The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Spaghetti time for Morsi

Transcript: TIME’s Interview with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi | TIME.com

I literally burst out laughing read the first paragraph of TIME's interview with Morsi:

TIME: You’re on the world stage now.

President Mohamed Morsi: (in English) The world stage is very difficult. It’s not easy to be on the world stage. The world is now much more difficult than it was during your revolution.  It’s even more difficult. The world.  More complicated, complex, difficult.  It’s a spaghetti-like structure. It’s mixed up. So we need to somehow take things, easily, so we can go together, the whole world --  peacefully, peacefully, hopefully, all kinds of peace.  I think you know that in general people like to say that we should keep peace by all means. I’m not talking about peace by its traditional meaning. Peace of mind, peace of heart, peace of living together, socially, culturally, not only militarily.

Update: OMG — it only gets better, I think here he calls the head of the SCC a monkey:

I remember a movie. Which one? Planet of the Apes. The old version, not the new one. There is new one. Which is different. Not so good. It’s not expressing the reality as it was the first one. But at the end, I still remember, this is the conclusion: When the big monkey, he was head of the supreme court I think — in the movie! — and there was a big scientist working for him,  cleaning things, has been chained there. And it was the planet of the apes after the destructive act of a big war,  and atomic bombs and whatever in the movie. And the scientists was asking him to do something, this was 30 years ago: “Don’t forget you are a monkey.”  He tells him, “don’t ask me about this dirty work,.”  What did the big ape, the monkey say? He said, “you’re human, you did it [to] yourself. “That’s the conclusion. Can we do something better for ourselves?

I saw it 30 years ago.  That is the role of the art. This is the very important role of art.  Gone with the Wind has been treating social problems. Five in Hell. That was the Arabic title. Five Americans working behind German lines and they were using primitive military devices. I think it was Charles Bronson or something like that.  My hard disk still carries a few things!

Update 2: I'm sad now:

2012 is the best year for the Egyptians in their lives, in their history.