“After the defeat of the 1967 and during the preparation of October war, there was a rumor Egypt from the north to the south heard about it, which was the “Secret Military airport” and people began to speak about that airport which the army succeeded to build and hide from Israel and they even located where it was, that there was a bus station called “Secret Airport”, yet it turned out to be a hoax made by the Egyptian intelligence to fool the Mossad in a certain operation I guess in “Goma’a El-Showan” and they succeeded to deceive the Israelis ,ironically I don’t know how they believed this rumor ,I mean how this airport was considered as military secret while it was the talk of town ,it was no longer secret !!”
From two days ago, the readers and followers of politics in Egypt were surprised and shocked from daily El-Masry El-Youm, the newspaper that considers shocks as scoops, you know the scoops from the sort of the infamous Muslim brotherhood militia parade in the Al-Azhar University, it was something like this and even I considered more dangerous, provoking and silly that for the first time I began to suspect the real intention of that daily independent newspaper.
On the Tuesday the 3rd of April 2007, I read like many Egyptians the interview of the famous Amin Mahmoud El-Alam, the old communist thinker and activist who spent most of his life that reached to the age of 85 years old in the Egyptian Jails, the interview was two parts, the first part was published on the 3rd of April and the second part was going to be published the next day.
To tell you the truth I wasn’t going to read the interview as I don’t have patience in reading for the hardcore communists like this gentle man but the headline attracted me and it seemed that I wasn’t alone who was attracted, as anyone will be attracted to read an interview for an old communist veteran who is saying in it what makes the headlines:
Communism is back with a secret movement from Alexandria to Aswan!!
Shocking and attractive, I mean it was clever from the newspaper to put the headlines in the front page and give the interview two pages inside the edition. By the way the expression “from Alexandria to Aswan” is to refer to all parts of Egypt, as Alexandria is in north of Egypt while Aswan is in the south, this is just an explanation for the term used above, anyhow back to our main topic, the headline shocked me “a secret movement across Egypt?? A communist underground movement!! “
And even without reading of what was above the head, I was already wondering how it can be anymore secret and the man is announcing its existence in one of Egypt’s best selling independent newspapers, I mean one of the success reasons of the underground societies and movements especially in countries that don’t have a real democratic life is their secrecy!!
The headline I swear made think more and more despite I didn’t read the interview then because it was like a joke to me, simply because anyone who knows politics in Egypt will know the communist movements are no longer popular and spread like in 1960s and 1970s, and even in those periods regular people were not attracted to the communist and socialist movements due to the fact that in the Egyptian popular culture it is known that the communists deny the existence of God , a belief that is rejected by the majority if not all the Egyptians whether Muslims or Christians and this is why the Muslim brotherhood always has better existence and acceptance from the regular people because of the religion factor despite some may consider the MB are just using the religion to reach for the rule , still it is a fact especially with the spread of the religious radical stream in Egypt now , so I can accept the fact of the existence of Islamic or MB or even a Christian radical group working secretly from Alex to Aswan than to believe there is a communist underground group.
Of course I understand that communism and socialism are still there and I respect those who follow them, and I understand totally that a country suffering from political, economic and social problems in Egypt, especially the economic ones, some will go for the communism and socialism as a solution to all our problems but it is not as it was before, already they proved to fail in their motherland Russia.
I read the rest of the first part of the interview trying not to laugh, wondering if the man was joking after all, if he was serious in what he was saying. But I read more and more for two times I felt there can be several justifications for these statements.
According to the Jounralist Rania El-Badawy, the interviewer, the old thinker during the interview had to answer the telephone and leave her for awhile, where she found in front of her on the table a stack of papers written on them “Top Confidential”, the curiosity of the journalist made her read what was in those papers that appeared to her to be some of report about some secret communist organization!!
When he ended the call and returned again she asked him what they were and asked his permission to write down what there was in the papers and after long negotiation, he agreed to tell her on condition that she wouldn’t publish what he told her not to publish then after more negotiation and pressure the man started to talk and began to throw bombs saying the following in a quick brief summary
1. There is a secret communist active organization in Egypt.
2. This secret organization is consisted of 7 leftist and socialist groups.
3. They are already active and present in the street but not under the name of Communists.
4. They were and are responsible for the workers strikes lately across the country.
5. Their agenda contains the students and farmers as an escalation after the workers
6. They won’t announce themselves till they are powerful enough with a base in the street that will make them capable to confront the regime.
7. among its members those who are currently famous members in the Nasserite and the National progressive unionist party
8. He is a member in it and from its leadership but not its founder
9. They are already promoting for their ideas publicly through a magazine called “Socialist horizons” and they don’t say that it is communist.
As you see these are very dangerous statements on many levels whether the political or social or even the security level.
The interview did not stop at here as it goes with the opinion of Al-Alam regarding the regime and the Muslim brotherhood
El-Badawy ended that part with excerpts from the documents she found earlier, they seemed to be parts from the manifesto of that movement or group or what ever you can call it for example and these are just few examples
Their rejection to the constitution amendments to
Their quest to continue defending the workers rights with strikes,
The total refusal to the privatization policies
They stand with the Palestinian resistance
Their quest for a new constitution
On that day on the national TV, in the popular night show “El-Bit Batik” there was like a hurricane of anger from the head of the “NPU” party Dr. Rafaat El-Saied who called the show attacking the news and the journalist, accusing the journalist for fabrication and demanding her punishment, then the head of the lawyers syndication and the famous leader in the Nasserite party Samah Ashore called and he was less angry, speaking in favor of the Daily El-Masry Youm waiting their justification
It turned out that interview all was recorded on a tape, already if the pictures in the newspaper showed Al-Alam and in front of him there was a recorder and you can see it here, this was just the first surprise
The second surprise turned out to be that the journalist took with her a photo copy from those documents she found and on each document of them there is Al-Alam signature to prove their authenticity and El-Glad was ready to come next day on the show to give those evidence
To tell you the truth, there was no comment in the newspapers as far as I know from those I read which are the official ones plus Daily Dostor on the interview, I thought may be there will be more surprises in the second part of the interview next day Wednesday but there were not any more surprises, the rest of the interview was about what he thinks in Egypt today , the regime , Gamal Mubarak and his life and despite all the attack on the regime it was not as much bizarre as the first part
The story didn’t finish in the first 48 hours we didn’t know the reaction of Dr. Amin El-Alam himself , the man is still alive and can speak fluently and powerfully but where is he ??
The only explanations that I have were either the man is hallucinating, already he is 85 years old, lived a hard life and so he may create things or there is a real secret movement and due to also the old age and kindness he was fooled by this journalist from hell, I even suspect that it was attempt from the old communists to restore their old glory and steal the light from the MB by making this up
Already it is known to everyone that the socialist and leftists in Egypt are standing with the workers’ strikes and that’s they are trying to gather them in one front to confront both the MB and the regime, and that they also since the days of monarchy work in secret, these all are factors we can put in our minds if we want to believe what was published in the independent daily Egyptian newspaper added to it the name of the magazine he mentioned is already there but it is published by the Socialist Horizon study center
But on the other side this communist veteran is smart enough not leave very important top confidential documents on the table where he is meeting his guests!!
But where is Amin El-Alam??
He is still there and made an interview to Al-Arabiya.net on the 5th of April 2007 where he accused the daily El-Masry El-Youm of changing his words, what he was talking about was the meeting of the left wing front which is opposing the regime and was found in August, and the documents he signed were articles and studies about the Egyptian left wing crisis and how it can be solved.
Of course the last word will be for the recorded tape with his voice
Anyhow this scoop of Daily El-Masry El-Youm I consider it more as a spoof and now before than ever I am suspecting the integrity and independence on that newspaper which is owned by bunch of business men among them Ahmed Bahgat the member in the NDP
Already the intelligent Egyptian people didn’t buy this story for a single minute, as soon as it was published all the people began to remember the pictures of the same newspaper published from few months ago for the so-called the Muslim Brotherhood Militia parade in Al-Azhar university which were caused in destroying tens of the students in Al-Azhar university because of their political belief.
Now they are turning to both the socialists and the Egyptian workers
The socialists, Nasserites and the communists are known to be from the active members of the opposition, many of them are members in Kafya, and most of them go and participate in the rallies and protests in other less easy words they are like a pain in the ass.
They are needed to be stopped and the easiest way is to scare people from them but they don’t know that people know very well that there is no effective left wing in Egypt, only active leftists
Now to the part or why I think that the regime why be behind this huge film or spoof because they want to stop the workers strikes
Simply by defaming those, making them the bad guys who are working with the unbeliever communists and thus people won’t support them; after all they are working with some secret bad communist group
Yes there are leftists and Socialists who are supporting the workers rights and standing by them, it is expected due to their ideologies and even I who don’t share the same ideologies stand with their rights, but neither the leftists nor the socialists are behind the strikes, they are the workers themselves after suffering from years
I swear I began to suspect seriously when I read about the so – called involvement began in the strikes pumped in to my eyes
Anyhow I am waiting to hear the recording in TV because I know it won’t stop here.
Update : The recording was never aired yet in 2007 "14/04/2008"
Sources:
· El-Masry Youm interview Part 1
· El-Masry Youm interview Part 2
· Wikipedia
The commis are coming to get you. Hide the women and childeren. The whole thing is funny
ReplyDeleteGod bless Egypt and Islam, DOn't worry about the commis! they'll crash on the shores of Egypt :) lol
ReplyDeleteMay i add that i agree with every single word you wrote.
Applaudes for you! very nice!
@God bless america , the best joke is that it is from Aswan to Alex
ReplyDelete@fadfadation , sure Egypt is divinily protected Seriously speaking , thanks for your comment
The same goes for you too bro. Yours is a good one too.
ReplyDelete@zeinobia, the mukhabarat guy who wrote that must have been a comedian.
@god bless america , one hell of a comedian and brilliant too ,we must admitt
ReplyDeletegod bless america, you meant my blog?
ReplyDeleteif so...i'm flattered :)
If not, rrr... ok :)