Recent Event

Literary Cafe - The Devil We Don't Know: The Dark Side of the Revolutions in the Middle East

 Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at 7:30 pm

The Devil We Don't Know: The Dark Side of the Revolutions in the Middle East
by Nonie Darwish
(Author Appearance) 

Location: Home of Dr. Robert and Leslie Hamilton, 210 25th Street, Santa Monica, 90404

Admission: $15.00

Parking: Street

About the Book:

Did the Arab Spring mark the beginning of a bright new future for the Middle East? Will it usher in a new era in which democracy will flourish, freedom of speech and religion will be seen as absolute rights, and economic opportunities will open to all? Or will the bright hopes lit by the Facebook revolution be drowned under waves of mob violence, police brutality, and renewed repression? According to Middle East expert Nonie Darwish, there will be no democracy, no freedom, and no new economic opportunity, and the violence and repression have already begun. This should not surprise anyone, she says. We've seen it all before—many times.

 In The Devil We Don't Know, Darwish reveals the unpleasant truths behind the Arab Spring: the students, activists, and young professionals who initiated the Cairo protests represent only a tiny minority of Egypt's population. Other groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi, shared their desire to oust President Hosni Mubarak, but for entirely different reasons. Now that Mubarak is gone, says Darwish, these radical conservative factions have seized the initiative to further their own goals, including waging war on Israel, expelling Coptic Christians from Egypt, and engaging in jihad against non-Islamic nations.

About the author:

Nonie Darwish is an Egyptian-American human rights activist, and founder of Arabs For Israel, and is Director of Former Muslims United. She is the author of two books: Now They Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror and Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Darwish's speech topics cover human rights, with emphasis on women's rights and minority rights in the Middle East. Born in Egypt, Darwish is the daughter of an Egyptian Army lieutenant general, who was called a "shahid" by the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, after being killed in a targeted killing in 1956. Darwish blames "the Middle Eastern Islamic cultureand the propaganda of hatred taught to children from birth" for his death. In 1978, she moved with her husband to the United States, and converted to Christianity there.