From three years ago Egyptians did not sleep that night celebrating madly the ousting of a dictator that many of them believe that only death can defeat. From three years ago Egyptians especially the young ones had positive energy to change not only their country for better but the whole world.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , TV channels owned by NDPian businessmen are whitewashing Mubarak preparing us from his acquittal repeating the same lies we have been hearing in those 18 days. Now not only Hamas , Qatar , Iran and the US had killed the protesters on 28 January 2011 but also the Knights of Malta joined this world plot to bring down the Mubarak Egyptian state and destroy the army and police.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , the army closed down the square that witnessed that uprising which inspired the whole world for fear April 6 Youth movement would dare and tough its land once again.
Three years after ousting Mubarak and believing that we ended the police state , the police state is back and torture is back. People are afraid to talk once again. The media justifies all this in order to fight terrorism without realizing that we will increase terrorism in this way.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , we found out that we have not defeated the presidential cult as we got another new presidential cult growing sickly and disgustingly.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , freedom of expression is worse than the days of Mubarak !!
Three years after ousting Mubarak , we found out that we only get rid of a man but not his regime nor that mindset that brought Egypt to the abyss after decades of leading the Arab world.
There are important lessons I think my generation and those who believe in Jan25 as a salvation for Egypt learned in hard way.
The most important lesson is that the revolutionaries that they had left the square , their own field too soon and that they trusted a class of politicians and leaders bred in Mubarak’s regime. Never trust the media , the police and the judiciary as long as they are not purged. Never trust the military when they talk about the promise of democracy.
Our deadliest sin we committed after February 2011 that we thought that Mubarak regime was dead where as it was renovating itself to survive in a new way as it has always done not only in the past 30 years but in the past 60 years.
I think we should not full to despair too much because true revolutions are full ups and downs , the story has not finished yet. We should learn from our mistakes , reorganize our front and seize the opportunity of purging it from all those double faced hypocrites in the media who are kissing the current regime's ass now cursing the revolution that made them famous.
And yes we changed the world by our own way , look to that Occupy and protests movement started all over the globe and remember how group of Egyptians overcome their political difference after completing what started in Tunisia in a public square on 28 January 2011.
You may think that I am over optimistic but actually I am not. I am tired and exhausted like all those who believed in #Jan25 now.
The game is not over and I think we can change the world once again .. for better insh Allah.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , TV channels owned by NDPian businessmen are whitewashing Mubarak preparing us from his acquittal repeating the same lies we have been hearing in those 18 days. Now not only Hamas , Qatar , Iran and the US had killed the protesters on 28 January 2011 but also the Knights of Malta joined this world plot to bring down the Mubarak Egyptian state and destroy the army and police.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , the army closed down the square that witnessed that uprising which inspired the whole world for fear April 6 Youth movement would dare and tough its land once again.
Three years after ousting Mubarak and believing that we ended the police state , the police state is back and torture is back. People are afraid to talk once again. The media justifies all this in order to fight terrorism without realizing that we will increase terrorism in this way.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , we found out that we have not defeated the presidential cult as we got another new presidential cult growing sickly and disgustingly.
Three years after ousting Mubarak , freedom of expression is worse than the days of Mubarak !!
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| On the way to Tahrir on February 1,2011 |
There are important lessons I think my generation and those who believe in Jan25 as a salvation for Egypt learned in hard way.
The most important lesson is that the revolutionaries that they had left the square , their own field too soon and that they trusted a class of politicians and leaders bred in Mubarak’s regime. Never trust the media , the police and the judiciary as long as they are not purged. Never trust the military when they talk about the promise of democracy.
Our deadliest sin we committed after February 2011 that we thought that Mubarak regime was dead where as it was renovating itself to survive in a new way as it has always done not only in the past 30 years but in the past 60 years.
I think we should not full to despair too much because true revolutions are full ups and downs , the story has not finished yet. We should learn from our mistakes , reorganize our front and seize the opportunity of purging it from all those double faced hypocrites in the media who are kissing the current regime's ass now cursing the revolution that made them famous.
And yes we changed the world by our own way , look to that Occupy and protests movement started all over the globe and remember how group of Egyptians overcome their political difference after completing what started in Tunisia in a public square on 28 January 2011.
You may think that I am over optimistic but actually I am not. I am tired and exhausted like all those who believed in #Jan25 now.
The game is not over and I think we can change the world once again .. for better insh Allah.
Without wanting to be depressing, the best-case scenario I foresee for Egypt is a quick and painless return to the Mubarak era. It's not as good as Tunisia but at least it's better than Syria, where the 2010 situation represents a high point that will probably not be seen again this generation.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone tries to overthrow the current regime, it will respond with force. Too many of the top leaders are implicated in crimes and as you yourself say in this post, it won't be possible for them to just remove the figurehead and move on. So, they will use whatever means necessary to stay in power. If you could make it back to the square, you would be removed with heavy machine guns. If you try to destroy the army, you have Syria or Algeria. And if you stick to peaceful protests in the face of a united and determined army, you have Prague or Bahrain. Either way, the best case is a return to military rule without too much torture, killing and bloodshed. I don't think that's the most likely scenario, too many hopes were excited and martyrs created in the past 3 years for everyone to quietly go back to old regime. But it's about the best case scenario I can realistically come up with, even though I am sure it isn't what you want to hear.
we have to change our attitude towards the rich and famous. Army and police are just instruments in the hands of the Aboul Enein, Sawiris, Farid Khamis, Sewedy and all those other filthy rich ones that suck the life blood from Egypt. Those parasite families are the true enemies of the people, because they live on corruption and oppression of freedom. They promise billions of investment and refuse to pay billions of taxes like Sawiris. Those rich ones are the true third hand that works against Egypt.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Egyptians tend to worship those and they are clever enough to put some millions into charities to make them look beneficial.
They should be driven out of the country and their property confiscated.
I absolutely agree! Sawiris, Kamis, etc, are all corrupt businessmen who built their wealth on the sweat and blood of the poor. And the army is their bodyguard. A real revolution in Egypt will be a revolution against the rich
DeleteYeah, they tried that in 1948 China, among other places. It doesn't have a good historical track record. I couldn't recommend it.
DeleteYeah, they tried that in dozens of countries besides China and it has a much better historical track record than that of the regimes they overthrew. I will always recommend it, especially in the western birthplaces of this exploitative system :)
DeleteName one.
DeleteThis dictatorship's popularity will almost certainly wane to an abysmal and ignomious level. This will likely happen over a period of one to two years. However, removing it will be very difficult, as there is a large amount of brainwashing and army support.
ReplyDeleteSisi's economic plan is to continue the traditional Egyptian political practice of bilking the populace to pay a political-military-economic elite. He will bring back even more Mubarak age criminal thugs and create a few new ones to give the feeble illusion that he supports the January 25 revolution. People ought to wonder why pro-Mubarak terrorists are so enthusiastic about Sisi. Could it be that they see in him another despot to continue their plans of bilkage and fascism?
The problem for Sisi is, though, that the edifice of the Egyptian system is breaking down. There is no way to save it; its gradual destruction has been underway since around the 2008 Mahalla strike. This system is based on a virtual world that does not exist but it was designed to match how the elite interprets reality.
The government will inevitably become unpopular and increasingly detested and hated as it becomes obvious that Sisi and co have no intention of solving the country's problems. President Sisi will preside over growing ****storms that are the result of the breakdown of a system which his military helped engineer over a period of around half a century.
But the government is not going to just allow itself to be removed. It will massacre opponents and jail at random to try to keep a failing dictatorship in power.
One hope might be if new uprisings take place not just outside of Tahrir, but outside of Cairo entirely. Cairo is being made into the focal point of the Sisi religious state anyways, so mass movements might be better off starting in other cities until Tahrir can be liberated. The government is brutal but unimaginative. Of course, this can only happen once a critical mass has been deprogramed from Sisi worship and the popularity of the government has entered the abyss. Yet, that still leaves the problem of the army's support for Sisi.
While Sisi goes off buying billions worth of Russian weapons, he neglects the expanding strikes and labor militancy brewing at this very moment.
Sisi's presidential title will be just like his Field Marshalship: an unearned political deification.
Only a true dumbass would believe that the Knights of Malta both sparked the 2011 protests and simultaneously sought to kill those same protesters. How can people who believe in such delusions possibly succeed in solving Egypt's difficulties? They can't.
It's undoubtedly true that Sisi's populatity will decrease over time if he comes to power. Even quite aside from the dictatorship, most governments and leaders loose popularity over time even in democracies. Unfortunately after Rabaa at the latest, the new government will not feel safe giving up power voluntarily, they have too many enemies that seek retribution. This bodes very poorly for the medium and long term political future of Egypt.
DeleteDictatorial forces across the world increasingly claim that any and all opposition amounts to "terrorism". The plagiarized use of the phrase "war on terrorism" that they like to appropriate is now mostly a war by tyrants and terrorists to eradicate all political opposition.
ReplyDeleteExamples: Elitist terrorists in Egypt now call everyone not part of their governing clique "terrorists". Supporters of the elitist terrorists claim that any violation of freedom is good if "their" side does it.
President Yanukovych in Ukraine had cabinet ministers like Azarov who pretended that protests against his inadvisable course of rule were "terrorists" or "extremists".
Some in the Russian government rush to condemn the Ukrainian opposition as "terrorists" and opponents of Putin's dictatorial style are labeled by the same term.
Rulers with autocratic pretensions in South America used to, and still do, term their foes as "terrorists".
Same problem in China. State terrorists label human rights defenders as "terrorists".
The dictatorships of the Persian Gulf, amongst which are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and the like, claim to be challenged by "terrorists", yet they fail to mention they ARE the true terrorists.
The Syrian dictatorship hallucinates that virtually everyone and everything is a terrorists, even while it engages in genocide and flaunts its imaginary right to commit genocide at will.
The record of murder, torture, and terrorism of these tyrants immeasurably exceeds the terrorism committed by those operating outside the state framework. Too bad for these anti-democracy terrorists that not everyone in the world buys into the new fetishizing of the word, or the attempts to turn it into some kind of sanctified or holy shibboleth.
Sisi supporters will complain in the future when they are rounded up as terrorists by some new political force.
It is interesting to see that on the Daily News Egypt page's poll, 72% disapprove of Sisi's candidacy. Now, that poll is online and right now has less than 400 votes and might be subject to readers voting multiple times, but there is obviously a lot more hatred on the internet for Sisi than news sources claim.
ReplyDeleteI also share your determination zeinobia. Everything you said is correct but I also think we need to admit our mistakes more comprehensively.
ReplyDeleteIn my assessment, these are some of the biggest problems that have set us back, plus some things I think we should do to move forward:
1) We left the square
2) We allowed the same toxic Mubarak propagandists (Amr adeeb, etc) to return to the media. We should've purged ALL OF THEM from the start
3) We were naive in believing the army & people are "one hand". The military in Egypt is a gang, and we need to treat it as such. Every single General needs to be investigated at the very least, and tried for their crimes.
4) The biggest elephant in the room is the issue of Camp David. We do not talk about it enough and we should. We do not acknowledge how disastrous this slave relationship to israel (and consequently America) is for us and how much it has affected the regression of our revolution. Why? Is it because we are afraid of offending western sensibilities when they report events here? Is it because we are that out-of-touch with our role in the region? Is it because we are scared America will invade us or blockade us? Whatever the reason may be, it is not justified.
Ya3ni I can't stress enough how much we need to assert Egypt's sovereignty as a matter of principle for us. And I'm not talking about a xenophobia campaign like the one promoted by El Sisi and his gang. I'm talking about a sincere review and referendum on the Camp David accords. This has not happened ONCE since Jan25, and it is disturbing considering our complicity in starving Gaza. Do you remember when Egyptian youth were protesting outside the israeli embassy back in summer of 2011 and Tantawi's militia fired at them?? This is a clear sign that our regime is in the hands of israel, despite all their fake nationalist talk. They are the biggest traitors ever. And we will not get anywhere as a people unless we break free from their dictates on our terrioty, our military, and our economy (the gas deals, suez, etc). At the very least we have to open Rafah, permanently and unconditionally. We've been helping the zionists starve them since 2007 and it's wrong, it's just plain wrong. Palestinian freedom = Egyptian freedom.
5) I believe we need to apologize for falling for the regime's trap on June30, whatever we may think of ikhwan. We all know now that Tamarrod was a farce, and denying it any longer will just be a way of cutting our nose to spite our face.
Anyways I know you're busy zeinobia but I'm interested in your response to the points I made above if you can get the chance. Thank you