Former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Nobel peace prize winner and one time candidate for Egypt’s presidency, Mohamed ElBaradei, created a social media buzz after kissing Oscar winning actress Angelina Jolie.
Jolie and ElBaradei were in the German capital of Berlin for the Cinema for Peace Gala.
Jolie received a prize – and kiss – on Monday from ElBaradei for her directorial debut, “In The Land of Blood and Honey,” a movie on the Bosnian war.
The incident created uproar on the social media forum Twitter, as well as a hashtag called Elbaradeikiss, with detractors and supporters voicing themselves on the kiss.
“Some people have the Salafists and the Brotherhood and some others have Angelina,” said one person on Twitter.
“Don’t we just dream to have [sic] a president that kissed Angelina Jolie,” said one tweet while another posed a philosophical question: “What is liberalism Baradei? [It] means to kiss Angelina only for yourself and we only kiss our palms.”
There were also tweets from ardent admirers. “I would love to tell you Mr. Baradei that you have become my role model and for the rest of the Egyptian and the Arab youth,” said one.
“I love you Baradei as you try to bridge cultural gaps,” another one added.
Other tweets, however, were far more critical.
“This is not the same pure Baradei, the one who participated in the revolution.”
Some felt there was nothing wrong with what he did “as long it is in public and there were no feelings then so what?”
ELBaradei spoke in Berlin about the Arab Spring, saying that the culture of fear has been broken and will never return to the Arab world.
