The first is a flyer for an event sponsored by The Egyptian American Medical Society, Egyptian American Professional Society, Egyptian American Business Association, Egyptian American Group, and the American Muslim Union.

I laud the efforts made by the community to form organizations that seek to enrich our lives in the United States of America. It makes me proud to be an American-Egyptian. One of the greatest privileges we enjoy in this country is the freedom to participate in civic life without government interference. It is a privilege we should never take for granted and always jealously guard.

Yet my pleasure at seeing such civic engagement was tempered by a factual error in the email. You see the event is intended to honor the Ambassador Sherif el Kholy who happens to be a nice man. The only problem is that as far as I can tell he is not the Ambassador. Nabil Fahmy is the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States.

This minor detail matters immensely. As an American-Egyptian I fret that our propensity to use titles that glorify figures of authority has been carried to our adopted country. Has this mindset, I asked myself, already become entrenched in our civic organizations here in the United States? Didn’t many of us come to the United States and achieve our success as immigrants precisely because we believed in America as a meritocracy?

Why use a title that hasn’t been earned?

Nor am I entirely sure why so many Egyptian-Americans are honoring the representative of a repressive police state that has become notorious throughout the world for torturing its own citizens. Again, this has nothing to do with Sherif El-Kholy, the private citizen. As I indicated earlier he is a perfectly nice man.

But it has everything to do with Sherif El-Kholy as the official representative of a government that has neglected the well-being of its people and is regarded as a repressive regime by large sectors of the population.

Nor is it altogether clear why the ’’Ambassador’’ was chosen instead of a prominent American-Egyptian who has served the community and contributed to its well-being. What are the criteria for deciding such matters?

This brings me to the second email I received. It is a Youtube video by a fellow named Amr Adeeb who laments a sycophantic birthday greeting for the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak even as he alludes to the gains made during his rule. Mubarak has been in power since 1981 following the assassination of former president Sadat.

This birthday greeting appears in a state-controlled newspaper and constitutes what he characterized as a literature of praise for sultans. Adeeb, for all his concessions to a morally bankrupt regime, lamented the tendency to turn the ruler into a God, to overlook the simple fact that he is a human being and to use a national newspaper as a forum for personal praise. Therein lies our tendency to resent the praise of sultans and to simultaneously honor figures of authority regardless of how often we vent our frustration. In the small clip that I saw Amr Adeeb failed to mention the food riots in Egypt.

By the same token our community constantly circulates videos that protest the excesses of the Egyptian regime. It is not unusual to hear people complaining bitterly about the lack of democratic rule in Egypt. Yet these same people have no qualms about attending events that honor the official representatives of this very regime, often for reasons that are unfathomable and for achievements that appear quite nebulous to the general membership.

So like Adeeb I find myself asking a similar question; namely, why are so many American-Egyptian professional associations providing a forum for foreign diplomats or dare I say personal friends?

Now, it is common knowledge that this is something of a going away party for the ‘’ Ambassador’’. So why not host a party for him in one of those fancy Mcmansions favored by our community?

Such a state of affairs can be deeply demoralizing. It reinforces the notion that communal life is still dominated by the big man cult and a coterie of adoring minions. Together they tango, or belly dance at the end of every event, to reproduce authoritarian patterns of behavior and create what are often prohibitively expensive events. The Egyptian American Medical Society, for instance, often sponsors dinners accompanied by live entertainment that cost 200 dollars per couple.

At times, then, it becomes difficult to discern whether these are associations meant to benefit the public or private clubs intended first and foremost to entertain the self-designated communal elites and to curry favor with the powerful.

Is it déjà vu all over again? New Jersey as Masr al jadida? Or should I say el-kadama? I for one don’t wish to become a cynical spectator and fear that we may be building institutions that mirror our worst autocratic traditions.

Some traditions are worth preserving. Others, such as the obeisance to authority figures, threaten to impoverish our civic life and turn us into passive spectators. The gnawing cynicism can erode our faith in civic engagement altogether.

I know we can do better. We must. But not if we suspend our critical judgment and allow our budding associations to be run by non-democratic principles. Transparency is essential. The rulers aren’t always the only obstacle to participatory democracy. We are equally responsible for how our associations are run. Democracy is not simply a matter of rhetoric but also of practice.

It takes slaves to reproduce tyrants and sheep to keep the shepherds running the show.

Now will the real Ambassador please stand up ya Basha….

The only problem is we may not have an appropriate title with which to address him. Unless, of course, we revert to the regal one of your majesty.

Gharib is the pseudonym of the Egyptian-American author.

In her bio, Ms. Mahdi lists her mother as her source of support in pursuing her goals. She also lists her background in graphic design and advertising. She has done freelance work for a variety of Egyptian publications, so, if you’re in Egypt, she might already be familiar.

Mahdi looks like she is no friend of the George W. Bush administration, though she takes on other subjects just as freely (Osama Bin Laden, Brad Pitt, and Tony Blair among them – personally, I’m a big fan of the Brad Pitt caricature; considering the fact that this man’s perfectly chiseled face has been staring at me from every newsstand).

Mahdi is working in a male-dominated field, in a country where bloggers and other outspoken individuals can wind up in jail. For this alone, she ought to be admired, methinks.

Her commentary on the Shia-Sunni rift and the political exploitation thereof caught my eye, and will stay with me for a long time. By contrast, the depictions of George W. Bush as Satan/monster lack bite (notwithstanding such depictions’ popularity in Egypt, and beyond).

I think if Mahdi were to focus more on specific aspects of current U.S. foreign policy, her work would become more pointed – and accessible not only to the Arab world, but to those beyond it.

I think as Mahdi continues to hone her craft, more good stuff will happen.

Vroom… vroom, roared the Harley before its engine was turned off outside the pharmacy on duty in Geneva one quiet Sunday morning a few years ago in September. The six foot ‘quelque chose’ rider dismounted the daunting machine, took off his intimidating German helmet, neatly tucked it under his left arm, and walked slowly inside the drugstore.

Click…clack, he steadily thumped his way across the aisles in his huge boots and leathery attire. Elderly Sunday morning shoppers could not hide their disquiet at the site of this unusual visitor with his menacing looks, but pretended to mind their business. With the dark sunglasses carefully hiding hung-over eyes, but betraying weekend stubble, disheveled hair and an overgrown goatee, he placed his helmet on the counter.

“Beba 2-HA, s’il vous plait,” he demanded from the almost trembling lady at the cash register.

No, that was not the trade name of prescription heroin for a morning junkie. Nor was it extra-large, strawberry-flavored condoms even, in case you’re wondering. Nor anything else too wild or bohemian; that was actually me buying baby formula milk for my son, but decided to take the bike because it’s quicker – and makes the assignment more fun on a sunny day like that. Whatever remaining aura of mystique or coolness that has not by then already turned into powder milk had soon subsequently vaporized as I explained to the staff that although the packet says from 6-12 months, the pediatrician said that little Omar could continue to take it even if he was already 13 months. I swear I could hear relieved customers giggling around me as I said this. Yes, this unforgettable scene sums it all up if someone asks me about the changes that fatherhood brings into one’s life.

Other changes are less awkward. For example, when I blast my car stereo to Boney M’s Bobby Farrell singing “She’s crazy about her daddy, oh she believes in him…,” I’m actually thinking of my little Sama, the bluest sky of my life. But you know what? Although I learnt by heart every Barney and Elmo song out there, the outcome of every Tom and Jerry chase, the name of every Teletubby and PowerPuff girl, the man behind the mask of every Scooby Doo mystery (and the plots of a host of other weird cartoons that cannot possibly be targeted for child or adult entertainment), I still wouldn’t trade it for the whole world. Children are an immeasurable source of joy, and a daddy is still cool, Bobby.

Of course, being a father is a walk in the park compared to a mother’s job. That’s where the real hard work lies, believe me, and in our part of the world we don’t always appreciate that. Indeed, the cruelest thing ever said to a mother was what I witnessed when I went to Cairo last April to give condolences to a dear friend whose young brother had died of a heart attack, leaving behind a young wife and two children.

In Egypt, Muslims receive condolences differently than us in Jordan. They do it not in the family house, but in two adjoining halls to a mosque, one for women and another for men, at the same time, and only for one night. So when the sheikh started reciting the final prayers for the deceased towards the end, one line struck me as especially insensitive and downright disgusting. After asking God to enlarge his grave, make it comfortable and what have you, the preacher went on to request that God gives him a better house than his current one, and other similar requests for better things than he had in life.

But it was when he started saying “God we ask you to give him a wife better than his wife” that I really wanted to climb up his high chair and drag him down by his beard.

The poor widow was next door, listening to these prayers. As if she was not traumatized enough by her loss, this guy comes and rubs it in by making such an obscene remark. I cannot imagine a more hurtful thing she could have heard at such a moment. But the truly sickening episode was what happened next. This dirty old man came down from his pedestal and sat right next to me as people were leaving and started making passes at me that I will not dare mention here – after inviting me to have dinner in his house that night. I could not believe what I was hearing; it was already almost midnight while this guy wanted to take me home, and I assure you dinner was the last thing on his mind.

If there is a surreal Egyptian movie, this was it and I was a main character – or about to become one, depending on how I would react to the plot. Well, it wouldn’t be vain to point out here that I have been hit on a few times in my life, mostly by females I have to stress, but never before in a mosque and certainly not by such a character. I could not tell this to my grieving friend (although the next morning the story cheered him up and gave him the first real laugh since his tragedy), so I SMSed a friend in Amman informing him that I was about to be sodomized by the sheikh. My friend immediately replied saying: “You’re a writer, aren’t you, so go to the dinner and write an article about it. It should be interesting to read.” The problem is that he was serious. So there you go, and thanks for your solidarity and sympathies, Firas.

Cairo was a mixture of so many things all happening at the same time; I think it is one of the most difficult cities to describe. There is too much history, too much geography, too much misery, too many contradictions, and way, way too many people. The ability of the Egyptians to keep their contagious smile and their trademark sense of humor in spite of all the odds is truly incredible. I don’t believe there are another people on Earth more prepared to laugh at absolutely everything and anything at absolutely any time or any situation than the Egyptian people are. It is like the entire population is on a 24-hour readiness alert to laugh and make you laugh.

Perhaps it is a defense mechanism people develop to live with the absurdities and predicaments of the grueling everyday life. Another less refreshing subconscious mechanism to release frustration which you cannot escape noticing is the uncontrollable tick drivers have which urges them to keep blowing their horns in the endless traffic jams of Cairo – despite the forensically proven pointlessness of this exercise. So I decided to observe this phenomenon by closely watching when and why drivers do it, and whether there is any rationalization to this nervous habit.

To my disbelief, I found that drivers were still doing it not only when traffic was frozen on a red light stop and was unlikely to be influenced by noise, but my cab driver was also blasting away even when the street ahead of him was completely clear or when he was in the first row of cars on traffic lights. So I casually asked him why he was blowing his horn if there were no cars in front of him. In typical Egyptian lightness and ironic smile he said, “I’m doing it for the cars behind me, ya beh.”

So you can understand why returning to Geneva is literally like traveling to another galaxy, and driving is not even half the story. Speaking of outer space, I always believed that the best place from which to sit back and get an objective overview of anything is always from the outside, and therefore, in order to get a uniquely sobering view of our world and of humanity, it has to be done by outsiders. But since I don’t believe in extra terrestrials myself, I have used some imagination and found the following scenario to be really mind-opening. Imagine that a highly superior race of scientists from another galaxy were traveling on board a fact-finding spaceship and have spotted planet Earth for the first time. They want to report back their findings on the status of our relatively primitive species. So they lower their UFO over North America and begin their observations from there. Here is how I think the summary of their report would roughly read:

The first activity we detected was of people walking across open green fields holding a variety of different metal rods. They seem to be trying to get certain small white round objects into small man-made holes in the ground. Many other people are intrigued by watching this process on the field and around the world.

Although humans have advanced to levels by which placing these white spheres in the holes can be done by automated machinery, these creatures seem to enjoy playing games beyond their childhood years. This would have almost lead us to conclude that this is a peaceful, fun-loving species were it not for the fact that the main community of these club-wielding men appears to be comprised of owners and managers of institutions that are depleting and usurping the resources of this planet for the benefit of a few other like-minded men obsessed with the same round white objects.

Meanwhile, further down south, a great number of darker-skinned people appear to have been left to drown in their homes and very little attention was paid to them by the people chasing the white balls. Across the great body of water to the right of this land, there is a continent with many more brown people, many of whom look like skeletons and are perishing by the millions for the lack of food and the spread of disease. The lands with not too many dark people in the north seem to have excess food and medicine and it is not clear why the dark people were left to rot as carcasses.

Further east, there are two peoples who speak a similar language with harsh, throaty letters. They have common ancestors, similar features and the same facial hair but appear to fight over the same piece of land and are both obsessed with an insignificant hill that has two temples on its top. One of the two parties, who has many more weapons and money, is supported by the same guys with the metal clubs and holes in the ground. Using that support, they have built a concrete wall over the lands of the weaker people in what appears to be an attempt to strangle them.

Further east, again it is uniformed fighters from the land of the men walking the green fields who have been causing massive gunpowder detonations (the recurrence of individuals from that land popping up everywhere is notable). They are blowing people up so far away from where they live for no apparent reason, resulting in untold death and mayhem. The residue left by these explosions is a substance so lethal it remains in the earth and atmosphere for literally billions of years and is proven to cause a slow and painful death for anyone in its vicinity, including their own people. In short, this is a planet where 20 percent of its population consumes over 70 percent of its material resources and owns over 80 percent of its wealth. That is why it is also a planet with an unlimited capacity to produce exaggerated gunpowder quantities per inhabitant.

Furthermore, the capacity to obliterate the entire planet is constantly becoming more efficient and gradually becoming more likely. Finally, both the leader of the nation of the men hitting the little white balls and the people he is trying to exterminate repeatedly attribute their actions to an alleged troublemaker whom they both accuse, without evidence, of instigating all the killing. They both refer to him as God. As of yet, no sighting of this alleged super villain was detected on the planet.

N.B. A strange looking fellow with a noisy machine is causing a commotion at an establishment selling non-edible, strawberry-flavored sheets of nylon.

Recommendation: A hopeless, incomprehensible species. Abandon mission and depart galaxy.

The above may seem like an idea for a science fiction movie. Why not? Sometimes in order for us to truly capture the morbid reality of what’s taking place on our own planet and visualize the implausible insanity of humankind, we need to look through equally unconventional lenses to see the truth. The way I see it, a dumb president and a few stupid leaders are making this world a very dangerous place for us and our children to inhabit. That’s why I think we should get rid of them before they annihilate all of us.

On the day my daughter was born, I switched on the camcorder on my way back to the hospital at night after grabbing a few things from home, to capture the moment, so to speak. Juggling both the camera and the steering wheel became a little too dangerous when I answered my mobile phone (I was too excited, and technically speaking, I was still only a few hours into my new role as a responsible father, if I ever became one). It was a friend calling to congratulate us on the newborn.

I suddenly found myself impulsively telling him how blessed and fortunate we felt to have our child born in such peaceful surroundings, without bombs falling on our heads, without checkpoints and sadistic soldiers forcing women to give birth in the street, without sanctions depriving us of the most basic medicines, without famine or disease, without the eternal evil of depleted uranium, without the daily fear of random death, nested away in safety from the barbarity that man inflicts upon his fellow man. I pray that my children would grow up one day and watch this clip. If hopefully they don’t notice the bad example of dangerous driving, I wish that they would learn to think of other people with less fortunate destinies by never taking their privileged situation for granted. The world would become a much better place if we all tried to do that.

Take care, and if you ride, do it safely.