in Bohiric is written "ouoh" but is sahidic it its written "ouw" which tells you that the original sound of the word has a slight "h" in the end of the word. As a result, people from the north wrote "h" and people from the south didn't write "h". I'm so excited about this class :)