Muslim Brotherhood

I went to a lecture by Mohamed al Mahdi Akef, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. He spoke for about two hours, but never really said anything.
The lecture, followed by question and answer, was on campus. I hadn't seen it advertised anywhere on campus - they usually try to keep a relatively low profile for political events - I'll probably receive an email tomorrow inviting me to it. We got there about 15 minutes before it began and got some of the last seats and the last pairs of English translation headphones.
Going to see the head of the Muslim Brotherhood speak, I was expecting an Ayatollah Khomeini like figure, in full robes and beard. Instead, was a little bald man in a charcoal gray suit - I assumed he was a professor moderating the event until he began speaking.
Akef (I'm not really sure which of his names to use, so I'll be American and just use his last one) began speaking. He spoke in Arabic - I had simultaneous translation, but not by the best translator on Earth.
The European politicians are supposed to be bad about talking in circles endlessly about nothing, but Akef could beat almost any of them at that game. Because he realized that he was talking to a less than receptive crowd (the audience was composed of a sample of the AUC community: professors and international students - not many Egyptian students attended) he had to avoid certain subjects.
During the question and answer period, he kept getting questions such as:

“What would the Muslim Brotherhood do with respect to Egypt's peace treaty with Israel if it gained power?”
He responded with (shortened from a 5 minute ramble) “It's always wise to review foreign policy occasionally, so our experts would review it and determine if it best suits our current interests.”

“What would the role of non-Muslims and women be in a MB controlled Egypt?”
“Well, we would consult scripture. Non-Muslims would not be discriminated against. They could practice religion in their homes, just not in public. We recognize that there are Christians in Egypt. We would not force them to convert. They could have their religion, they just must respect the rule of Islam, since Egypt is an Islamic country.”

“What about cases of Muslims who convert away from Islam?”
“The Koran says 'If a Muslim claims to no longer be Muslim, kill him.”

I've been tutoring at a mission here that teaches English to Sudanese refugees the past few weeks. I go after my last class Mondays and Wednesday and tutor one-on-one for the adults. Sometimes they bring me their homework assignment, which we work through - though one fellow I've stopped being too helpful with on that since I realized that he was basically trying to get me to do his homework for him. Sometimes they have vocabulary that they want me to check their pronunciation on or explain the definitions of. In most cases, my Arabic isn't good enough to be of any use, so I have to explain the word using English. Some are easy enough: factory, manager, or battery (though that one required disassembling my cell phone). Some seem like odd choices for beginning vocabulary for Sudanese refugees - one assignment required listing all of the possibly uses of the internet, fax machines, pagers, and CDroms, without explaining what any of those were. Some were such common words that I couldn't even think of a way to explain them using other English words: “requirement” took several minutes, and I'm not sure that he ever understood it. It's really made me think about definitions of words that we take for granted.
Sometimes we just chat to let them practice, which lets me get to know them a little better. My first few weeks I was confused as to why they wanted to learn English - they all said that they wanted to do it for the job opportunities, but I didn't really understand how English would help them that much in the Cairo job market - the only place where that would be that helpful would be in some sort of office job (which they probably are not qualified for) or in one of the stores or restaurants in Zamalek (the island where I live with all the other ex-pats) which they would never be hired for since they are Sudanese. Last week I learned from one of my students that most of them were either planning on returning to the Sudan or immigrating to the US, Canada, or Israel. Unfortunately, that brought up the subject of getting a visa to any of those countries, which it seems none of them are able to do.
There's one student that I've had 2 or 3 times. The first time, we were just chatting, when he said “I am born again.” With his accent, I wasn't entirely sure of what he said, thinking that he had instead said “I am bored again.” I was trying to think of a way to liven up the conversation when he repeated it and I realized what he meant. He then went on talking about how important God was and how he had been saved. Then he asked if I was Christian. I said yes since, regardless of whatever your religious beliefs might actually be, it's usually easiest to just say that you're Christian when people in Egypt ask even though my version of Christianity probably doesn't overlap with his that much (at least from what I've seen of people who identify themselves as “born-again.”). He then asked what I did every Sunday. I admitted that I did not go to church. He started to tell me how bad that was. I explained that, I have class every Sunday, the churches here are different than what I'm used to, and I haven't been able to find a church yet in Cairo - there's one across the street from my building, but he doesn't know that. He went on to list all of the churches in Cairo that I could choose from, making sure to mention which ones were English speaking. I promised to visit one and then our session ended.
The next week, I had the same fellow. After we went through his new vocabulary, we had a few minutes left for conversation. The first thing that he asked was what I had done Sunday. I had to admit that I had not gone to church. I got a 15-minute lecture on why I should go to church. On the bright side, he got to practice his English a lot that day.