Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The End of the July sit in at Tahrir square : The lessons we should understand

Now the Tahrir July Sit in was dispersed unexpectedly yesterday by force , it is unexpectedly because all people expected this to happen sooner or later because of Ramadan. All expectations were around that clash between the shops owners of Down Town and the protesters who refused to open the square for traffic. From one point of view it is better that the army and police dispersed because , we can’t have anymore civilians killing civilians.

It is not the end of the revolution or will be the end of the revolution  , with my all due respect as this is not the first time the sit in is ended by force , well  remember what happened how it ended in mid March and how it ended on April 9th. The only thing that is different from my view is  not the excessive use of violence that can’t justified but rather the the loss of public opinion.

It is easy to blame everyone but it is hard to criticize ourselves.

Public opinion’s loss :

The people are not in the revolution’s side anymore and we need them more than anything. That group of  revolutionary protesters is insisting that they were the ones who made the revolution made it despite they know very well that if ordinary Egyptians did not come from houses , from mosques and churches in those huge protests that rocked Egypt from Rashid to Aswan , from Matrouh to Al Arish , even in New Valley !? Who made those Egyptians go down !?? They all suffered from Mubarak’s regime in a way or another , they all love their country and they want the best for it.

The people especially large sector from the country including the working and working classes are fed with the revolution , some will say that the media brainwashed them. Objection , the media did not brainwash them,if the Egyptian media was that powerful in brainwashing the people in 6 months to turn them against the revolution , why it did not manage to brainwash them all those 30 years of Mubarak’s rule. Believe or not people are smart in Egypt and know what to believe and what not to believe.

The martyrs who were killed , the thousands who were injured are actually from those people , the silent majority that spoke loudly for 18 days. Those Egyptians citizens , those millions are the ones that made Tahrir square open for millions of Egyptians at the same time. Those Egyptian citizens are the true heroes of the revolution.

Ironically Mubarak and his son ignored the public opinion and despised as well. The next President of Egypt insh Allah will be the servant of the Egyptian people not the Tahrir square nor that group of revolutionaries , the next parliament of Egypt insh Allah will be based on the votes of the ordinary Egyptians.

Revolutionary Group thinking :

Some of the revolutionary protesters are back again to their online cocoon or rather their Tahrir cocoon insisting not to look outside the square and the surrounding areas. Most of the public in Egypt are with the ending of the sit in , ending it with that level of violence unfortunately.

You will find them blaming everybody from the media to SCAF to liberals to Islamists and the people of Egypt themselves or rather slave people “they do call the Egyptian people as slave who are addicted to live like slaves !!”

There is a group thinking obvious among these protesters , emotional , irrational decisions taken without any logic or understanding to the consequences of the decision taken because of the revolutionary romanticism that isolated them from the reality and what is going on in Egypt , in real Egypt , with the real Egyptians they despised. There are huge symptoms of terrible dictatorship shown in this group , no respect to other opinions. The fear is that group is getting more alienated and more radical to the level they were being used by the real enemies of the revolution.

This kind of group thinking that refuses to recognize politics and to engage in politics as they consider it as a defeat for the revolution because other revolutions in France , Cuba and Russia did not play politics first .. to the end of this talk , well dear friends who said that the Egyptian revolution is like those revolutions !?

The revolutionaries do not rule in Egypt , in fact we do not really have a centralized body for revolutionaries in this revolution. In the golden 18 days of Tahrir square we had protesters at the tent city in the square from all over the country , from all political powers and from all classes.

Infiltrators :

The ugly truth that was repeatedly confirmed in incidents like the Northern Military zone HQ in Alexandria , Abassaya march and the latest July sit in fiasco. In all these incidents we found out a group of protesters pushed by another group from infiltrators claiming to be revolutionaries in to clashes either with the army or with the public or even they attack the army and the public in order to put the blame on the protesters.

In Alexandria those who attacked the military zone HQ turned to be thugs hired by a state security officer that was spotted in several protests before. In Abassaya a group of protesters according to eye witnesses in the march was not peaceful and hurled stones at the people of Abassaya. The big fiasco was in July Sit in at Tahrir square , for days and days people have complained on how the square was infiltrated and how the security checkpoints were infiltrated.  Well it turned out that many of the protesters who used to stay day and night at Tahrir square were actually security agents. According to Nawara Negm and others those who were in favor of escalation actions like closing the Mogamma were those agents. During the attack the people in the sit in found those provocateurs suddenly wearing army and police helmets and helping the security forces to track down the activists !!!   

The enemies of the revolution spotted the romanticism of these revolutionary protesters and are using it perfectly. Anyone enters a protest or a sit in with a banner against SCAF or screams loud “Down with Tantawy” is now considered a revolutionary hero and escalation here is the keyword in order to lose the public that does not want any split in the army.

You must know that young NDP members and Mubarak’s future foundation have joined the protesters as young rebels for months now according to my own sources.

SCAF is for planning :

What is our strategy ? What are our tactics ? None compared to a council made of army generals who do nothing planning strategies and tactics with the help of psychologists warfare strategists. Of course things are not that bad because the generals are not that smartest or the sharpest or the wickedest like for instance the Free officers. Despite the generals do not want to rule like the Free officers directly yet they will welcome and are trying to have something near from a Turkish scenario but I will glad to say that Turkey is not Egypt and we are not in 1954 anymore.

SCAF has an advantage on us now : We are not united , we have no united leadership that represents the revolution or to be accurate the Egyptian people in front of them. The council know that and actually “Divide conquer” has proven its charm so far. SCAF does not like Million man protests , in fact all the decisions , important decisions resulted when million Egyptian from all powers gather at the Tahrir square , these million man protests are more than a  key success factor in our revolution.

There is some book called “The Art of War” I hope some people read it and understand it very well in order to apply with SCAF.

Some of revolutionaries think that the young age gives them an edge over those old generals whom they believe that they are two steps away from grave “I read a tweet by this” , well actually the old generals got experience in life a 22 years old protester does not have to play politics very well. This is why we need to listen to the old generations sometimes and to gain them in our side , it is not the war of generations as some rebel youth think when it is about the fate of the country. I would like to remind you with Abdel Razzak El-Sanhuri and his constitution that we already are in desperate need to now. 

Needless to say Mubarak’s greatest achievement is to stop any political experience in Egypt , we are all naïve except the Wafd and the Muslim brotherhood that currently having some sort of threesome relation with SCAF.

Othman’s shirt and the martyrs’ blood :

The martyrs’ rights , the martyrs’ blood that have become in the eyes of many like Othman’s shirt.

Now I believe the Martyrs’ rights are true cause but I fear that it is turning in to Othman’s shirt when we criticize any protesters’ move. I completely understand the anger of the martyrs’ families especially with the threats and blackmail they are facing from the police officers but I fear that this anger will be push in to another level in order to make the people stand against them. For instance there is some sort of a statement allegedly distributed at Tahrir square and online signed by something called “The martyrs militias” threatening to kill every police officer and NDP in the street in some sort of vigilant justice. I believe this militia is from the infiltrators’ side to put the families of the martyrs in a trouble , no wonder the statement was all over the Pro-Mubarak sites.

The martyrs’ families do not need the support of the activists but they need the support of the public , we need to show the public that it is not about the money nor about vengeance but about JUSTICE.  There are calls to form a committee in order to protect and support the martyrs’ families which is a good thing but what we need now is a public support not only activists and media support.

Important Facts :

  • Sleeping at Tahrir square and going in to protests do not make you more patriot than an Egyptian mother raising her children or an Egyptian employee doing his best in his job , remember dear revolutionary friend in the end you will only have one vote in the box we are all seeking to be free .
  • The Egyptian people love the Egyptian army despite knowing Tantawy was the minister of defense for 20 years. We are losing a segment , important segment in my humble brainwashed mind when some university students say that the 6th October war is suspected victory on twitter or when someone who was born on twitter say that I would not hate the army in 1967 as much as I hated the army now !!!  Of course these two tweeps show you clearly the problem we have with internet revolutionaries who do not know anything about our history as much as they know about football. That tweep who was born in 1990s does not know how the Egyptians felt in 1967 , in fact I do not want him to feel at all what happened in 1967 because it was the greatest humiliation ever. Needless to say those two tweeps can’t say what they said on twitter face to face to the 1967 and 1973 veterans and martyrs’ families. I am proud radical nationalist when it comes to our war especially in those 6 years. I want these two punks to tell these opinions to that man admiral El Batatony, we need that man and his brothers to be our spokespersons in the media in order to win the public in our side using the same weapon . I work in the media and I studied marketing well enough to understand how you can market an idea well enough.
  • The revolution is not made by internet users or leftists or Islamists or liberals or poor or middle class or rich only.
  • In 1954 our opportunity for democratic was destroyed and we had to wait for 60 years refusing elections and parties , insh Allah we will not happen this again. Yes I believe in the ballot box.
  • It is easy to blame the other and to be blind when it comes to our mistakes , it is so easy but it is hard to correct your mistakes in a retrospective way.
  • Tahrir square is not a holy land and it is not only land in Egypt full of martyrs’ blood  with my respect to the martyrs who had fallen there, think outside of Tahrir square. Think about farmers across the Nile Delta and Upper Egypt , think about the people in Matrouh and in Sinai , think about th
  • Mubarak made Egyptians kill other Egyptians , made us kill each other , torture each other , hate each other and this have to stop. We are in all one boat : The normal Egyptian , the liberal, the Islamist, the leftist, the police and the military.
  • Do not make fun of initiatives of other activists who are trying to rebuild the new Egypt through social development in poor areas , the poor will not wait for the legalizations. We all should work for the sake of this country in the best way ever , starting from cleaning the street to the desert reclamation to the social development of poor shanty towns.

I know that I will be attacked and insulted as usual in twitter but I do not care because I want this revolution to succeed for real insh Allah. I want the best for my country.

May Allah stand with us like in those 18 blessed days for the sake of the democracy’s martyrs since 1952. 

13 comments:

  1. There is a price to be paid for maturity. To sit in the square is just one mean for a specific objective. Unfortunately it became a symbol without justified objective. The infiltrators played on the emotions and naivety of revolutionaries. The old guard is still in power, have the wisdom and resources to plan long range.

    What's important now is to recover, realize lessons learned, form a vision and connect with the pulse of the masses. You loose a battle and win the war.

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  2. Your words are wise, Zeinobia. Thank you for your consistent commentary.

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  3. من وجهه نظري لا يمكن لاحد ماجمتك علي كلامك هذا، انت جبت من الاخر مقال قوي هذا اقوي مقال قرأته لك مقال شامل غطي نقاط كثيره بصراحه جامد wow

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  4. رائعة ...نقد ذاتي للثوار وكلمات بطعم الحكمة ولكن لعلهم يسمعون .....holysalafy1

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  5. It seems it's YOU who doesn't support the revolution anymore, not the people for whom you claim to speak. You seem tired, you thought it wouldn;t take this long, it isn't really worth ALL this troublein the end is it?!. Maybe you shoudl stop blogging, your mission seems to be over.

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  6. All these defeatists undermining the protests and talking about the need to "rebuild the country" as if it was just a wuestion of hard work and there were not still massive institutional barriets to any form of creative initiatives and progress development. Only after the revolution has shattered the ice sheet that is still stifling the life out of this country, can we talk about rebuilding. People know this so I am deeply suspicious of anyone who promotes "rebuilding" over revolution.

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  7. An entrenched and resurgent military dictatorship now stands in the way of Egypt and it's future as a democratic civilian state. As we see, the repression on the streets has become as bad as ever it was under the Mubarak regime and the struggle is now more dangerous than ever for those who oppose the regime (risk of physical injury and harsh imprisonment in military prisons).
    But the bloggers and Tweeters have no stomach for a real fight and now that the real fight is here, of course,they want to give up. It sounds so high-minded and virtuous to talk of "rebuilding the country" but it's just a mask for cowardice.

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  8. the revolution doesn't need to do a PR jo to rebrabd itself, there is no way that revolutionaries, no matter what they do (apart from renouncing the revolution!) can ever get the public on their side so long as the mainstream media is still under the control of the old regime. Do not compromise the demands of the revolution in order to placate a hostile media, stand up for what you believe is right and fight harder. I read the Art Of War. Enough of your defeatism!

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  9. In the pre-Mubarak era there were many charities (Egyptian NGOs) working, so they said, to create economic opportunities for the Egyptian people. Most had a strict policy of not getting involved in religion or politics. They certainly never called for a radical political overhaul (no revolution!) as a way of overcoming the countries inequalities and injustices. They acted as if their modest efforts would some day change the country for the better but they made no impact what so ever on the dictatorship that effectively strangled the country's development.In fact they were very friendly with the dictatorship. There were good people among them, trying to preserve their self-conception as good people, but not having the courage to deal with the real disease that was crippling everyone. Maybe they have a place for all of the good people who have grown weary of the revolution, you can retire with honour!

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  10. you just wrote what i was thinking about but in details and accuracy ...good job

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  11. I see you have been reiterating many of tweets!

    I am overjoyed & pray for more revolutionaries to think as we do. Thanks again, Zeinab.

    No matter what negative remarks you receive, (and this might sounds very bad) please continue to criticize the protestors & martyr's families because their methods are NOT effective.

    Mubarak's trial has nothing to do with the demands of the people. You will see. Nothing but a false flag, full of theatrics. And yet again, every single Egyptian in the world was DISTRACTED and some how falsely vindicated by this BS... Don't let the evil people win.

    See my timeline for ideas on how to help Egypt

    twitter.com/sarahfenix

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  12. لماذا هذا الهجوم الضاري علي الكاتبه؟ ، لقد عبرت عن وحهه نظرها اجد احدهم ينصحها بالتوقف عن التدوين و اخر بالانهزاميه المشترك بين هذه التعليقات افتراض اصحابها انهم ملاك الحقيقه المطلقه و انهم اعلم الجميع بمصلحه الثوره و الوطن اقول لكم انتم ديكتاتوريين صغار للاسف مثلكم يظهر في كل الثورات و يحولون مسارها للطغيان بدلا من الحريه بدلا من التهجم علي غلي الكاتبه و التشكيك لم تحاولوا مناقشه افكارها و اتنقاداتها ماذا حدث لكم؟ هل تظنون انكم فوق النقد؟ لا تعون انكم تتصرفون مثل مبارك ؟ فعلا احيانا يتحول الضحايا الي جلادين ، ارجوكم اعيدوا التفكير اعاده التفكير امر لا يضر و اعلموا ان شككتم في وطنيه من يختلفون معكم اليوم ستعانون من ذلك غدا اعيدوا التفكير و انقذوا ارواحكم من خطر الاستبداد بالرأي

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  13. The sit-in worked, forced the government to concede. Are you asking for the people to quit sit-ins because they are working?!
    The media says the people don't support the rev in the streets, it's a lie. Don't propogate this lie yourself!

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