THE PRESIDENT FINALLY SPEAKS OUT AGAINST RADICAL ISLAMISM

While I was out of the country and off in China on our PCMC Training in Guangzhou, on January first the President finally spoke out against radical Islamic extremism. I missed it at the time. Then this past week, after the Terrorism in Paris, I came across it. Now if you are thinking I’m speaking about the America President, then sadly no, it was not President Obama. He does not seem to be courageous enough for that. But the President who has shown the courage to do that is none other than the new President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. On New Year’s Day, a day which coincided with the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, he spoke out against Islamic extremism. He said: "We need a revolution of the self, a revolution of consciousness.”

Having written a few days ago about how Neuro-Semantics can fight terrorism, here is an example of a leader speaking up to separate the radical misuse of a religion, Islamic extremism for Islam itself.

CNN reported that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a "religious revolution," asking Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism. In a speech, he said they had no time to lose: "I say and repeat, again, that we are in need of a religious revolution. You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting on you. The entire world is waiting for your word ... because the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost. And it is being lost by our own hands. ... We need a revolution of the self, a revolution of consciousness and ethics to rebuild the Egyptian person—a person that our country will need in the near future.”

This was the man who was elected in May after leaving the military to run for the office. President El-Sisi, a pious man and the former defense minister, led the ouster of Mohamed Morsy, the Islamist who was Egypt's first democratically elected President. CNN reported that he has long positioned himself as a more secular option, and defender against extremist views.

"It's inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible that this thinking —and I am not saying the religion—I am saying this thinking. . . . This is antagonizing the entire world. It's antagonizing the entire world! Does this mean that 1.6 billion people (Muslims) should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants— that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!?"

While el-Sisi's speech included some powerful language, H.A. Hellyer, a non-resident fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and research associate at the Kennedy

School of Government at Harvard University, said the President has made similar statements in the past. Hellyer said: "There is little to suggest (el-Sisi) is interested in some sort of Lutheran reformation of Islam. By all accounts, he's quite comfortable with the prevailing leadership of the Azhari establishment. If anything, he wants to empower it further in order to push forward a counter-narrative against radical Islamism. The real question is: How credible can such a state-empowered counter-narrative be?" Hellyer said.

Then on Tuesday, the President visited the main Coptic cathedral in Cairo to attend a Christmas mass and make a short speech. He is the first president to attend such a mass since the revolution.

"We will build our country together. We will accommodate each other. We will love each other," el-Sisi said in that speech.

Post Comment While we don’t know how this will play out over time, it is a good start. We need more healthy Muslims to speak up against those who misuse Islam for politics.

The great news is we have a lot of really great people in Egypt, Neuro-Semantic Trainers and Meta- Coaches. In February, I’ll be returning to Cairo and will be with Mohamed Tarek of Lucid Trainings and an Assist Team of Meta-Coaches, where we will do the Coaching Mastery for the ACMC credentials. Come and join us. Contact email: [email protected]

One of our Trainers, Hossam Aldin Nabil sent me the following link on youtube, a presentation by Yusuf Estes which describes Islam.

http://youtu.be/OsmYQl3xy_Y