Tonight, imprisoned Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad enters his 42nd day of hunger strike. It could be a matter of hours, minutes, and quite possibly just seconds, for his kidney or heart – Maikel has a heart condition – to fail. Maikel is in prison because of a blog post, in which he criticized the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in Egypt. That's not the only reason why he is in prison. If it were not for his pro-Israel views that offend a large segment of the Egyptian population, his sentencing in a military court may have not gone so unnoticed and so uncared for. Only for his opinions, both SCAF and a large swath of indifferent Egyptians have sentenced Maikel to three years in prison, after a military trial – the very kind of trials that Egyptians have risen, and died, against on January 25, 2011. I can understand – but definitely not agree with – SCAF's political motives to try, and sentence, Maikel in a military court. But because of his views on Israel, the people of Egypt are letting Maikel down. And he may soon lose his life for it. Egyptian people of good conscience defending Maikel may disagree with Mikel's views on Israel, but they sure as hell will defend his right to express them freely. To get to the heart of the problem, as an ardent liberal I will not defend or justify terrorism as a tactic to correct a wrong that is done to me or my people. (To pro-Israel readers: make no mistake, terrorism can be studied, understood, and explained in order to be properly and justly addressed.) However, the terrorism wrong cannot justify more wrongs. Setting aside my own personal bias for the Palestinian cause, Israel has violated some of the most basic of liberal principles over the past 6 decades that true liberals of all stripes and nationalities can never stand for: the taking away of innocent human lives, forced evictions and mass transfer, violation of private property, restriction of the freedom to move and trade, the right to self-govern, the right to freely worship, not to mention the internal discriminatory policies of Israeli law against non-Jewish citizens. But you see, all these misgivings against Israel do not justify oppressing the voice of Maikel Nabil and his freedom to express himself. One more time: a wrong does not justify another. Dear indifferent Egyptians, even if you didn't care for the right of freedom of expression, and even if you believed that the life of another human being is worth less to you than your sense of righteousness about your political views, you may still want to make sure that Maikel is set free. If one day someone took away your freedom because of your political views and opinions, you will have none but yourself to blame – though, if he lives on, Maikel will probably be there to defend your right to express your views. I'll also add that we do live in a world that listens and that does pay attention to what we say and do. If nothing else, people like Maikel force us to refine our arguments in defending our moral positions. People like Maikel act like filters that help us throw away the bad parts of our arguments and focus on the best argument we can present to the world. And, if nothing else, oppression because of one's views and politics only helps reinforce the bad image that Egypt, and the Middle East in general, has acquired in the past 60 years. Don't you really want Egypt to be Om el-Donya? Yes, Egypt and Egyptians do need more people like Maikel Nabil Sanad. Dare I say that the Palestinian cause itself needs people like Maikel to be among us? Those who are close to Maikel assure us that his hunger strike is not a media stunt or a pressure tactic to facilitate his release from prison. To him, it is the principle that if the world is incapable of accepting the views of another human being, no matter how nonconforming these views are, then it is a world not worthy of being a part of. So what's in the life of Maikel Nabil? The whole world is. It is either the world that Maikel is striving for or the world we already live in – made worse with the incarceration, and possibly death, of people like Mikel, and the thousands of political prisoners in Egypt of all sorts of political, religious, and cultural views. Let's choose the world that Maikel is literally fighting with his life to earn. ** Islam Hussein is an Egyptian blogger. He runs the Arabic language liberal blog libraliyya.org, which you can follow on twitter @libraliyya. BM
