Why i chose egypt's lgbt crisis
When I first heard about our research project I felt a little overwhelmed that we'd be given so much freedom to choose a topic to do our research on. What could I possibly choose that hasn't been chosen already? What if the topic doesn't meet criteria? What if I got bored of it? I also felt anxious with the amount of freedom given to us and in order to overcome that anxiety I decided to search through some of my old children's books to give me some ideas, research current world topics, and try to narrow down my options so as to pick a topic. At the end of this process I had to choose between Egypt, Paris, and Australia. In the end I decided to choose Egypt's LGBT Crackdown for a multitude of reasons. Egypt's history and culture have always been the most interesting me to me ever since I first learned about The 7 Wonders of the World, and the rich history of Egypt in my middle school Social Studies class. Thanks to Ms. Honeycutt, I began learning about things like hieroglyphics and the history surrounding ancient Egypt. With this decision in tow I began researching issues current issues in modern day Egypt, and as a bisexual woman, I noticed the LGBT Crackdown Crisis in Egypt and felt compelled to look more into it. I learned that all around the world even in modern day Egypt, people of the LGBT community are still struggling for their rights all across the globe, and I grew exasperated at the thought of people still being hurt just for loving whomever their heart chose regardless of race, gender, age, and background. When I learned that, in America I'm given the personal freedom to choose whomever my heart desires, yet in Egypt, citizens are being prosecuted because they followed their hearts, I felt that I had to choose this topic to bring to light the injustice being done in a country that held such a prosperous and comprehensive history. I needed to see how these unjust acts were affecting it's community, and what could be done to prevent them. I had to pick apart and figure out 'How Egypt's Anti LGBT Crackdown affect arrest rates and campaign outbreaks from the citizens of Egypt?'.
|
Before beginning to research this topic, due to my prior knowledge of Egyptian history, I hadn't expected to learn the horrid news of the communities ongoing struggle with, and their inequitable battle for LGBT acceptance. In ancient Egypt's history, Egyptians showed no negative responses to same sex relations among deities, and didn't seem to view them as taboo when faced with gods who upheld such relationships. When I learned that Egypt was having problems with same sex relation issues I'd expected to learn there was just a small issue over it that got out of hand and just made headlines. I'd held expectations that Egypt today would be more of a progressive, inclusive, and respectable country due to their background, but learning about huge incidents like the Cairo 52 and the recent LGBT Crackdown I was disappointed and shocked that a country could actually back track.
|
With my research, I'm discovering new information about Egypt's current status as a country! I've learned that their political situations aren't rumored to be the best, the unstable weather in Egypt has caused many issues affecting the government, problems between the citizens and the government continue to rise and protests over other issues continue to arise. Mosques and Temples in Egypt have been attacked in recent news, Egypt's plans for space and satellites are flourishing, but sadly still there has been no update on the arrests of the LGBT concert goers. The LGBT Community seemingly still suffers in silence, but there have been talks of protests sprouting soon that speak in favor of LGBT Rights.
|
Header From http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/picture07052002.htm