I went out and came back with all this comments on my previous status. I would like to share my opinions with you all. Since the revolution has started the Egyptians have been going through a process. Their mind have changed, theirs readings have changed, their interpretations have changed and above all their ambitions and claims have been transformed. The last days and months have been a decisive period in the shaping of the country we dream of. This last period was a huge chess game with mainly 5 players. Tamarod (Rebellion campaign), the Muslim Brotherhood, the army and above all the masses, and finally and in my opinion to a lesser extend the governments of other countries. I don’t want to write about the story of the three previous months, the petitions, 22 000 000 signatures, the massive 30th June protests, Al Sisi, transitional governments, whether it is a coup or not. Many others have done it very well or very badly it all depends on your position. I personally seize the opportunity to express myself and say once more; no this wasn’t a coup, it was the power of people in action, it was real expressive legitimacy, it is about participative citizenship, about a people who is defining its own destiny, and not about tools that should be used according to a westerner catalog to fit their expiring understanding of democracy (voting for someone is no warranty of immunity or shouldn’t be, voting is about giving someone a mandate agreed upon and Morsi violated it and the Egyptian people, some of whom by the way had voted for him, decided to sanction the fact he did not respect this mandate. Call it a coup if you wish and yeah please if he or someone like him, ever comes back don’t forget to call Egypt a dictatorship in a few years, anyway that is the 2 models that we can have in the middle east, right ? yeah no one said that but we hear you think, a pharaoh thing we inherited !). All the above being said, I would like to think about the current situation. Yesterday, 24th of July 2013, our defense minister, better known as Al Sisi, delivered a speech to the nation. Allow me to describe a bit the current situation to understand it better. After the 3rd of July the international media spoke a lot less about Egypt, that is normal in the media world. They have to chose and prioritize titles, keep the audience interested and never fall into saturation. Well since then Egyptians have been dying everyday, the Jihad has started in Sina, in Upper Egypt, in the Delta valley, some parts of Cairo are a mess. Some people back home are telling me about kidnappings and cars bombings. The violent wing of the Brotherhood is going mad. Planning and executing bloody attacks and sending their own supporters to death as we’ve seen in the Mansoura events (Delta). I am not justifying or excusing anything, these are just facts that we need to take in consideration when we speak about Al Sisi’s speech. In this speech he basically asked to the Egyptians to massively demonstrate on Friday to mandate the army to fight against violence and terrorism. Here, I am choosing to express myself fully, I know many won’t like what I am going to say. My first reaction was, well in order to mandate someone I need to know a little bit more about what he is planning to do, what does fighting terrorism mean? I instantly remembered Tantawi (former SCAF and head of the country for the first transitional period), I remembered Maspero, Mohamed Mahmoud, Set el Banat (excessive oppression that lead to very bloody events) and I thought what if innocents die just because we assume they belong to the brotherhood? What if once again we fall in massive repression, not making a difference between bloody leaders and simple sympathizers ? What if fighting becomes excessive murdering ? What if ? What if? And then I remembered my state of mind when Morsi was ousted following the massive protests and the military intervention. At the time I saw the military as an institution, who implicitly admitted its past mistakes and who was now willing to prove it was standing for and by its people. I saw them as the ones who prevented a blood bath between sympathizers and opponents. And even if I didn’t and still don’t fully trust them, I chose and millions of other Egyptians chose to trust them, called upon them, the people ordered and the military executed, making the people of Egypt its supreme commander. This is what I was willing and still want to believe. And then I thought what if I decided I did not have to make an opinion about this ? This easy option would be a betrayal. So what if I supported the military this time too ? Mandate, don’t mandate, mandate, don’t mandate ? Mandate, don’t mandate, mandate, don’t mandate ? I decided I should mandate, for the following reasons : I think we need to rethink about the military in a different way, as an institution who is trying to change its methods and ethics to achieve its goals and mission, that is to say defending the country and its people and above all fighting for and preserving the sovereignty of our country. Because yes I think that the word that is missing in all our conversations and the analyses of what is going on in Egypt is Sovereignty. What is a sovereign state ? How does it get it ? How does it preserve it ? This are questions that in my opinion could be the problematic of a good paper to analyse what is going on in Egypt. What are the criterias to define whether if a state is sovereign or not ? 4 points: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government that is subordinated to no other governments, and an international recognition. If the first point is almost granted, this is not the case at all with the 3 others, and this since 1974. A defined territory: Since the 18th of January 1974 Egypt has, geographically, politically, and militarily lost Sina because of the disengagement treaties signed with Israel, under the American pressure. If the formal speech says that Sina went back to Egypt in 1986. According to others up to today some of the Sina land did not entirely return to Egypt. Politically and military, unfortunately this land is out of the planning and state strategies. Being a sensitive spot because of its closeness with Israel, a huge part is demilitarized because of international agreements making it impossible for the army to work and preserve this bit of land as it should. As a result we see for example the clandestine armed wings of radical movements terrorizing the locals of this region, while the local security forces are very weak. This feeling is quite humiliating for us Egyptians of all backgrounds, the land is ours but still we cannot use or protect it as we wish because of foreign dictates. Loosing the sovereignty on that point is something Egyptians never really accepted, especially that before Anouar el Sadate (The president under whom this happened) and his teams, we had a leader that marked the personal, collective conscience and hearts of a large frame of the population. Gamal Abd El Nasser. And this makes me take you to the third point: a government that is subordinated to no other governments. One of the main achievements of Nasser was the fact he instituted along with Nehru the third force called the non aligned movement in a context of cold war. Indeed, in a context where countries all over the world were forced to choose whether they wanted to be under the US umbrella or the Soviet umbrella, men like Nasser drafted a third way. With this he succeeded in answering to the need of millions who were not willing to be pawns in a war that did not concern them. He succeeded in proposing a way that was different from the two oppressive dominations. And above all he succeeded in making the Egyptians feel that they had no masters but themselves, that they were no longer subordinated to a colonial power, nor a king, nor a world power. That they were standing by and for their own ideology. With 1974 this ended, the army became dependent from America, the financial aids came along with imposed policies that did not benefit the people but preserved the interests of the mentioned countries. Remains the 4th point the international recognition, well I won’t say much. Just a question; what kind of recognition is it when you are dealt with as a subordinate that is a pawn to preserve the interest and security of the world powers in your geographical region ?... Exactly ! If the army decided to change this by itself it would internationally be accused of making Egypt becoming a rogue country, maybe a war could start, just because we want our land and the rights that goes with it back, if the demand comes from the people this a whole other thing. (All I have said about Sadat is even more applicable on the brotherhood since they were clearly not affiliated to the country but to the international organization of the Brotherhood. Indeed the State of Egypt did not count to them, it was just a tool to serve the greatest benefit of the Emirat, directed by the Muslim Brotherhood they are trying to build) So according to me, Egypt has lost its sovereignty and if political terms don’t speak much let’s just put it that way, we have been humiliated and we are looking for our dignity back. And here the question is who’s role is it to gain it back ? The army and the people. This takes me to my last point (If you are still reading thank you !). The People. We live in a world where everything is directed according to negotiations. Between corporate and governments, between governments and governments, between political parties, unions and corporate, and all the matches you can imagine, even your last job interview was a hidden form of negotiation. Therefore there is something called the table of negotiation. Before sitting the different parts prepare arguments, imagine scenarios to propose alternatives that benefits them or everyone, and finally and above all they prepare strong arguments showing how heavy they are, their weight can be many things, the influence they have, their financial capacities etc… Lately we have seen a very dangerous phenomenon, people do not weight anymore in these negotiations. As an example we can take the 18 first days of the Egyptian revolution. At the highest point there were 8 million persons in the streets, while Egyptian authorities were meeting with diplomats and other representatives from all over the world. During 18 days no state issued a clear speech telling to Moubarak he had to go. After the events of the 30/06, we only heard very soft speeches exhorting the responsibles to discuss and find an issue to the matter whereas MILLIONS were saying GO, they did not want to solve an issue they ordered them to go ! I am not asking foreign countries to intervene, let’s make it clear, I am asking them to whether respect the will of the Egyptian people or mind their own affairs, instead of always negotiating with the wrong parts to try to save what can be saved. Since the beginning of the revolts of in the middle east the people are regaining their weight. And if things go on this way they will eventually gain even more weight on and out the table of negotiation. And I personally think that Al Sisi doesn’t realize it, but he is giving more power to the people who are realizing that they should be the source of any important decision concerning the country, and I think he doesn’t know that he is giving them more strength than ever before and I personally want to seize this opportunity, I want this strength to produce more strength so that we can go towards a real political model made from for and by the people. So yes I think we should massively take the streets on Friday, not against anyone, but for ourselves. And I think we should be ready to massively take the streets again anytime soon after this friday to make sure this revolution succeeds and that no one will try to burry it. Marie Ange Barbary
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 18:16:42 +0000
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