Who Will Pay the Price of Dignity?

 

Who Will Pay the Price of Dignity?

 

 

 

by Alaa El Aswany

 

Imagine you’re working in a company and one of your colleagues attacks you with some inappropriate remarks. You would probably object to your colleague’s remarks and tell them to mind their language. But what would happen if it was the manager who made the remarks? In that case you would have to think hard about how to react, because the manager has the means to promote you and raise your salary, even to cut your salary or fire you. You would face two options – either to defend your dignity whatever the price, or accept the humiliation in order to keep your job.

    This preamble is needed to understand what’s happening to Egyptian workers in Saudi Arabia.  Of course we have no right to generalize or make random judgments. We also do not intend to disparage the Saudi people, whom we appreciate and esteem in Egypt. But we are talking about the thousands of documented abuses that have afflicted Egyptians in Saudi Arabia for decades. The first and greatest of these abuses is the appalling sponsorship system (which the United Nations considers to be a type of slavery). The sponsor is a parasite off the efforts of others: you work, as a doctor for example, and someone else receives part of your salary without doing any work, a reward for being a Saudi. In fact this sponsor has rights over you of a kind that he might not have over his own wife and children. You cannot travel inside or outside Saudi Arabia without his permission, and a simple complaint by him could lead to your dismissal or even imprisonment. One only has to look through reports by human rights organizations or the files of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to be horrified by the thousands of cases of Egyptians being deprived of their dues or dismissed or imprisoned for no good cause. This blatant injustice towards many Egyptians in Saudi Arabia has continued for three decades for the following reasons:

    First, poverty and unemployment in Egypt. Those who travel to Saudi Arabia have found it hard to make a living in their own country and are generally prepared to put up with anything in order to feed their children. The sponsor buys the labour of others and, because he has money, he can treat those who work for him as commodities, replacing them with others. Many Egyptians hang on to their jobs in Saudi Arabia like a drowning man hanging on to a straw and put up with unfair treatment because they have no other option. Some years ago two Egyptian doctors working in Saudi Arabia were arrested, tried in mysterious circumstances and sentenced to jail and to flogging. At the time I wrote in defence of their right to a fair trial, and I received a flood of letters from readers, telling me tragic stories about Egyptians who had been mistreated and humiliated. But the strange thing was that some readers wrote to ask me not to defend the doctors who had been mistreated, for fear that the Saudi authorities would get angry and dismiss Egyptians from their jobs.

    Second, the Mubarak regime itself humiliated Egyptians, tortured them and violated their rights, which made its position illogical and unacceptable when it pretended to defend their dignity abroad. Because the military council is an extension of Mubarak both ideologically and in practice, it now takes the same attitude as Mubarak. Does the military council have the right to get angry if an Egyptian is abused in Saudi Arabia and detained without cause, while the very same military council detains thousands of Egyptians and allows them to be killed in successive massacres, and while its soldiers drag Egyptian women along the ground and molest them in public? Can the military council defend the dignity of Egyptians abroad when it is the first to disregard it at home?

    Third, the law in Saudi Arabia does not meet international standards of justice. People are not equal before the law there, but there are different levels depending on one’s nationality and level of influence. The law that is applied to Egyptians in Saudi Arabia could not be applied to Americans or Europeans, and the law is never applied to princes from the ruling family, who are exempt from all law, free to do what they like whenever and however they like. This medieval concept of law means that Egyptians do not enjoy their basic legal right to an impartial investigation and a fair trial.

    Fourth, after the war of October 1973 the price of oil rose several times, making Saudi Arabia a regional superpower. That boom came about essentially as a result of a war fought by Egyptian soldiers, who paid for victory with their lives and their blood, which led the late President Anwar Sadat to officially ask the Gulf states to give Egypt and Syria a set percentage of their oil revenues, on the grounds that the oil boom came about thanks to God and the sacrifices of Egyptian and Syrian soldiers. They did not accept Sadat’s proposal but the vast oil revenues did flow into Egypt in other forms, especially the millions of dollars in politically motivated subsidies to the extremist Wahhabi ideology. The Saudi regime basically depends on the alliance between the Wahhabi sheikhs and the Al Saud family, so propagating the Wahhabi school of thought in Egypt and the rest of the world in the end helps to stabilize the Saudi regime. The second result of the flow of oil money into Egypt was the creation of a network of interests everywhere, closely linked to Saudi Arabia. Wherever you went in Egypt you would find Egyptians whose interests were tied to Saudi Arabia, from those working in the Saudi media, the salafist sheikhs working on Saudi religious television channels for astronomic salaries and many of the Azhar sheikhs who taught in Saudi universities, to the businessmen who worked with Saudis. Even the presidential candidates mostly dare not direct any real criticism at the Saudi regime to defend the rights of Egyptians. That’s how it was throughout the Mubarak era. The rights of Egyptians were violated at home and abroad without the slightest accountability. Then the revolution happened and the Saudi regime clearly took a position against it and put unprecedented pressure on US President Barack Obama to save the Mubarak regime and then to prevent him going on trial. The Saudi regime’s hostility towards the revolution was natural because a real democracy in Egypt would set an example for the whole Arab world and threaten despotic Saudi rule, which continues to resist any real political reform in the country. Amid this tense scene, the Saudi regime has not grasped the extent of the change that the revolution has brought about in the behaviour of Egyptians, which has come to light in the case of the Egyptian lawyer Ahmed el-Gizawi. Gizawi is a brave revolutionary lawyer who defended many revolutionaries in military trials and then moved on to defend Egyptians detained without trial in Saudi Arabia, which has driven him to legally challenge the Saudi king himself. Ahmed el-Gizawi and his wife went to Saudi Arabia to perform the minor pilgrimage, confident that the Saudi regime could not punish him for his political positions since Islam considers all pilgrims to be the guests of God and immune from mistreatment. But unfortunately, as soon as Gizawi landed in Saudi Arabia, he was detained, and those who asked after him were initially told he would be flogged and jailed for insulting the king of Saudi Arabia. A few days later the Saudi authorities announced that Gizawi had been found in possession of more than 21,000 doses of the prescription drug Xanax. This simplistic accusation does not deserve to be discussed. What is it that suddenly turned Gizawi, a courageous campaigner who has been detained several times for defending his principles, into a drug dealer? Would he be stupid enough to travel with such a quantity of drugs, which he wouldn’t have been able to take through Cairo airport because all his bags would be X-rayed? Besides, that amount of pills would weigh more than 60 kilos, while the weight limit would be 30 kilos and the records at Cairo airport show that Gizawi and his wife did not exceed the weight limit. And why didn’t the Saudi authorities announce the story about the drugs from the start? And where is the the video showing the bag being inspected in Gizawi’s presence (as required by international law) and why did the Saudi authorities leave Gizawi’s wife and arrest only him when the bag with the alleged drugs belonged to both of them? The charge against Gizawi has been fabricated transparently and shamefully, and perhaps the Saudi authorities did not expect any serious Egyptian reaction, because what happened to Gizawi has happened before to many Egyptians, who have been detained and unfairly dismissed without anything happening. But the revolution has restored Egyptians’ sense of dignity, so big demonstrations have come out in front of the Saudi embassy, condemning the injustice and demanding Gizawi receive a fair trial. Throughout the world demonstrations are a legitimate means to protest and usually use pictures hostile towards the people targeted. If these demonstrations had taken place in front of the Saudi embassies in London or Washington, the Saudi regime would not dare to object, but having Egyptians dare to assert their rights is not something the Saudi regime is used to and cannot accept. Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador for consultations and closed its embassy, at which point the Mubarak regime was seriously embarrassed. Prime Minister Ganzouri apologized, as did the foreign minister, whose consul in Saudi Arabia hurriedly condemned Gizawi before attending the inquiry. The Azhar sheikhs also apologized, though no one knows why. Even the military council’s Facebook page attributed the crisis between Egypt and Saudi Arabia to ‘mercenary writers’!

    The Mubarak regime that continues to rule Egypt is behaving like Mubarak. The whole Egyptian state has apologized simply because Egyptians have dared to demand a fair trial for an Egyptian citizen. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, which refused to apologize for its alliance with the military council and for abandoning the principles of the revolution for the sake of its own interests, has hurried to apologize to Saudi Arabia through Saad el-Katatni, the speaker of parliament. The strong ties between the Saudi regime and the Brotherhood are more important to them than the dignity of the Egyptian people. Those who are ceding Gizawi’s rights are the same people who have abandoned the Egyptian revolution: the military council, the Ganzouri government and the Muslim Brotherhood. Only the revolution remains to pay the price for the dignity of Egyptians and to demand a fair trial for Gizawi. By closing the Saudi embassy and denying visas to Egyptians the Saudi regime wants to assert its right to treat Egyptians as it likes without anyone holding it accountable. This is a message that is unacceptable and the Saudi government must understand that the time when the dignity of Egyptians can be ignored with impunity has passed and will never return. We will continue to support Gizawi’s right to a fair trial and we demand the release of all Egyptian detainees in Saudi prisons and compensation for them and their families for the injustice they have suffered. The Egyptian people, which gave hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded for the sake of freedom, will not allow the dignity of a single Egyptian to be attacked, either in Egypt or abroad.

    Democracy is the solution.                                    

 

 

email address: dralaa57@yahoo.com