“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me– and there was no one left to speak for me….”
Martin Niemöller (German Pastor)
“The overthrow of Mohamed Morsi last year did little to help Egypt’s economy. But for the butchers and pig breeders of the slums around Cairo, it has been an unexpected fillip.
Five months ago, pork was so scarce in Cairo that a butcher like Bishoy Samir sold pig meat just twice a month. Now Samir reckons he sells an entire pig’s worth of pork every day.
Five years ago, the Egyptian government culled most of Egypt’s pig population, leaving Samir’s family with nothing to serve. “It was very rare to find something to cook,” Samir says. “We used to work one week on, one week off.” But five months ago things started to pick up, and “now we’re preparing one pig a day – and others are doing two or three.” Pork’s comeback began slowly after the 2011 revolution…………”
We all know that former President Mubarak started a war on the pigs of Egypt in 2009. His goal was to liquidate all the country’s four-legged swine, using the Swine flu scare (H1N1) as an excuse. Reports indicated that the War on Pigs was a great victory and that all of Egypt’s native swine were dead. I always had my doubts, and I wrote so in a few posts here. Now I feel at least partly vindicated.
Which makes me wonder: Hitler thought he had liquidated Germany’s Communists, but they came back to rule half his country for 45 years; Mubarak thought he had liquidated all Egypt’s four-legged pigs, but they are now making a comeback. Now this Al Sisi dude thinks he is on his way to liquidating the Muslim Brotherhood, yet even Nasser who was hugely and genuinely popular could not do it. I say: if the German communists survived, if the Egyptian pigs survived, if the Mubarak cronies survived and have now regained power quickly, then there is some hope for the Muslim Brotherhood, a k a MB. After all, they (the MB not the pigs) had survived at least one earlier attempt to eradicate them.
Here are a few earlier posts on these epic battles of the war on swine (the very last link at the bottom of the list also has links to most of my earlier posts on the Egyptian War on Pigs):
Saint Francis of Al SiSi: Egyptian Military Invents New Cures, Killing Pigs and Spaniards
Of Pigs and Middle Eastern Politics. Of Swine and American Health Care Politics
Egypt’s War on Pigs Returns, Economic Great Leap Backward and Exodus
Cheers
mhg
