Meet Maher El Gohary
It is a clear day along the coast, but in a bungalow off the beach, Maher El Gohary sits behind a locked door with an open Bible and a crystal cross, suspicious of every voice and sandal scraping past outside.
He and his daughter, Dina, live like refugees, switching apartments every few months, not wanting to get close to neighbors. Gohary’s life has been threatened, his dogs have been killed, and it’s been suggested that he’s insane or possessed by spirits.
He is a man this Muslim nation cannot fathom: a convert to Christianity.
[…]
A tall man in blue shorts and rimless glasses, Gohary, 56, looks as if he is ready to walk the beach. But he and Dina have just moved to the three-room bungalow. Their suitcases are still packed; the only thing hanging on the walls is a clothesline. Listening for noises outside, Gohary speaks of how years earlier the teachings of Jesus, especially parables on forgiveness and loving your enemy, changed his life.
“In Islam, if you steal your hands are cut off, but in Christianity you can be forgiven,” he says. “This compassion is what attracted me.”
Back then he was a young cadet at the police academy, inspired by a Christian bunkmate who ignored the taunts of Muslim recruits. Gohary, the son of a police general, began reading the Bible.
[…]
Gohary listens at the door. He doesn’t want an unexpected knock, and says he and his daughter will stay here a month or so and then move on.
Source: Los Angeles Times — A Christian on the run in Egypt
HT: Persecution.org
feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in 
, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, “people are controlled by inflicting pain.” In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
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