OK, this kid may be the one on laughing gas, but I’m the one laughing! Check it out:

My Favorite Part: “Is this real life?…. OK Now?”

I know Egyptian Gumbo has been lagging for a while… but “I’m busy” is definitely an understatement for me. I’ll explain in detail in a later post… but for now…

I wanted to highlight a new blogger in the blog-o-sphere.

Ms. “Fool4thought.”

At first glance the title seems to be sort of an oxymoron, and that was partially intended. But “fool” is actually a very popular Egyptian food that Egyptians like to eat almost everyday. Fool in the morning, afternoons and evenings!

The blogger is a journalist from Egypt who also happens to be very close to me. In fact, she’s my cousin I guess journalism somehow runs in our family.

She is currently a senior at the American University in Cairo, and used to serve as the editor-in-chief of their school paper. She also worked for international human rights organizations that I cannot name, because they seem to not like their workers be opinion columnist.

She has interviewed major political and influential people in Egypt, including other free-lance journalist and bloggers who have made there way to the Egyptian prison system for their political writing. (I actually have her interview talking about it, but decided not to post it up.)

Her writing is superb, and I thought I’d introduce my readers to her work. Here is one of her most recent articles:

When I was younger, I used to see pictures of the same young man with long hair in a lot of random places—on t-shirts, on wall posters, and even on the occasional Egyptian soap series. When I asked my mom who he was, she told me he was Che Guevara, the big revolutionary.

I didn’t get it. Why was an Argentinean man halfway across the world, whose name I couldn’t even pronounce properly, popular enough to be plastered on the bedroom wall of a random teenage soap character? (Give me some credit, I was only 10).

I was reminded of that moment last night as I watched footage of a delegation of Egyptians presenting the Venezuelan ambassador with a token of appreciation for Hugo Chavez’s expulsion of the Israeli ambassador during the latest war on Gaza.

The footage was aired on journalist Ahmed El Moslimany’s show, El Tab’a El Ula (First Edition). Apparently, immediately after the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, El Moslimany had called on his viewers to send thank-you letters to the Venezuelan embassy. The letters flooded the mailboxes.

El Moslimany then decided to take a delegation of 10 (out of several hundred volunteers) to personally deliver a gift to the Venezuelan ambassador, and another to a representative from the Bolivian embassy to thank Bolivia for it’s decision to cut ties with Israel. The delegation included El Moslimany himself and Egyptian journalist Wael El Ibrashy.

Nearly 10 days after the ceasefire (which we all know isn’t really a ceasefire), Egyptians are still wrestling with the fact that while Venezuela and Bolivia had actively severed ties with Israel, Egypt had resorted to rhetoric—and weak rhetoric at that. The words, Did you see how Chavez kicked out the Israeli ambassador, are still part of everyday conversations and Facebook names and statuses still read Chavez.

Sure, President Mubarak’s words on the eve of the ceasefire offered some comfort:

“Egypt is working towards the end to the aggression and securing its borders with Israel and the Gaza Strip and it will never accept any foreign presence of monitors on its land. I say this is a red line – I have not and will not allow it to be crossed.”

“I demand Israel today stop its military operations immediately. I demand from its leaders an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and I demand from them a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Strip.”

It’s nice to know that Cairo wasn’t going to let Condoleezza Rice and Tzipi Livni make decisions on Egypt’s behalf without so much as a consultation, but these words were too little too late, especially for those people demonstrating in the streets.

So the thank you notes and tokens of gratitude are being sent to the Venezuelan embassy instead of the Presidential Palace, because it was Chavez who did what Egyptians had hoped their own government would do.

Now, Chavez is no Che. But Egyptians–and Arabs–are finding in him that same inspiration they saw in Guevara. Feeling betrayed by their own governments and outraged at the Israeli injustices, they are rallying around Chavez because whatever his political motivations were, he gave us all some respite.

So, at least as long as the war on Gaza continues–and the latest Israeli air attack confirms that it’s far from over– Facebook statuses are still going to say, ‘Chavez’.

Visit her blog, subscribe and pass it on! www.fool4thought.wordpress.com.