I have had love-hate sentiments for Egypt in the last two or three decades.
When I left in 1997 to settle in Athens, it was with a sense of relief. Part of it was due to the fact that my business had reached an impasse which I was unable to reverse and for that there is only myself to blame. But increasingly I shared what Dr. Ahmad Okasha, President of the Egyptian Psychological Society said, “the majority of the Egyptian people were in a deep state of depression.” They felt insulted and abused by the authorities, powerless to change anything in society, literally strangers in their own country. Being in business, I saw the corruption all around me. I felt it in my bones, the wheeling and dealing that went on with the families of government ministers and the ruling elite. In any case, the rumors were rife and on the lips of even the koshari sellers outside my workshop. It was a common secret. More than that - no longer a secret. One might ask: Wouldn‟t you have profited George if you had the chance? I probably would - if I had the chance. And that is the point: I should not have had the chance. No one should have the chance to profit by circumventing the law or due processes of business propriety and transparency.
I was never affected directly by the business corruption of the higher ups though I was blackmailed crudely and unashamedly by employees of the government tax bureau. Even that I am prepared to pass by as a battle of wits. I tried to hide my profits and they tried to get the maximum from me but for their own pockets and not for their country. It was all part of the general sleaze that Egypt was bogged in. What for me was infinitely worse was the imperiousness, the despotism and high-handedness with which the government treated its subjects. They were ciphers to be ruled by the whip. It built a multi-layered security apparatus of over a million people that included uniformed, riot and secret police as well as intelligence officers and the brutal state security. One police person for every eighty citizens (!), to rule them by fear, brutal torture, and summary military trials with long years of hard labor for political beliefs. I hated the regime especially for this and felt contempt for the country, its leaders and, obviously unfairly, for its submissive citizens.
For thirteen years I turned my back on Egypt. I wanted to forget the country I grew up in, a country I loved that had changed so much. I had a few friends there and my wife had many more. She and my daughters returned to Egypt often for nostalgic pilgrimages to a happy married life and childhood but I never wanted to return. I needed to keep my early memories intact and the new hectic Cairo with the new religious zealotry of both Muslims and Copts bothered me and worried me. The tolerance that was there in my youth had disappeared. Was it due to poverty? To the few that were getting very rich and the many millions that could barely make ends meet?
I remembered the goose pimples we all had on the 19th of November 1977, as we watched Anwar el Sadat on TV, landing in Jerusalem. The hopes we had that a fair and just peace would follow that bold initiative. The result to date: the Apartheid State of Israel, the Nazi-like concentration camp of the Palestinian people in Gaza with the approval and helping hand of Mubarak and with the United States abetting the injustice with a $1.3 billion annual bribe to the Egyptian army. Well, things have 119
changed somewhat lately and are likely to change even more. I truly believe that injustice is a temporary condition. The human being cannot abide it. It cannot last. It has never lasted long in human history. The short-sightedness of the Israeli intransigence in its relations with the Palestinians in particular, and Arab neighbors in general, is immense. It is almost beyond comprehension. Netanyahu, for a man of phenomenal IQ with degrees from MIT and Harvard, is phenomenally obtuse. The tide is turning against Israel as it was bound to do sooner or later. The aggressive and arrogant Israelis had better deal fairly with the gentle but newly determined Egyptians, the less gentle Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs and Iranians before they are deluged by a flood of humans or even a nuclear holocaust. It was the U.S.
and Israel after all (plus Britain‟s role in Mosadegh‟s ouster) who were the parents that gave birth to Ahmadinedjad and all he embodies.
Injustice cannot last. I thought Egypt had fallen into a deep lethargy that was, in part, due to a fatalism of the people and the Muslim religion, and which was reinforced by the iron grip of a merciless dictatorship. I felt the misery when I was there. I wrote to my many friends in Europe and the States that Egypt was a boiling cauldron of discontent liable to explode any moment. I had been waiting for that explosion for decades but it did not come. It did not come with the torture of the citizens, their treatment as ciphers, it did not come with the rigging of elections, it did not come with the falling standard of living, with the few fabulously rich. When would it come?
Thirteen years away from the country of my birth, I was no longer aware of many things. I guessed that the situation could not have improved. It was obvious that it had deteriorated, but that the government had reached the point of the cold-blooded murder of Khaled Said, I could not have imagined. I did not know of the April 6
Youth movement that was examining and discussing for the past two years methods of peaceful and non-violent resistance. That it had sent its second-in-command Mohammad Adel to Serbia to meet proponents of non-violent resistance and returned with DVDs and tactics to be used in an uprising. And so when the spark of the Tunisian uprising fired the January 25 Egyptian revolution, there was already a nucleus with ideas and objectives to focus on. Non-violence was a strategy, not a tactic. I did not know of the other youth movements that were involved and of the Muslim Brotherhood youth that also participated in good faith and as an equal partner.
I did not know how vital a part young women played in the uprising. What was obvious and exhilarating was the way the revolution spread across Egypt like wildfire.
As the young, middle-class and educated were joined by the oppressed and uneducated poor, followed by judges, lawyers, engineers, journalists, civil servants and others.
I was vastly impressed by the wisdom of the decentralized and highly organized leadership. The democratic way they reached their decisions. The fact that not a sole leader emerged but that the leadership was collective. By the fact that the organizers were non-ideological even though most ideological parties participated.
That they were disciplined and focused and refused to enter any discussions with the fading, backtracking government that might distract them from their primary goal: the removal of Mubarak. It is all too wonderful to contemplate. My admiration surges to the few names I have read about, who were super-active in mobilizing the masses 120
though many thousands surely deserve the same gratitude of the Egyptian nation. The new, united, and tolerant Egyptian nation of Muslims and Copts.
The 25 January revolution has succeeded. It has not ended. Many obstacles have to be overcome. The much-suffering Egyptians must restrain their demands and refrain from strikes until democracy is solidly established. In this transitional period Egypt is weak from the three-week upheaval and cannot satisfy demands for better salaries and work conditions. The people and the wonderful youth of Egypt must remain solidary, vigilant and alert so that the Army keeps its promises of establishing a true democracy and honest elections. They must remember: THEY are the nation -
not the generals. I believe it would be a good idea to have weekly, Friday-after-prayers demonstrations in Tahrir and all the squares in all the cities and towns across the country just to remind the generals that WE ARE HERE AND WE ARE
WAITING.
As for me who was scornful of Egypt because of Mubarak, I am now proud of Egyptians for their revolution. I shall be as anxiously following its development as I was following the three-week determined, peaceful uprising, and ouster of Mubarak.
Just now, in the news we heard that that the situation is getting worse in Libya.
The death toll is rising and the Kaddafi sons are at the head of the armed forces in an attempt to snuff out the uprising. They shall soon learn that regimes that have killed citizens, that have blood on their hands, are doomed sooner or later. Sooner rather than later. Kaddafi that contemptible poseur shall join Mubarak and Ben Ali.
Strangely, I am grateful to him for one thing. Many years ago, he came out with the phrase: “The greatest terrorist of all is America.” It came to me as a great shock. It set me thinking. It may be one of the few intelligent notions that came out of his mouth.
My school friend Enver quoted a German saying: “What will come now is more of the same.” He is not a pessimist. He is a realist. The danger is real and possible. I am an optimist. After the miracle, the wonderful youth of Egypt will not allow it. They shall fight to the death for a NEW, FREE, and DEMOCRATIC
EGYPT.
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