Why Ayman Al Nur's arrest is not important!

Okay, so I have been ignoring the Ayman Al Nur story for a while, not because it’s not relevant, but mainly because I think it to be kind of unimportant. And I will explain why I believe that is in a bit. The Ayman Al Nur story goes like this: This is a guy who created a libertarian party(dubbed liberal by people who don’t know the difference) that basically called for less government and democratic elections and stuff. He is an MP, who was part of the ruling National Democratic party and then defected forming his own party Hizb Al –Ghad (Tomorrow’s Party). The law states that in order to create a new political party you need 50 signatures who must be submitted in the form of “power of attorney” documents. Nur was able to get more then 2000 initial signatures and 4 more MP’s joined his party making them by far the biggest opposition party to hold seats in parliament in Egypt. Anyway…. The charges are that the government just happened to find that 1,178 power of attorney documents he submitted are “forgeries” and therefore decided to “investigate” Ayman and dropped his political immunity faster then a girl’s panties on prom night. He was then taken into custody for initially 4days and now he will be held without bail for another 45 days “under investigation”. Mind you, this whole thing is bullshit because even if the documents were forged, they were given to him that way. How this is his fault no one knows. And even if you say it’s his fault, well, this whole thing has no merit anyway. He clearly had more then the 50 signatures you needed to create a party. But anyway.. Now, everyone is talking about it. The US state department issued a statement regarding him, Bush threw a hinted comment towards Egypt in the state of the Union and the NY Times wrote an Op-Ed piece on the topic. Even GM blogged about it, stating that he is “99% sure that political motives were behind his (Nur’s)arrest”. He is probably right, But it’s still not that important. Let me explain to you why that is. In Egypt, the powers that be are aware that the majority of people really do not like them, because of the shitty job they are doing handeling this country. People have been talking that the under the surface of Egyptian society, there is a powder Keg that could go off any second and they are not wrong. So, the people in power realize that in order to continue their racket they need some sort of misdirection, so that the public wouldn’t focus on them too much. When the Israeli/Palestinian conflict stopped being enough, they started getting inventive, cause they need to make sure that every now and then people have something to talk about. A discussion of some sort, one that doesn’t have anything to do with Mubarak ruling Egypt. In the past sometimes they would get lucky with scandals that would just happen, and sometime sthey need to make one happen. Like the “Satanists in Egypt” story in the mid 90's, where they arrested about 50 boys and girls who liked rock and metal by accusing them that they are Satanists and they were charged with “disrespect for religion”. The evidence? Black T-shirts, leather jackets, tattoos and –I kid you not- Raiders caps. Remind me to tell you my story with that incident one day. If you want a more recent example, there is the Saad El Din Ibrahim story. Does anyone remember that one either? The man was given funding by a european organization to investigate the fairness of Egyptian elections and he found out- surprise surprise- it wasn’t very fairly and properly conducted. They arrested him for more then 2 years, while accusing him of embezzlement and meddling with election documents. President Bush cut off emergency aid to Egypt until they released him, which of course, vilified the man in front of the Egyptian society. He was to blame because he rocked the boat and caused the US to flex its muscles on Egypt and it doesn’t matter how wrong or right he was, nothing justifies that in their eyes. But it kept Egyptians occupied for years, with people debating whether or not he should be released or punished for “defaming Egypt’s reputation”. So, for me, Nur’s arrest is just another example of the misdirection tactic they employ. People are talking about Nur and wondering if he really did forge those documents. How if the US interferes they will discredit Nur and lionize Mubarak as the man who defies the evil Americans who want to control Egypt. People will worry about Nur and his health and his case, instead of Mubarak running for another 6 year term. Hell, it already worked on GM, he is for another 6 years of Mubarak as long as he allows for a better state of political discourse. Like he would ever allow that to truly happene and jeopardize his son’s chances of ruling after him. Misdirection people. It occupies you with the symptoms instead of having you focus on the disease. And people wonder why nothing ever improves around here!