Aliaa Mahdy, an Egyptian with astonishing courage

Aliaa Mahdy, an Egyptian with astonishing courage, is using her blog to protest against her vicious government. To make the point as emphatic as possible, she has posted a nude photo for herself along with other nude images. In a Moslem state, this must count as very shocking indeed but it makes the point powerfully. She writes "Put on trial the artists' models who posed nude for art schools until the early 70s, hide the art books and destroy the nude statues of antiquity, then undress and stand before a mirror and burn your bodies that you despise to forever rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare to try to deny me my freedom of expression". See her blog here.


Reaction from countries usually seen as less repressive than Egypt are interesting. Her blog is hosted by Google, a US company and they have put on content warning to click through before you may be horrified by what you see next. But there is nothing to fear, no blood and guts as freely available elsewhere, just a human. Another example is Emily Esfahani Smith who has (warning: X-rated) next to the link to Aliaa Mahdy's blog. There is nothing of course X-rated about what Mahdy says, a harmless body used to make a political point. From Smith's country we do not of course see X-ratings against images of US or UK bombing of Iraq, no, blowing the limbs off kids does not need a warning, nor do news reports of blood soaked protesters. No, the "free" countries see a simple unarmed human as a threat to be warned against. Shame isn't it?

I wish Aliaa Mahdy the very best of luck with her protest and admire her courage immensely.