Political marketing in Cairo *(taken to an whole new level).

Damn, reality just blows my mind!

No imagination can surpass the extents of madness of everything I observe inside and outside myself.

As I was heading for my favourite coffee shop, early in the morning, to get my caffeine dose for yet another set of hours working on my BELOVED book, I noticed a political poster of a candidate for some Governmental elections.

The photo portrayed a man with a common face that could belong to any of my neighbours, the doorman, a doctor. What stroke me as weird was that the photographer or team which retouched the image on Photoshop inserted a dark spot on the man´s forehead, the same kind of the men who knock with their heads on the floor during the daily prayers.

The physical prostration required in the prayer rituals of Muslims leads to the head bumping or just touching the floor several times. The ones who show a callus on their foreheads are thought to be obeying followers of the daily prayers and, therefore, pious and a little bit sacred themselves.

The job was definitely badly done, otherwise I would not notice this was a digital adding and not an actual forehead callus that many exhibit as a proof of their religiosity (strangely associated with VIRTUOSITY and PURITY).

Since WHEN did religious clichés were used as a political marketing bonus?

Maybe I am the one who s been too busy with myself and not REALLY noticing what´s going on around me.

Why would a photographer add a callus to the forehead of a political candidate as a way to provide him with reliability?!

And, since when, did the so called "religious people" are, indeed, the most honest, hardworking, efective politicians?

Europe seemed to have learnt its lessons regarding to this dangerous mix between Politics and Religion but the Middle East is still on the way to this learning process.

The Christian Church, always associated with the political powers of each time, exploited, lied, manipulated, oppressed and killed billions of human beings. They created "Holly wars" (as if a war could EVER be "holly") and Inquisitions where anybody who disagreed with the religious/political authority or anyone who showed some knowledge (the witch hunt was all about eliminating "KNOWLEDGE" in the hands of Women) was burnt in the fire.

A scary amount of priests, nuns, popes were all discovered as sexual perverts, mad men and women who said something and DID its opposite. Secret passages, tunnels, caves were discovered in famous Convents all over Europe. What was found in these secret places was nothing short of a HELL landscape: instruments of torture and thousands of baby skeletons of abortions resulted from "religious people" intercourse covered in guilt.

No good ever came from associating Politics with Religion, this was a lesson learnt from Europe. It seems european History is not known in Egypt.:((

Knowledge is power, hence the pride Egyptian Governments seem to have on their poor, ignorant people.

The Egyptian Revolution was supposed to OPEN minds, not close them even further.

Hope the direction of this wind will change. Not only for my sake but for the sake of my BELOVED EGYPT.