Back to Egypt.

This year, two days after the five-year anniversary of September 11th, 2001, I recieved an email from an Egyptian penpal of mine. We used to write fairly often and sometimes disagreed with each other with regard to politics and terror. He and I had different definitions apparently. Sometimes we argued a little bit, but it was never mean or disrespectful. He seemed genuinely interested in my point of view and I his. Either way, despite our differences we still respected the other. Last time we left off it was completely friendly as always. I hadn't heard from him in a long time so I was surprised to see his email in my inbox. What I wasn't expecting at all was what he said.

What is even more revealing was the second email he sent just an hour later which I have also posted here below. Here is a man, in the privacy of his own home and thoughts, writing an email letter and worrying desperately that someone might see it. But who? Who would be looking. Who would have his password? His own family? His goverment? What made me think of this and post it instead of waiting for another anniversary to go by, was the arrest of Abdul Kareem the blogger in Egypt who I assume is awaiting sentencing.

I have published my friend's notes exactly the way he wrote them. I changed nothing, not one word.

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Wed, 13 Sep 2006 04:02:24 +0000
hi xxx,how are you?remember me?i felt like i had to write to you now,and say iam realy realy sorry for what happened in 9 11,i feel sorry becouse i realize now that those terrorsts did it becouse in a way or another peoble like me allowed the kind of culture,education and media which supported and support them so i feel like...partial responsible in some way,i just wish to say sorry to all those who suffered in that day,in the past 5 years many things had changed here,peoble here are not neutral about all that any more,most of peoble now are either pro or con,but every body is talking and discussing and exchanging ideas,but the main stream still the radical one,but at least now alot of peoble are talking loud ,for me i think alot of things have changed in the past few years,i thought about every idea i learned before,i evaluated every thing i have been told my entire life,i read 100s of books about my old beleives and values,and this helped me to have my realy own idea about the world ,history,culture and even islam,
i remember the first time i met a christian boy,and i was eager to know him to know how in the heck he donot beleive in islam,the same thing happened when i met an atheist for the first time,all my beleives was taken for granted,they are right and the only truth no matter what happened,now i can say i donot beleive in religions and i can say islam not muslims are the main danger for the world,i dont know why i tell you that but i just want to tell you every thing happened in 9 11 five years ago affected every thing in my world .
take care
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Wed, 13 Sep 2006 05:04:16 +0000
hi again,i remembered somthing,PLEASE NEVER EVER send me a reply for the previous message i mean donot send me your answer as a reply which means my sent message could be read from your answer message,i DONOT want any one who know my password to be able to read my previous message,so if you will answer me send a NEW message to my hotmail but NOT a reply
thanks