On January 24th,
2017, I received this e-mail from dear friend Mr. Saeed Farag Aazer. I read it
many times then I had a deep sigh and wiped my tears before they fall. The
message is long; about 3 thousand words and so I will not be able to publish
the whole of it despite that both the writer and the reader should have equal
opportunities. Such equal opportunity starts from the right to think, express
and have equal space to publish their words... and has no limit.
In my opinion, both the
writer and the newspaper should maintain the proper atmosphere for dialogue so
that the public opinion could be built and enlightened. In order to do such
task, those who happened to have the chance to write in newspapers should allow
the readers to reply and not monopolize these spaces. Before presenting the
message, I would like to excuse its writer and you to make some abridgement,
hoping this will not breach the context of the message.
“… I reached to the point
that my mind refuses to think… to analyze… to contemplate... A mind that became
or is about to be in discord with words… in discord with life… in discord with
real life… and consequently, in discord with Logos or logic… or even God, as being
in discord with words means that man is in discord with God… Who else but you Mr.
Elgammal can know the value and power of words as a symbol of people’s whole
life.
You, and all our
generation, have known the power of words… Yes… this generation that knew very
early how to sneak into the under-passages of the forbidden and discovered all
the real and eternal meanings of what was going around us.
That generation, driven
by the dream of the era we all lived, could mess with those hypocrite
politicians and knew its way through them… It broke into their cold bleak rooms
feeling no fear... We took control of our future so that chance, myth or
traditions could not affect it... Our future was driven by the great dream we
had… That dream born with our generation and was connected to it like the umbilical
cord that was never cut until today”.
… What should I do
while I am surrounded by all those deaf... I became a chief for the silent
majority against my will after I lost my desire to talk among all this massive
corrupted concepts… It is no longer about how to get rid of the corruption
itself but how to get rid of corrupted people themselves after they became
corrupted to the bones… They made their own definitions of standards and
concepts… Those corrupted concepts and standards became a constitution “inscribed”
in hearts and minds with its articles practiced in secret and public… it is the
constitution of “independent free republic of corruption”...
… we are a nation with
most of its men, women, youth and old men grown up feeling chained
by absolute incapability to do anything… all this because of a history that is
not yet revealed before us until this moment in a way that justifies why our
present is corrupted to this extent… because of a dilapidated good-for-nothing
present that is prevailed by corruption in all its means and concepts… also
because of a future refusing to reveal itself or any of its features… a future insisting
on hiding and disguising its identity leaving us confused before a fake
history, incapable present and a vague future… a future denying to recognize us
and makes us feel we were born out of history and geography contexts, until we
all became like the goods that is sold before shops are even open!...
… Yes… we know how
strong are our capabilities and the power of the civilization heritage we have
inside every Egyptian whether he admitted it or not. However, the problem is,
despite the strength of the Egyptian composition, all those elements constituting
this composition work in different opposing directions… and so resulting in
zero outcome…
We became professional
in adopting such conflicting actions… We all work hard to exhaust each other…
everyone in his own way… It is a way reflecting our weakness and failure to
achieve the great national project we lost long years ago… Such way of
exhausting each other reflects our bitter defeat to accomplish such dream
project.
… everyone decided to
go into his own war… for all of us feel we are in bad need of a victory… and
victory needs a battle… and battle needs an enemy… and all this require a field
to practice such kind of fight… and so the streets, homes, schools, universities,
churches, work and even restaurants and markets became fields where all kinds
of violence and non-mercy in dialogue and interaction are practiced… Everyone
is in a state of on-going relentless aggression… We all became a daily fuel for
a social fire that never goes down!...
This is how Egypt and
Egyptians turned to be… a nation running out of its capabilities and soft power
and replacing them with cruelty and non-mercy”.
… We decayed inside
that system killing induction, thinking and analysis until our life turned
into a wild place where social and thought mobbing and harassment are practiced…
We became trapped between the anvil of poverty and ignorance and the hammer of richness
and ignorance too… all this had a great bad influence over this people… Out of
the first pair of poverty and ignorance, we had the home-made bomb of slums
that we used to call “Urban”… Out of the second pair of richness and poverty,
we had the pre-paid imported bomb coming from the Gulf Oil-rich countries…
Egypt had succeeded in making the first prototype predicted by Youssef Idris in
one of his articles that I still remember… Egypt succeeded in making a catholic
marriage between the poor thought and the thought of poverty”.
Then Mr. Saeed Farag
Aazer wonders:
“Why have we left Egypt
wide open before the culture of Petro-dollar to overcome all our life and kill
all noble morals we had like satisfaction and feeling grateful for
what we were brought up on… Why have our people denied the greatness of letting
go things we do not need?... We were raised in homes lacking electrical fans
and now we cannot live without air-conditions… why have we abandoned floor
tiles and started running after ceramics and marble… we now paint the
apartments with plastic paints and wall-papers instead of lime brush… The best
bathrooms used to have a meter square of faience behind the tub, now we have
sauna and Jacuzzi… we used to have only one kitchen cupboard, now we have many
pieces of cupboards of different styles in the kitchen… We use to have kilim
and not carpets… We used to eat cheese, cucumber and water melon at lunch in
hot days in the balcony… We used to have grape and ivy plants in our balconies…
where has the clay pot placed in rose water gone?... Where have sellers of
milk, yoghurt, ripe soft dates and lupini beans gone?... where have all this
gone?... and where are we now?... haven’t we all grown up on all these things?...
Haven’t we been satisfied and made what no one else could do in our region?...
However, despite the
bleak darkness we all live and feel, I remember a saying that I always loved…
the darkest hours of the night are those before the dawn”.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This
article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on February 8, 2017.
To
see the original article, go to:
#almasry_alyoum
#ahmed_elgammal #Egypt
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