Will the Rabbits Go Back In the Cage?

[image error]

Will the Rabbits Go Back In the Cage?

 

 

by Alaa El Aswany

 

Can humans survive without food and drink? Of course not. These are fundamental needs and humans die if they are denied. Can humans survive without dignity? Unfortunately the answer is yes. Humans can live, eat and drink without having dignity. Human history has seen slavery, whereby millions of slaves lived for centuries without dignity. In fact many peoples have lived in subjection without dignity under despotic governments. For thirty years millions of Egyptians lived without dignity under the rule of Hosni Mubarak. They drank and ate, put up with humiliations and flattered the person in power to win his favour. For millions of Egyptians, staying alive was much more important than maintaining their dignity. They grew accustomed to having their dignity ignored, because they feared punishment or coveted material gains. They put up with arrogant police officers and called them 'pasha'; they put up with unfair bosses at work and curried favour with them. They put up with detention camps, torture and sexual abuse, turning a blind eye to them as long as they were happening to someone else, and advising their children to walk close to the wall and not to demonstrate or object to the ruler however much he abused, plundered and humiliated them. Millions of Egyptians thought that hypocrisy was the smart thing to do, that cowardice was wisdom and that failing to speak the truth was pure common sense. In return the Mubarak regime held Egyptians in deep contempt. All the officials in the Mubarak regime thought Egyptians were an ignorant, lazy, unproductive people, accustomed to anarchy and unfit for democracy. It was this contempt for the Egyptian people that made the Mubarak regime so confident that it was in full control, until it woke up to the revolution. The Egyptian revolution was a miracle by any standard. A generation of Egyptians emerged that was untouched by all the diseases of despotism. A generation that was fearless and would not take injustice in silence. Young Egyptians, who make up half the Egyptian people, whose courage and commitment to noble values is difficult to explain. These young people grew up in the shadow of a poor education system, misleading media, values in ruins and a ruler who who thought that having something to eat was much more important than dignity. Nonetheless, the youth of the revolution suddenly appeared, as if in one great leap, as if Egypt were a giant, bountiful tree that, whatever diseases it had, could go on producing new fresh green leaves. The first objective of the revolution was to restore the dignity of the Egyptian people. For Mubarak and his men, the surprise was a shock: these Egyptians had submitted to humiliation for years, so what had happened to them? What had made them so determined to recover their dignity? The revolution succeeded in driving Mubarak out of power in less than three weeks and the revolutionaries then gave the military council a mandate to govern Egypt for the transitional period.  At this point we should stop and consider the inclinations of the people after Mubarak stepped down. There were several million 'feloul' (remnants) who had  benefited from the Mubarak regime and who naturally hated the revolution. There were twenty million Egyptians who had themselves taken part in the revolution, to which we can add twice as many who were sympathetic towards the revolution. By simple calculation we can see that there are close to twenty million Egyptians who did not benefit from the Mubarak regime but at the same time did not take part in the revolution and were not sympathetic towards it. This silent group of submissive Egyptians suffered under the Mubarak regime but they fully succeeded in getting along with it. The revolution worried and annoyed these submissive people and made them reconsider the premises on which they had built their lives. Because cowardice is not necessarily wisdom and subservience is not necessarily pure common sense. They could see with their own eyes young people the age of their children facing bullets with their bare chests, fearlessly and without retreating, because for them death was better than an ignominious life. The attitude of these submissive people towards the revolution has been fickle, because although they would be happy to see the revolution achieve its aims they are not at all prepared to make any sacrifices for it. The military council took office amid overwhelming popular support from Egyptians, who trusted that it would be able to, and wished to, fulfil the aims of the revolution. But Egyptians were surprised to find that the behaviour of the military council was strange and confused. When we now look back at everything that has happened, it will be easy to see the picture clearly:

    Firstly: the military council resisted any real change and managed to keep the Mubarak regime in power. It was natural that the old regime would try to undo the revolution. The military council refused to write a new constitution and made do with some amendments to the old constitution, on which it held a referendum. It then bypassed the will of the people and declared an interim constitution of 63 articles, outlining the political system without reference to the wishes of Egyptians.

    Secondly: the military council allowed the security situation to deteriorate and did nothing to solve the successive artificial crises that made life hell for Egyptians and made a sector of Egyptian society (the submissives) turn against the revolution and consider it the cause of all the problems  they faced in life.

    Thirdly: the military council led a campaign to discredit the revolutionaries. After portraying the young revolutionaries as national heroes, the official media turned to portraying them as tools of  foreign agendas, as thugs and saboteurs who wanted to bring down the state.

    Fourthly: from the start the military council divided the revolutionary bloc into Islamists and liberals and stoked each camp's fears of the other. Sometimes it would cosy up to the Islamists, then gesture to the liberals, who would come running to write for them a document that would protect them from the Islamist constitution that frightens them. Then, when the Islamists get angry, the council goes back to winning their favour. In this way those who were comrades in the revolution have moved into an endless cycle of struggles and accusations that have fragmented and weakened the forces of the revolution.

    Fifthly: the military council has organized elections in a way that completely excludes the young revolutionaries from parliament and opens the door wide for the Islamists to obtain the majority. To be fair, we must admit that the Islamists do enjoy a real and effective popularity in the street and they are bound to obtain a large share of the votes in any fair elections, but what has happened in the elections is something different. State Security had offered its vast experience and a supreme electoral commission has been brought in to help, a council that does nothing to stop violations, does not enforce the law and completely ignores all the electoral violations and crimes committed by the Islamists. When it was clear to all that the Islamists would win most of the seats, the military council exploited the fears of the liberals and formed an advisory council from among them to be its right arm in cutting the Islamists down to size. So the conflict has raged on between the revolutionary partners in a way that leads to the military council staying in office, since all sides need it to exist.

    Sixthly: through incidents planned by the Mubarak regime, Egypt has been portrayed as descending into complete chaos. Great powers are naturally interested in what's happening in the biggest Arab country and are keen to protect their interests in the region. When Israel violated the Egyptian border and killed six Egyptian officers and men on their own territory, the military council did nothing to hold Israel to account for the crime. This was a message to the United States that Hosni Mubarak's policy will be implemented in full by the military council. That was followed by complete support from the U.S. State Department for the military council. In fact the U.S. statements in praise of the military council have used the same expressions with which it used to praise Hosni Mubarak.

    In this way the Egyptian revolution has been thwarted, through a succession of carefully thought-out steps. One final step is still needed to put an end to the revolution, as if it never happened.  After the revolutionaries were surrounded, excluded from parliament and discredited, a crushing blow had to be delivered to break the will of the revolutionaries for ever. The circumstances were propitious for that crushing blow: the Islamist leaders did not want to upset the military council because they want seats in parliament, and the major liberals were sitting at the military council's table, seeking position in the next cabinet. As for the submissive sector of society, its anxiety about all the crises and conflicts has turned into real hatred for the revolution and they are openly nostalgic for the days of Mubarak, when their lives might have been servile and humiliating but they were stable and safe. Repeated massacres have been organized, all in the same manner: the security forces deploy thugs, who start fires at government buildings and carry out acts of vandalism. Egyptians panic and believe that the revolutionaries are thugs. There follow waves of brutal attacks on demonstrators, not just to kill and blind them, but also - and this is the most important aim - to frighten all Egyptians about the idea of going out in the street or demonstrating and to make them revert to the subservience they showed before the revolution. Anyone who has seen the appalling crimes the security forces and army have committed against demonstrators is bound to wonder: why are they deliberately beating and abusing demonstrators in the open? What good does it do the soldiers when they hit an old lady or when they pull the clothes off a female demonstrator in front of the cameras? The only purpose is to break the will of Egyptians and make them submissive again. The purpose is to make us feel once again that we are up against a n irresistible force and to make us tremble in fear at the idea of angering or opposing authority. Every time we see the female demonstrator stripped bare, stamped on by army boots, we will remember our mothers and wives and worry they might meet the same fate. The aim is to make us submit to the will of overwhelming authority, to make sure the rabbits go back in their cages so that the military council can lock them up, and then the Mubarak regime can do what it likes with Egypt. The current battle is between the revolution and the Mubarak regime. The demonstrators' determination to stand firm against the security forces, whatever the sacrifices, stems basically from their feeling that they are the revolution's only remaining force. They are dying, not to defend Mohamed Mahmoud Street or the sit-in at the prime minister's office, but in defence of the revolution. Every time the Mubarak regime rallies to deliver the final blow to the revolution,. it is surprised to meet fierce resistance from the revolutionaries, a resistance that upsets their calculations and forces them to commit more barbaric crimes in order to break the will of the revolutionaries by any means possible and at any price. The will of the revolution has not yet been broken and the more brutal the Mubarak regime grows, the stiffer the resistance. Now it is our duty to rise above all differences and unite against the Mubarak regime that is committing all these crimes. Despite the many flaws, I think we must accept the results of the elections and give our full support to the next People's Assembly, because in the end it is the only body elected by the Egyptian people. All efforts must be concerted in one direction: a transfer of power from the military council to a civilian government formed by the People's Assembly, today rather than tomorrow.

    Democracy is the solution.                                     

 

    

 

 

email address: dralaa57@yahoo.com