Mohamed Kamel*
February 10th, 2011
This article was written a day before Mubarak was forced to resign
What we have been seeing in Egypt over the last couple of weeks or so, is not a coup d’état and it is not a simple demonstration, but it is a people's revolution against tyranny.
For thirty years, Mubarak kept rejecting repeated calls, by the Egyptian people, for democracy and justice. But no one ever thought that the Egyptians will revolt in this mass, carrying strong demands with a clear determination.
But why did the Egyptians revolt?
In the last 30 years, Egypt was going from bad to worse. The situation of all services and basic needs are deteriorating day after day, while selective money makers are building their wealth on people’s suffering. These selected people joined forces with the governing family, creating an unholy marriage between the wealth and the regime. So their interest became one and that is why they are defending it to the last Egyptian person.
But why now?
In the last year or so, the arrogant regime extended its humiliation of the Egyptian people without conservation, and it became well know that the regime doesn’t care about anything but staying in power whatever the price could be.
Almost a year ago, police brutality crossed the line when youth were killed and thrown in the streets. Their parents were ordered to bury them without knowledge of the reason behind their death. The murder of Khaled Said on June 6th, 2010, the story that shocked all Egypt is what opened people’s eyes to these crimes. http://www.arabist.net/blog/2010/6/14/the-murder-of-khaled-said.html
This crime was trailed by the well known fraudulent parliamentary election in November 2010. This was not the first time but the worst of them.
Parallel to this the Egyptian government was raising the sectarian tension between Muslims and Christians. While this has been going on for a long time came the attack on Alexandria’s church to prove that this regime will do anything to be able to control the people and turn them against each other. Many believe that this was done by the regime, while the most conservative views say it was ignored intentionally even though prior reports in all news showed that there was a group planning to do such an act.
To cover it up, the government arrested Mohamed Sayyid Bilal and after using all sorts of torture they failed to get any confession out of him. After which, they did the same thing as with Khaled Said. After killing him they threw him out in the street and his parents were ordered to bury him without knowing the reason behind his death.
This accumulation of humiliation to the Egyptian people encouraged the youth, whom all of them have been born during the Mubarak regime.
This generation has been taught that revolution is a bad word and the word dignity has been removed from their dictionary. They have been portrayed as drug addict, carless and labeled as a useless generation. This reached the point that all Egyptians thought it was true.
The outside affect was a stronger wake up message. As Egypt was, Tunisia was as well. When the Tunisian people decided to revolt, no one ever thought that this would happen or even less that they would succeed. But they did, and that was the trigger that showed to all Arab people that their will could and will prevail.
On the other side of the picture, there is the Egyptian regime, the USA policies and the cold peace accord between Egypt and Israel.
USA and Israel bid on the death of the people, especially the Egyptian people, as they planned to create a new reality in the Middle East. A reality in which, Israel has a peace accord with some puppet governments and throughout decades, they can brain wash people to the point where they would be convinced that there is no way out.
USA’s hypocrisy in breaching democracy and supporting dictatorship, as long as they are their allies, was the corner stone of this failed policy.
The only solution for peace is democracy and justice. When people can have their rights back and have their say in their future, only then Israel could live in peace and USA people’s interest could be served.
While the revolution is gaining ground, Mubarak is still playing his deceptive game. However, he has finally been pressured to make a few concessions as a move to contain the revolution thinking that he can contain it.
He dismissed his failed government, because it failed him, not because if failed the Egyptian people. He appointed a vice-president because it became clear, only the army can defend him and Omar Soliman was the army candidate that was struggling with Mubarak’s son for more than 15 years.
But while he is doing this, his son and his gangs released their thugs and police forces onto the streets to kill whomever they can. The worst of them is known as the Tahrir Square massacre. http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/3/eyewitnesses_to_a_massacre_reports_from
While the Egyptian people showed Mubarak the red card he remains defiant. Why?
The revolution gained a lot of grounds, and proved to the entire world that the Egyptian people are not as they have been portrayed. Mubarak realized that even if he is going to be able to crush the revolution, he lost his family’s dream to appoint his son as a new president and guarantee the continuity of his family’s power control and accumulation of wealth. A wealth that has been estimated at $70 Billion.
As such, he can’t leave before taking revenge from the Egyptians. And if he has to destroy Egypt he will, as Mohamed Hassanin Haikel said: “The worst in Egypt will try to destroy the best of it”.
Back to the USA and Israel dream. They woke up to this storm that proved to them that they were wrong from day one. They certainly will not give up so quickly, and so they are trying to buy time to rearrange the cards in Egypt and the entire region.
Mubarak advised Saddam to step down, when it was the wish of the USA, and now he doesn’t, because it is still the wish of the USA.
Are they going to succeed, I am sure not. The Egyptian people are solidly united in thought and action. They are tired of the fabricated sectarian tension that was unheard of before Mubarak’s Machiavellian policy of “Divide and Conquer.” Today, both Christians and Muslims are standing together, hand in hand, to change their abject socio-economic conditions and abuse of the police state. Now, we see Muslims and Christians praying in public in Tahrir square and we see the Muslim Brotherhood protecting churches.
This is a rebuild of a shattered dream of democracy and justice that will lead to the Arab people’s unity. A unity that all Arab regimes have been working hard to bury.
When people revolt and a revolution starts, it is a sign that people broke the siege of fear that had been built around them. And when people break the fear, no one ever can inject it into them again.
* Mohamed S. Kamel: is a Freelance writer, the editor of http://forafreeegypt.blogspot.com/, he is a professional engineer, a LEED Green Associate and a recognized project manager professional, he is Member of several civil society organizations, a co-founder of the Canadian Egyptian for Democracy (CEFD), National Association for Change in Egypt (Taghyeer – Canada), Alternative Perspective Media (APM-RAM), , Quebec Antiwar movement “Échec à la Guerre”, Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine “CJPP” and ex-president and co-founder of the Canadian Muslim Forum. He could be reached at public@mohamedkamel.com
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