Sunday, June 24, 2012
The fight for change in Egypt?
Sunday 17 June 2012
Peace be upon you..
My sincere
apology for not writing that often because I was busy studying for the Masters
in Cairo. I have been living in Egypt for year and a half (two months before
the evolution started) I’d like to record my notes on what I have observed in
the Egyptian street.
When I first
arrived to Egypt, I was shocked to see the streets so crowded with compact
private cars instead of proper public transportation. Also, streets where full
of dirt and garbage. I saw crowded poor areas that are called “Slums” scattered
in the outskirts of Cairo. I saw poverty and unemployment especially among
young people. I wondered during my discussions, with Egyptians whom I meet, about
the reason why their country haven’t developed yet and why the economy hasn’t
improved. Egypt has signed a peace treaty with Israel since President Sadat
ruling in 1977. United States and President Sadat have promised that Egypt will
be totally dedicated to building and progressing instead of engaging in wars
and attrition. Iraq has been engaging in war since 1980, first for eight years
with Iran, then it engaged in war with Kuwait; followed by for a thirteen year
siege and since 2003, Iraq has been occupied by United States. All of these ongoing
problems exhausted the nation’s energy and resources. Consecutively, all sectors such as health, education,
infrastructure as well as political freedom and human rights have collapsed.
Egypt was distant
from wars and attrition for more than thirty years. So why hasn’t it developed
and why its economy hasn’t improved. Why poverty and unemployment rates haven’t
decreased and why education and health sector haven’t progressed. I had all
these question and the answers I received from Egyptians: it is due to corruption
and theft of public wealth that are practiced by the state against its nation.
When
demonstration started in the streets of Cairo on 25th of January. I
thought that it will be concluded in two or three days. But it continued and brought
down the head of the regime. It was an amazing experience that we didn’t
believe at first. But we all lived it, either those of us who live in Egypt, or
those who followed it from abroad. The whole Arab nation was joyful and
supportive of this evolution. It was like a golden gate to achieve the dreams
of all oppressed nations who have been helpless for tens of years. Our nations
dream of change but find it hard to achieve for many reasons.
I followed all
the changes that happened in the country. No major changes took place on the
ground as far as cleaning the streets, solving the crowdedness, improving the
economy or provide jobs. Nothing improved awaiting the new constitution, and
the election of a new parliament and a new president. Everything remained
pending and people are awaiting results on the ground.
In the beginning
of this year, people participated in the Parliament Election. The Islamic
parties won with majority. This is a natural outcome in Egypt because these
parties have been the strongest political and opposition parties since the
fifties of the last century. They are also well perceived by the Egyptian
people. Organizations have been established to help millions of poor Egyptians in education, health and
financing of small commercial projects. Those parties have also suffered and
sacrificed as thousands of their members were either arrested or killed in the
prisons of all former governments. It is very rational that these parties win
with the majority in the Parliament Election. I believe that the poor voters
are the highest group followed my middle income voters.
I don’t know how
sedition have started in the country which fired a conflict between Secular and
Islamic parties. But I am sure that local media has played a malicious role and
planted the sedition and suspicion seeds among the nations’ sectors in the name
of democracy and freedom of speech. First it played on the Muslim and Christian
cord then on the Secular and Islamic cord. The Secular parties have gained
modest number of seats in the Parliament. They went crazy and campaigned against the
Islamic parties on TV, Internet, FaceBook, and Egyptian newspapers. It was also
obvious that United States, Israel and many Arab countries, who allied with the
U.S. like the gulf countries, were upset about this outcome. Unfortunately
these Arab countries claim that they are Islamic, but they hate the Islamic
parties in Egypt and prefer the Mubark regime. This leads to believe that these
governments follow their political interest rather than defending the interest
of Islam. this is illustrated in the
speeches broadcasted in channels funded by Gulf countries who follow the U. S. path
such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabia channels.
Egypt has entered
a vacuum ring of violence and conflicts. No one knows what to do with this. As a
result of conflicts with the army and the police, martyrs fall every day. The
army and the police then deny these acts and accuse an unknown third party of
these killing claiming that this third party wants to spoil the relationship
between the army and the citizens. The Army also claims that it is not
interested in ruling the country and awaits the election of the counsel and the
president as well as the election of a committee that will write the
constitution so that they can go back to their military barracks.
People are
divided between those who are loyal to the army or discontented with it, those
who are loyal to Islamic parties or discontented with it, those who are loyal
to Liberal parties or discontented with it. Thus, differences have increased
and parties have weakened in the arena. Each party has supporters who are
fighting with another party. Then presidential election started. There were no
coordination among the parties at all. The Muslim Brothers announced their
candidate; the Nationalists announced their candidates; the Leftist announced
their candidate; and the remainder of the former regime announced their
candidate. In addition, two other candidates registered as individuals without the
support of a particular party. the result of presidential candidate was a big
surprise. The Brothers candidate won the highest number of votes followed by
the candidate of the former regime. The rest of the candidates (Nationalists,
Leftists and independent) earned good votes but not close to the first or
second place.
It showed the
stupidity of alliances and how the former regime candidate took advantage of
the gap in votes distribution among the lower groups which helped him jump to
the second place. It means if the Islamic, Nationalists, Leftists and
Independent candidate agreed to choose one candidate, this candidate would have
won with big gap between him and the former regime candidate. The outcome
prompted a decision to repeat the election limiting the race between the Muslim
Brothers candidate and the former regime candidate. This result was a big shock
to many Egyptians and non-Egyptians who supported the revolution. The result
was depressing. I say that this result is rational given the stupid and selfish
conflicts among the political parties in Egypt. They didn’t put saving Egypt as
a priority. Their priority was gaining more seats to have more power. This was
a natural result to this blind rivalry.
Two days ago, the
constitutional court annulled the election of one third of the Egyptian
Parliament. This was a strong blow to
the revolution and the revolutionary Parliament. Therefore, Egypt has returned
to square one and where it was before the revolution…
The revolution in
Egypt faced several shocks during the last weeks.
1. Court decision
to acquit Mubarak’s sons from corruption accusations.
2. Court decision
to acquit officials in the former Ministry of Interior who killed
demonstrators.
3. nominating a
former regime candidate as a competitor in second place for presidential
election.
4. Constitution
court released one third of the elected Egyptian parliament at the beginning of
this year and the army regained absolute power.
These strokes
caused a shock in the Egyptian street and confused people. It appeared that the
anti-revolution powers works vigorously through the legal state entities…
Presidential
election will take place in the upcoming couple of days. We’ll see the results,
but the situation is disturbing. It is obvious that the anti-revolution stream
has a strong return to the political arena either via internal or external
support. This is really saddening. After all these sacrifices, Egypt returns to
square one.
All our nations
wants change. But it is obvious from experience in Egypt that there is an counter
stream in our region and it is a much stronger stream. It controls tools such
as the Army, and police. It also controls the state’s budget. To get it out of
the way, we need a continuous revolution against it as well as a long term
strong encounter in order to extract it from decision making positions. Our
nation must be willing to build a state that is based on freedom, justice,
safety, stability and dignity…
What have we
gained from making a revolution and offering sacrifices if a dictator end up
ruling the country?
In Iraq, United
States occupied the country to bring down the regime of the dictator Saddam
Hussein, then the occupation encouraged the establishment of a state that is
built on ethnic and party conflicts. A state that is governed by sectarianism
or ethnicity and only cares about its narrow interests. The Iraqi nation circle
in a dark maze, poverty, hunger, retardation, and political tyranny.
Again…
The revolution
has ended in Yemen and United States interfered and assigned a temporary leader
who don’t vary that much from his former…
The situation is
still worrying and vague in Libya. There is no evidence that the country is
passing through a stable state, reached a clear constitution or bright future…
I don’t call
these Arab revolutions the “Arab Spring”. I call them the “Arab Rage”. It
appears that they don’t lead to excellent results right now. But I believe it
will be the beginning of a continuous Arab rage until a real change, that all
our nations dream of, comes true.
# posted by Faiza Al-Araji @ 4:43 pm 
Why were people’s priorities lost?
Monday 18 June 2012
Peace be upon you..
I don’t know why
the world around us transformed to a meaningless, desperate and silly place. Is
this only felt by those living in our region where there are wars, occupations,
and continuous political conflicts that exhaust our nation’s wealth and
people’s energy while wasting our time without valuable achievements. Or is
this how everyone living on earth feel?
When a poor man
suffers and not find someone to support him and a sick man doesn’t find anyone
to hear his complain or help him out, this life loses its meaning. Why did our
hearts harden and why did we lose our priorities. If we refer back to our
religion, we find it promoting mercy and care about the needy. But where is religion
from our lives? I don’t mean rituals such as prayers, fasting or dressing
modestly, but I am talking about the impact of religion on our hearts and our
behavior. Unfortunately, most people around us are not impacted by religion in nowadays…
I lived in Iraq,
Jordan and Egypt. I also spent few years in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Life is
the same in all these places and it seemed as if I didn’t leave the place.
Rituals are the same in all of these countries. The leaderships in all these
countries don’t belong to their nations and don’t reflect their people’s volition.
They are characterized as anti-religion and anti-Islam political leaderships
that are only looking after their interest. People always copy their
leadership. At the beginning, a conflict and struggle occurs, but by time,
people get tired and take the silent act. Their hearts then die, and they become
corrupted just like their leaders. They will become dead in their heart and
conscious.
Unfortunately,
this is what I see on the ground. If a parent calls from Iraq requesting that
an organization support him to treat his son, I spend days asking here and
there without an answer. There aren’t any organizations that work to treat
children in Iraq. There is no budget for that and organizations are not able to
provide any help to anymore. Iraq is no longer the world’s priority to receive
aid. This is the answer I received. I shake my head and say thank you. Business
men are busy earning money. Their faces change if an individual or an
organization knock their door for help.
They ask, where
are the governments? Why the governments are not assuming their
responsibilities toward their citizens? The answer usually is that our
governments are either busy with stealing, administrative corruption and lying
to their citizens. They could be also busy fighting with other political
parties over power. Who thinks about the citizen and his needs? What’s this
crab? What are you talking about? In what planet do you live in? The answer: I
don’t know which planet we live in. the world of corruption and corrupted
people who have assumed higher ranks and no one can confront or beat them.
Allah Almighty only can beat them. Each one of them will come to a day in which
he will have great regret, but regret will not do them any good then.
People who have
chosen to hold humanitarian and voluntary social work to help those in need
know that their resources are limited. Therefore, their efforts remain limited.
But what’s the alternative? This is much better than passiveness, withdrawal
and complains. It is better that lining up with those with dead hearts and
conscious…and there are many of those around us who eat, drink and laugh
thinking that this life is the best they can learn and do…
This life is a
journey in which we are subjected to a very difficult test. It is not to
facilitate entertainment and happiness. During this journey, people lose many
principles and priorities. Good for someone who remembers the principles and
hold on them till the last minute. I believe that such person is very close to
God and among those who love and loved by God. Because his heart stayed alive
and conscious about what is going on around him. He accepts difficult
responsibility that is difficult and heavy to carry by heart and soul. This
heavy responsibility gives a feeling that he’s alive. He feels the pain and joy
and react with all what happens around him. He is much more happy than those
with dead hearts because the later lead a selfish empty life that is
meaningless and filled with boredom. Even if they owned the world in their
hands, their life remain empty, meaningless and worthless. Aren’t we all
supposed to ask ourselves: what value did I add to other people during my life?
I hope that each one of us ask him or herself this question every day. He might
awaken our hearts and minds. And he might encourage us to do something useful
to other people before we leave this life…
# posted by Faiza Al-Araji @ 4:41 pm
