Tuesday, June 5, 2012

It is their fault indeed

This little piece is inspired by a response I wrote to a wonderfully eloquent piece written by someone I have a lot of respect for, who was basically advocating hope, and the idea that there is no turning back because the good Egyptians with no ulterior motives have learned their lessons and will move on to create something better than what those elections are providing for us.

Dear Hassan ,

this, like so many of your other writings, shows strength, vision, and hope. I believe if we did have more people like the ones described by you as "We, the people of Egypt who love our country with no ulterior personal motive" , then there would be less reason for worry, and a lot more justification for overwhelming hope.

We are not up against a formidable enemy or two, but rather a senile and ignorant one who is driven by greed. But the real problem lies not just in them, because they are acting rather predictably, but it is in the people who speak on our behalf (we must eventually have someone speaking on our behalf, don't we?). Is it their ignorance, their own personal ambition, or their sickening fragmentation that fails to deliver that is needed?

Who, I ask myself, is reiterating any credible and consistent message within our current sickening political atmosphere? Why is it always at the 13th, not even at the 11th hour, that the political revolutionary forces  unite, and when they do, they come up with very fragmented statements. Why are dogma and overarching political statements more important than coming up with a strong working formula that people. A formula that people can see the merit of, evaluate, and rally behind (not necessarily in that order). Our ammunition is popular support, spirit, as well as reason and good judgment, and we continue to waste our ammunition and then blame the others for giving us fake targets to shoot at. To name just a couple of senseless examples, a couple of embassies, a Abbaseya that they rallied behind like lemmings led to their own demise.

And now. Why can't we for a change waste more time on pragmatism, on being clear and concise in our requests. Tahrir now, I agree, but for the love of Egypt,  find someone who would step up and say what it is that we need to do now. Should we rally against the court verdict, for the disenfranchisement law, for political reform, for annullment of the elections, for a triumvirate (the Presidential Council) or are we just rallying to express our  anger and discontentment? While the Presidential Council personally sounds like an appealing thought to me, I have not heard any suggestions that make it more plausible or reasonable. Things like mechanisms of choosing the council (beyond me is of course how they want to choose one of the presidential candidates that got around 0.1% of the votes), or working out and explaining more details for how such a council would function. (good reading for me was the much talked about Kourt Debeuf in his blog about "how to safeguard the Egyptian Revolution.  http://blogs.euobserver.com/debeuf/2012/05/26/how-to-safeguard-the-revolution-in-egypt-an-outsiders-perspective/
Has the educational system, or the lack thereof, left its imprint on us to the point where we are doomed to dogma instead?

I love the revolution for what it can do, but not for how we have handled it so far. I could go on forever, but the real challenge, unfortunately, is us.

Z

1 comment:

  1. Agree, so the problem is with us, what do we do now? Vote into power the same forces that got us and our intellect and education where it is or negotiate with their opposition for the best deal possible?

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