A curious thing happened to me in Cairo a couple of weeks ago. I was there on a business trip a few days after the murder of Sheikh Yassin by the Israelis.
The incident happened on the day that President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali decided he did not feel like having an Arab summit and canceled it. On that day I was unaware of the president’s action as it had not yet made the morning paper.
I was enjoying a long and leisurely breakfast, which for me is very important, in the hotel cafeteria. I hate to be rushed in the morning and will usually awake two hours before any morning appointments no matter how early. I like to be unhurried in my breakfast and to read the morning paper from cover to cover undisturbed.
You see, dear readers, I realized some time ago that the written media is the most informative. Television and other audio-visual media are more suited for emotional manipulation. The written media — newspapers, books and the Internet, for example — is where you find sober, well-thought-out analysis with enough time given to thoroughly discuss an issue from all angles.
TV and other such media consist of sound bites and brief synopsis that rely on moving the viewer’s feelings rather than explaining issues thoroughly and taking enough time to do so.
So if I wish to be informed I read, and if I wish to have somebody push my emotional buttons I watch TV.
Anyway, I finished my breakfast and made my leisurely and unhurried way (very important) to the elevators, bestowing an amiable smile upon all whom I passed.
As I stood waiting for the elevator I suddenly heard a click.
It was a faint sound and had I been talking I probably would have missed it. Luckily I heard it quite clearly...click! Like the cocking of a well oiled gun.
I smiled, for it is a sound I had been waiting to hear all my life. I knew then that nothing in the Arab world would ever be the same again. We have, dear readers, reached critical mass. The tide has finally turned.
Remember, you read it here first.
