On 10/9/07, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
phoebe ayers wrote:
On 10/9/07, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
In 1997 some 52 honor killings were reported in Egypt. The actual figures in all of the countries I've cited are probably much higher because most honor killings go unreported.
Yes, well, there were also 69 murders and 156 rapes in the city of San Francisco alone last year [1], where the WMF is moving to soon; yet the fact that many of these killings are racially and sexually motivated and many of the rapes are intensely brutal has not led to calls that the WMF stay away from the big bad city here for moral reasons. My point: having liberal [2] western values does not directly translate into more safety for the resident or casual visitor; I haven't seen statistics about crime for visitors in Egypt yet.
I've stated that we have a duty to concern ourselves with more than our own safety. Are you disputing this?
Your arguments rely on utilitarianism, yet I'm certain you would reject a society with maximal persecution of the few and minimal crime overall.
One outside the US (and a few inside it...) might reply that the US has been illegally holding terror suspects without trial and torturing some of them, intercepting telecommunications widely both internationally and domestically, and waging illegal war in Iraq.
We could hold an even in ... London (no, wait, tube/bus bombings)... Paris (race riots?)... Moscow (organized crime? government oppression?)... Madrid (train bombings?), San Francisco (a few murders, and might all fall down in an earthquake...), Seattle (less murders, but both likely to fall down and be sunk by a Tsunami in a quake, and there's a volcano waiting to spew Lahar all over the southern parts of the city...).
Let us be practical. There are moral and practical concerns with about every possible venue we could chose. At least some of those concerns are legitimate in a wider scope. We cannot not chose somewhere to go, or rule out any given place, due to legitimate but not overwhelming concerns.
Gay and lesbian tourists from the US go to Egypt all the time without being oppressed; I'm sure some of them are offended by the local treatment of their peers, but they vacation in good health and safety.
Westerners visiting Egypt are not, as a rule, bothered by the local political issues. Most of the factions in those agree that bothering western tourists is a bad idea, and though there was a spate of terrorism it seems to have receded and stayed away. Alexandria was also far from the areas which were affected by that.
I would oppose any suggestion of a Wikimania in a Sharia Law area, or in a truly dangerous location from participants' health and safety, or freedom of information or civil rights perspective. Rangoon would be bad. Bagdhad would be ... let's just not go there, and I wish any Iraqi Wikipedians the best of luck with recovering your civilization and country. Egypt is "travel advisories" and some topical sensitivity, not "overwhelmingly oppressive" or "bring your Blackwater".
Perhaps future standards should increase the civil rights and western-style freedoms issues significance in judging. But Alexandria is a fine choice now. Arguing to change the selection criteria after selection, without having already used the opportunity present to make statements or recommendations before selection, is poor process.