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Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American

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Wajahat Ali

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“Starting from the premise of the organic unity of the nation, the opposition can be painted as social groups outside the ‘nation’, since, simply put, they threaten the nation’s natural harmony. However, this concept is only plausible if the regime, or, more precisely, the military, is able to portray itself as a representative of the nation and guardian of the state, which it has been very successful in doing. Hence, opposition to the military regime is equated with treason to the nation, and thus should be repressed by any means necessary. The narrative used to solicit popular support involved the propagation of numerous conspiracy theories, including the claim that the events of 2011, the groups that participated in it, and those who support it are part of a systemic effort to destroy the Egyptian state, which was only thwarted by the military’s intervention in 2013.” Chapter “Genesis”, page 33”

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Book:Egypt under El-Sisi: A Nation on the Edge
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“When describing the opposition, remaining true to the regime narrative, Sisi coined a new term: ‘The people of evil’ (BBC, 2016). The term started to gain currency in 2016, when popular opposition to the transfer of the two islands in the Red Sea, Tiran and Sanafir, from Egyptian to Saudi sovereignty became apparent. However, it first made an appearance during Sisi’s speech inaugurating the nee Suez Canal in 2015 (Armbrust, 2019, p. 223). Even though it was never explicitly defined, it became clear that Sisi used it to describe the opposition in general, with specific mention of those who doubted and criticized the regimes ‘achievements’ (RT, 2019). Sisi used a rhetoric that not only framed the opposition as evil but also framed the regime as good, and the conflict between them as an existential struggle between good and evil: a biblical image par excellence. The framing of the opposition as evil and treasonous was not only a rhetorical device but also laid down the foundation of mass repression.” Chapter “Genesis”, Pages 37-38”

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Book:Egypt under El-Sisi: A Nation on the Edge
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“The risk of racist religiosity are great. By projecting grievances, fears and anxieties onto the 'shadow' figures of other races, religious transcendence is stunted and perverted into the dynamics of delusion and hatred. Instead of genuine spirituality, there is partiality, separation, restriction. A rigid self-righteousness leads down into the spiritual basement of a primitive dualism, where pseudo-salvation depends on elimination of the Other. The political projection of religious Manichaeism onto human differences inevitably leads to strife and violence. Whenever human groups are interpreted as absolute categories of good and evil, light and darkness, both the human community and humanity itself are diminished. Such degraded religion never leads to light but only to darkness.”

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Book:Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity
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“After a life of loving the old, by natural law I turned old myself. Decades followed each other--thirty was terrifying, forty I never noticed because I was drunk, fifty was best with a total change of life, sixty began to extend the bliss of fifty--and then came my cancers, Jane’s death, and over the years I traveled to another universe. However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life. They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae. They can be pleasant, they can be annoying—in the supermarket, these old ladies won’t get out of my way—but most important they are permanently other. When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial. If we forget for a moment that we are old, we are reminded when we try to stand up, or when we encounter someone young, who appears to observe green skin, extra heads, and protuberances.”

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Book:Essays After Eighty
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“Fear of failure as a tool used at the correct times to drive you in the right direction can be an incredible asset, but leaving it undefined can be extremely crippling and even a major holdback in your life”

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Book:Suck Less, Do Better: The End of Excuses & the Rise of the Unstoppable You
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