We
were taught that history does not recognize the hypothesis asking “what if…”,
not because our folks used to say that “’what if…’ opens the door for bad
things”, but because history is a branch of science that deals with already-complete
facts or at least a phase of those facts is… and so it goes on discussing the
pre-symptoms of such facts, its courses, and results according to certain
research disciplines that became a well-established science… in such regard,
studying history is different to studying other social sciences that accept
hypotheses and scenarios, discuss them, and assess their probabilities.
We
were also taught that there is a difference between calculations of commercial
projects including retail, half-wholesale, and wholesale business and history
calculations, since in the first case, gains, and losses as well, are measured
by the criterion of increasing the materialistic revenue; meaning how much
money we earned… reputation and commercial name have also their value…etc…
As
to the gains in history calculations, they go to what is mostly abstract
including invaluable issues… here, the one who adopts the discipline based on
retail or wholesale calculations of grocery shops does not understand the
meaning when nations sacrifice thousands of martyrs… when they put all their
resources and potentials in resisting a foreign assault… in such case, those
people who deal as per retail and wholesale calculations prefer the rule
saying: if you get raped by whom you cannot resist, then enjoy!!... Since,
according to their own opinion and calculations, your gain in enjoying is
definitely better than losing your life if you insisted on resisting.
If
we opened the door for the calculations based on the hypothesis asking “what if…”,
it would apply to all questions inhabiting the human mind, starting from the
moment of the first scene of creation to ask: “what if” God did not want to be
known and did not create humans to know him?... “what if” God listened to the
angels’ opinion regarding letting man inheriting earth when they asked
inquiring and exclaiming: will you place on earth one who spreads corruption
therein and sheds blood?... some may find that they; the angels, were right
after corruption and blood shedding became everywhere.
And
you too, dear reader, can go on asking using the “what if…” form and making calculations
according to retail and wholesale business concept supporting your opinion by
numbers.
In
such regard, I remember a debate I was participating in more than ten years ago
in one of the famous satellite channels about what is left of July, 1952 revolution.
The other party was physician Dr. Mahmoud Game’a. During the debate, one of the
viewers called – his name was Sami al-Nesf, a Kuwaiti businessman – and started
his comment by criticizing me saying: this Arab-national Nasserist has a hollow
loud voice just like his leader Nasser who committed the biggest crime in Egypt
history; that was the nationalization of Suez Canal and what followed later of
war, devastation, destroying the Egyptian people capabilities, and getting the
region into an era of faking people’s conceptions with Arab-nationalism, liberation…etc.
He added that Britain was going to leave the Canal in 1968 without war.
I
replied to him saying that he is ill-bred since he started his comment by
insult, and then said that the last people who should criticize Nasser are the
Kuwaitis since it was Nasser who lied behind postponing Kuwait invasion for
more than thirty years when he stood fiercely against Abdel-Karim Qassem’s
attempt to add Kuwait to Iraq by force. I went wondering about who would
guarantee that Britain was going to leave the Canal in 1968 as there is a clear
evidence that Britain does not respect agreements, especially what have to do
with water channels; that is Britain is still occupying Gibraltar until now
despite the fact that the agreement Britain signed regarding the Suez Canal is
the same one that has to do with Gibraltar!!
Back
to the “what if…” question in history, one can find that if we took this
question as an established rule in reading the history facts, then everyone who
opposes a certain fact or era would have the right to consider himself
absolutely right… for example, and not exclusively, there are some asking “what
if” the Arabs did not succeed in invading Egypt and Egypt stayed a Byzantine
state, and its historical root became the Greek-Roman and later the Christian
one, wouldn’t it have been better for Egypt to be like any society who enjoys
the same roots in its culture in the broad meaning of the word that include
human behavior, way of thinking, literature, arts…etc… and that it is better
than what the Arab-Islamic roots brought to us?
Moreover,
those who wonder “what if” Nasser and July, 1952 have killed all who belonged
to the class of big capitalists and land owners and all their off-spring
mercilessly and not only nationalize all their assets and money, would have the
right in their belief that that was the best thing to do since, as proved
later, such class contributed to the corruption that hit Egypt during the era
of unbridled Infitah and stood in the way of Egypt to achieve a real
civilized renaissance. They actually distorted the concept of capitalism
itself, and some of them did not even hesitate to deal with the Zionist enemy
considering this a different point of view as they do not consider the Zionists
enemies in the first place… they do not consider occupying Palestine, racism or
anything that has to do with Zionism wrong.
We
may continue talking later about the difference between retail business and
history.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published in Almasry alyoum in July
12, 2017.
To see the original article, go to:
#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #history #Egypt
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