February 24, 2011

Left and right, they are all trying to understand.
Attempting to apply political analysis and knowledge to comprehend this overwhelming and allegedly "shocking" collective Arab uprising. But to no avail.
What we are witnessing in history is beyond science, it's beyond sociology, way beyond economics and class dynamics.
It's occurrences like these that are utter bafflement to analysts but ultimate elation to historians.
The irony is that we're so efficient at studying power struggles and ego trips, yet we're nowhere near close to understanding raw nationalist sentiment.
Most would not know how to give you a satisfactory definition of patriotism yet they are very capable of filling pages and pages on the science of control and authoritarianism.

There's no possible way of determining how these series of revolutions were ignited. Our only option is the metaphysical and the emotional. Faith, justice, frustration, vendetta, dignity, and humanity.

Arabs at this moment in history Arabs are collectively fearless. This is not about breaking stereotypes or proving ourselves to anyone. This is a matter of pure human dignity. Things that core nations take for granted and easily manipulate. Most "Western" nations cannot grasp the concept of being or having a member of their family incarcerated for years upon no criminal/civil indictment while suffering humiliation well beyond human threshold.
We complain about debt, responsibilities, work. They complain about suffering a back injury from a rocket-propelled grenade while hiding from mercenaries them down in hospitals. For the sole reason of speaking.

See, these people don't have the luxury of "complaint". They are not entitled to reprimanding their government representatives for federal budgets or health care.
You speak? You get ostracized, raped, beaten, killed.

Two days ago, Libyan protesters in Eastern Libya were killed with acid by the regime.
Dry charred residues of former selves, they were put on display on the streets of Benghazi to send the rest of the protesters home.
Yet the protesters' reaction is the zenith of revolutionary art.
They don't budge. They get even deeply moralized. Martyrdom further fuels purpose. It's a constant reminder of what it is that sent you to the streets in the first place.

Aside from politics, victory of Tunisians and Egyptians magnifies divine ethereal blessing. The drive of this revolution is more than human. It's beyond us yet it pulls us.

Most are hungry to witness Muammar Qadhafi suffer the savagery similar (if not harsher) to the very one he has been orchestrating upon Africans as well as his people for the past four decades. As much as I would love to see nothing but him be indicted in international court, no method of purgatory will be comparable to what he will suffer the day the sun rises from the West.

February 15th, 2011

Last weekend, Egyptians did something that Arabs have not had the guts to do for the past 60 years. They changed the world's perception of the Middle East forever.

No longer will we be dubbed as subservient, scared, or oppressed.

Singlehandedly, Egyptians overthrew a 30-year-old thick skinned tyrant regime. The 3 week protests brought forth to the world the essence of being Egyptian. Nonviolence, lightheartedness, determination, resilience, and courage.

One thing, however, that amazed me all throughout this struggle, was the unbelievable unity that overcame the entire population. Apparently, that unity was very short-lived.

Repeatedly, I came across individuals expressing anger to the fall of the regime and the bleak prospect of a Muslim theocracy. It amazes me how in the midst of beautiful victory of the people, we still manage to hunt down those small petty ethnic differences that will result in nothing but tension and unnecessary antagonism.

This is not the time to attack the "other". This is not the time to extrapolate politico-religious competition. We don't need to move from one issue to the other so fast.

Let's not forget what ignited this entire movement in the first place: we wanted equality, peace, and natural human liberties within the political arena.

Nobody is threatening secularism, nobody is vying for religious supremacy. Egyptians, as a nation, made this happen. For the sake of universal legitimate rights.

Let's check ourselves before undoing all of last weeks' hard work. We're better than this.

Nothing Left to Say.

This is what some of us have decided is OK to go on for another couple of months. Does it make any sense to you? THIS is the man who has promised us just yesterday that things are going to get better. Wake up.

February 4th, 2011

During the past week, something had caught my attention.

Everybody has officially become a political analyst.

Whenever the subject of what's going on in Egypt comes up, EVERYONE has a political opinion to share.

Although I'm all for freedom of speech and press, I still believe we should place certain boundaries on each other. For the sake of sanity.

You find people that do not even know what the Muslim Brotherhood is telling you that they fear an Islamist state after Mubarak leaves.

You find people that are oblivious to the apparatus of Western intelligence bureaucracies telling you that Israel is our biggest threat.

Having so much information be available to you with such easy access definitely has its dark side.

You are overwhelmed with opinion, and a fraction of truth lost in the fringes.

You develop an abusive relationship with media networks, picking favorites and staying loyal to them.

You don't read half the amount you should be reading in order to even come remotely close to understanding a certain concept, individual, or event.

You don't criticize where you are getting all your information from and thus ride on the coattails of bullshit conspirators.

It's unbelievable the amount of ignorance and arrogance some people have showed. An amount of self-confidence that leaves you speechless.

Talk about the Brotherhood, El Baradei, Mubarak's Egypt, Israeli government, etc.

All I have is one very small request, which I don't think is unreasonable: Do not speak of theories unless you are well informed on the facts upon which you are building certain assumptions.

It pains me to see this naivety that has colonized the hearts of once passionate Egyptians. Ones that do care for their nation but are unfortunately hungry for kind words and thus jump at any promising rhetoric.

We've been called brave, we've been called jealous. We've been called adamant and we've been called weak.

These are defining times. Where are we going to stand? In the midst of the battlefield against tyranny, or on the sidelines?

To make things clear, I'm not sitting here with a holier-than-thou attitude preaching at you, God forbid.

It just tears me up inside to watch such phenomenal nationalistic momentum for change instantaneously collapse due to people jumping at the possibility of the slightest, and dimmest, light at the end of the tunnel.

Let's think reasonably for a second. Let's remember what has initiated this uprising in the first place.

I'm digressing, though. I'm actually writing this entry as a reaction to Glenn Beck's theories on Egyptian leadership.

I'm not going to sit here and vent about how bigoted, arrogant, self-righteous, and delusional the guy is. Because I think everybody can already agree with me on that.

What I do want to address, however, is the manner with which he discussed the Caliphate.

Never in my life, in anything I've ever read, or anything I've ever watched have I witnessed someone describe a holy religious social structure as a flesh eating plague.

Glenn Beck turned the Caliphate, created under the Prophet (pbuh), into a metaphor of degenerative social function.

This is a message to the entire American nation:

Islam is not your enemy. Islam is not going to take over your pathetic neurotic capitalist "free market world economy" obsession. Islam is not going to undermine your stubborn irrational racist excuse of foreign policy. Islam is not your 21st century USSR. ISLAM IS NOT DISSIDENCE TO THE WEST.

It's a shame a country as great as the USA would stoop so low as to bash an ancient much revered world religion.

Leave our apparently "spreading Caliphate" alone and focus on your endless democratic shortcomings.

Rewind?

After a week of the most impressive uprising of the people that I've ever seen/heard of/read about, Egyptians have given up.

I lost count of how many people have passionately tried to convince me that our time is up and that we should settle back down. What's ironic is that those very people were participants in the January 25th protests. So what exactly happened those past couple of days? Let's recap:

Mubarak gave a couple of speeches addressing the need for "constitutional change" and "political reform". Not much later, thugs on camels and horses were storming Tahrir square beating protesters with sticks. Much to their convenience, the internet happened to be turned back on. The world ended up being presented with civil feud between those that claimed they are pro-regime against protesters that have been literally fighting for a new system for the past week.

This is where the interesting part comes in. Subsequent to these arbitrary attacks on protesters, many Egyptians started getting certain epiphanies and they go something like this:

"If Mubarak has come out publicly and promised the world he would not take part of this year's elections, then why are we still downtown going hungry, sleepy, and tired? If this is all orchestrated by 'external forces' then why are we bothering? Let's just all go home, get some sleep, start going back to our jobs and re-instill the stability we once had."

Upon reading that, you belong to one of two camps: those who believe that this has been a big mistake and only caused disruption to our country and thus agree with the statement, or those who believe that every single detail of that statement is pregnant with fallacy. You can probably guess which one I belong to.

Let's take a step back for a second and dissect every contention being made in Mubarak's favor, let's try to be impartial so we can actually come to a reasonable rational conclusion:

After much expressed hatred and condemnation from almost every reputable developed nation in the world, it's no wonder he felt compelled to "appear" to appease the protesters. We all watched him make that speech in utter anticipation. We thought maybe, just maybe, we have done it. But no, we found out that all we're getting is a PROMISE. One that is declaring to the world that Mubarak will NOT run for reelection this year. He was CONCERNED about the stability of the country and believed the status quo needs to be maintained in order for it to be resumed.

The tragedy in all this is not the fact that he's not giving us what we want, it's in the fact that HUNDREDS are falling for it.

They are basically saying that a dictatorial tyrant that has ruled with a heavy hand for over thirty years is suddenly having a change of heart, thus not feeling like reelecting himself for another term in order to give the people what they want. At the young age of 84. What a sacrifice.

Let's look at everything that this revolution has been representing, that has NOT even been addressed so far in Mubarak's speeches:

• Ending the Emergency Law that has been in effect since Sadat's regime. A legislation that was put in place to handle violent Islamist political outbursts in the 1970s. But now, Mubarak has transformed it into an extensive torturous instrument to keep his public (especially dissidents) in check.
• Madda 88, which addresses judiciary duties toward monitoring elections to ensure fairness and prevent ballot manipulation, has not been enforced throughout Mubarak's regime.
• Parliamentary elections have been conducted in a certain way to ensure victory of the NDP ever since God knows when. Further more, lower class citizens get bribed to say that they voted for them (20 pounds to be exact - Who knew selling your soul would cost little more than a Ta3meya sandwich).
• Opposition parties (yes including the Brotherhood) have been demonized for a very long time, giving the international community the impression that Egypt is a harbinger of terrorism and chaos waiting to unravel (very ironic, in my opinion, look what the NDP themselves have sparked up).
• Egypt has been dubbed a "police state" (a shameless euphemism in my opinion) for good reason. Police brutality against citizens has become absolutely ludicrous. In what world should a human being be absentmindedly subservient to ruthless authority figures? That doesn't sound like something America would be supporting, does it.

I've listed only a few basic flaws in the Egyptian regime. Only a few. Once you start immersing yourself into the hellish calculus that is the structure of the Egyptian society, you begin to notice the amount of suffering that so many people have to experience on a daily basis. Matters of food, health, shelter, security, things we don't give second thoughts to.

That situation is due to one very simple fact - Egypt does not have a government.

I'm thinking that would be sufficient to explain the cause of what we've seen so far this week. Now to all my fellow Egyptians that are NOT supportive of the uprising - are you really willing to settle after everything that we have put ourselves and our nation through?

300 dead and thousands injured, just so you can decide after a few days that you're too tired to protest?

Or have we just given up since he turned out to have a much thicker skin that Bin Ali?

What I'm trying to say is that a revolution doesn't happen over night. A revolution comes with a cost but for a very invaluable outcome. I'm not going to give you that spiel about democracy and its importance. But would you rather start working on picking up the economy right now still under the same authoritarian regime and under the same conditions? Or endure relative chaos for a some time in exchange for the system we've been lacking for an overly long time?

I'm vowing never to mention this debate again. Because to tell you the truth, it's infuriating.

Egypt will make the right decision.