Saturday, July 14, 2012
We are still dreaming of better future....
Monday 2 July 2012
Peace be upon you
I was so happy after the announcement of results of the Egyptian
election and the winning of Dr. Mohammad Mursi in the presidency race. I believe that millions of
Arabs and Muslims around the world were happy with this result …they have
greater hope after hearing the speeches of Dr. Mursi in Tahreer (Liberation)
Square and in Cairo University. He
promised to make many changes in the country that are all geared towards achieving
liberty, social justice and positive change.
The experiment of Egypt is very admirable and
controversial. When the revolution took off, I was in Egypt and I started to
compare it with what happened in in Iraq during the American occupation in
2003. The change in Egypt was driven by no other than the nation’s leader not
by parties or opposition leaders such as in Iraq.
The revolution continued to swing between various
conflicts for a year and a half. The revolution almost reached an end or an apportion
point that would’ve led the country back
to the former regime. But the winning of Dr. Mursi which gave hope that the
revolution will continue and it will rearrange the priorities in the country
according to a general plan that meet the acceptance of all the national and
political powers in Egypt.
The special thing about Dr. Mursi is that he speaks the
nation’s language and not the language of narrow minded parties as we observe
in many Arabic and Muslim countries. This is the difference between him and other
former leaders. We the Arab nations believe that we were one nation divided by
Syks Picot Treaty post World War I in 1919 and that we are able to return as
one strong nation that will influence the whole world. Our dream is to become
the United Arab States, just like the United States of America; to become a great power in the world with all
success elements; to run rich economies; to have a wealth of human resources,
deep-rooted history and excellent experience. We lack honest leaders that
belong to their nations and who think like our nations, speak our nation’s
language and keen about accomplishing our nation’s dreams of freedom, justice,
excellence, as well as political, economic and social stability… Dr. Mohammad
Mursi is a successful model of this kind of leadership that people have been
waiting for to appear and lead this nation toward a healthy and correct path fulfilling
the ambition and dreams of people. This president belongs to his nation and the
identity of his nation, not the identity of the enemy of his nation as the case
in many of our Muslim and Arab countries where leaders exist to please the west
and their wishes and the Hill with the Arab nations. This is how they have been
thinking for long decades now. But after the Arab revolutions, Egypt has proved
to be the most successful because it
came through the real will of the nation
without external interference not as Libya or Yemen where there were external interference
deciding the faith of the country. As for Tunis, I am not quite knowledgeable
about the details of what happened over there.
We experience live events here in the Arab Nations. We
are not reading about it in books. We live harsh and hard experiences from
which we are learning. Such as the experiences of Iraq and Egypt. These are two
special experiences that occurred within less than 10 years. It gives fertile
thoughts to many activists, educated and researches here or to followers of the
events from abroad.
In the case of Iraq, we lived under an oppressing
military regime where there was no room for political freedom or individual expression
of opinion. I mean the intellectual and political expression not the religious.
Everybody has the freedom of religion. Among us are Christians, Muslims and
atheists. Each group has its own holidays, occasions, and houses of worship
under the patronage of the State. But the political conflict in Iraq was in
favor of one party. consequently, one man has the sole domination on the State
wealth and it became a property owned by him, his children and his relatives as
if the country is his private farm. The same thing was in Egypt. There was one
governing party that won all the elections despite the will of the people.
Shamelessly, the government uses all means to forger the will of people without
being held accountable by anyone. The west was pleased with the regime and
considered it one of the moderate regimes in the region. It means that this
country accepted to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
whereas the government of Iraq refused to establish
diplomatic relationship with Israel and the president’s political speech was national
and patriotic. This was demised by the west. The western media exaggerated in
the defamation of Saddam’s image while overlooking the catastrophes resulting
from Mubarak’s regime’s. This is due to the political hypocrisy of the west as
they follow their own personal interest over the interest of the nations…
After the Iraq invasion in 2003, parties who gave
retarded sectarian, religious and political speeches came to power. Those
speeches split the crowd rather than unite it and planted envy rather than bonding
people and spreading the spirit of forgiveness. These parties spread envy and the
spirit of fragmentation among the Iraqis. They assumed power by forging the
election, spreading violence and deceiving people. All of this happened with
the supervision and blessing of the American invasion and with the anger and
discontent of the Iraqi people. The new Iraqi constitution is an ugly one
because it was written by America and it is full of explosives and mines that
will keep Iraq in and endless fragmentation and conflict due to sectarian and
ethnic reasons, so that Iraq remains in a weak dismantled state as long as
governments abide by the instructions and guidance of this constitution.
But I don’t believe that this will continue forever.
Iraqis are so angry and discontent with the government and all parties either
the Sunni or Shiite because it couldn’t provide decent and stable life to its
people there despite the abundant resources in Iraq such as oil that could
enable Iraq to become one of the advanced
and most stable countries in the region. But the country is still going through
a political and an economic crisis. There is so much violence going on in the
streets due to differences between the governing parties both Sunni and Shiite.
It didn’t provide anything to the Iraqi People. In Iraq, the Sunni and the
Shiite are still poor and oppressed economically, politically and socially. The
state is practicing intellectual and political terror against them exactly as
it was before. Political assassination has become a daily norm in the Iraqi
life. Prisons are full of government opposition. Corruption and theft are
published stories not only among Iraqis, but worldwide. No one can hold them
accountable or punish them so far…
On the other hand, a new elected president has arrived
in Egypt as a result of transparent and fair election process. The president
has a clear speech and vision for
prosperity. There are many committees that follow up on the president and
provide advice and consultation. The president has connection with the public
movements to maintain a healthy and strong relationship between him and all the
nation spectra. This gives him the ability to work on meeting people’s
expectation. The constitution will be amended based on an agreement among all
political and national movements in the country. There will be no foreign
intervention to decide the faith of the country. This indicates that the Egyptian
case is a model that has all success elements as long as all the nation’s
movements take part in the drafting of the constitution and decision making.
This is opposite of what happened in Iraq where the state was built in a weak,
dismantled and distorted way. That’s why it is not stable there yet and will
never be.
The regional countries are trying to get closer to Egypt
right now. Turkey wants to establish strong relationships and partnership in
implementing projects. Iran wants to improve the diplomatic and for sure the
economic relationship. The Gulf countries are looking for major and serious
investment in Egypt. Why? Because they see it as a stable and successful
promising model in the region. In the meantime, investors are fleeing Iraq
where relationship with neighbors are getting worse. Why? Because there is
great stupidity in the management of the new Iraq after the occupation. Mutual
American and Iraqi stupidity that subjected the country to endless
unprecedented crisis, disappointment as well as economic and political failure.
Egypt and Egyptian experiment attracts all the
attention. All of us know that it will be a long journey and that change is not
easy or fast and that it needs a long time and many stages. And we know that
there are many challenges facing the
revolution and the president in Egypt. But we wish and pray to God always that
this experiment succeeds to become a role model to all neighboring Arab
nations. All of these nations look for change, reform and advancement to build
modern and civil countries without the military domination or the domination of
one party or one person with his family…
I believe that currently our Arab region passes through
deep stage of change and I hope that it will be for the best. We are so tired
of disappointment, failure, retardation and domination. On the grounds we have
all elements for success and excellence…
Hopefully the future of this nation will be better than
the present that we live in. I hope that all these sacrifices are not for vain
and doesn’t go without positive results on the ground. We hope that people soon
reap the fruits of these sacrifices and achieve all their dreams that they have
long wished to become true…
# posted by Faiza Al-Araji @ 8:35 am 
