Friday 20 October 2017

This is real Egypt




According to logical, national, and also humanitarian reasons, we should not celebrate the glorious victory and honor those who achieved it every year in October; whether those who martyred, died, or are still alive while we repeatedly ignore real heroes who contributed to the resistance after the defeat and who established the fighting resisting action in Suez Canal cities and Sinai… they also participated in it, combatted the enemy, and exhausted it… they made the most glorious epics of real patriotic struggle which, alone, deserve to be described as struggle… and not those so-called activists experts in empty talking and professional in hindering, actually hitting the process of building our country that is taking place now.

I here mean tens and hundreds of heroes who strived to stay in the Canal cities despite decisions of compulsory evacuation issued to protect the people after the enemy meant to threaten and hit those cities as a technique to practice pressure over the Egyptian military and political leadership… the enemy also started to destroy vital establishments like petrol refineries of the two companies of Suez and an-Nasr… the image of destroying az-Zaitiya is still present in the mind of all who saw it at that time.

Before going on writing about the resisting action – especially in Suez as a model that does not negate or underestimate Ismailia and Port Said – I would like to write, even if a short note, about certain incidents whose main character was professor Dr. Abdelhamid Safwat Ibrahim Abdelwahhab; most prominent scholar of social psychology in Egypt and the region and who was “reserve first lieutenant” in the great Egyptian Armoured forces in 1973.

I had the great honor that we were colleagues during our study time in the faculty of arts at Ain Shams University… we were also leaders in the faculty and university students’ union and other things not to mention right now… although I will not mention such things, they confirm that a good honorable man is always so no matter the time or the place is.

It is enough to say that Abdelhamid Safwat; secretary of the social committee of the university students’ union in 1970/1971 considered taking a “taxi”, as a means of transport during the time of executing the project of students’ housing that costed tens of thousands, a crime and treason… he used to take the bus and tram and refuse to take back the piaster and a half left… while others were professional in stealing the funds of students’ unions and preferred smoking the “Du Maurier” foreign cigarettes brand.

On October 16, 2016, Dr. Safwat wrote on “Facebook” talking to the youth who did not witness the war and who listen to and read what the Zionist enemy says and claims that Egypt’s capital was open before them at Kilo 101: “… this is lie… my testimony is I was among the battalion 242 of the Armoured forces and which caused massive losses to the enemy troops that wanted to advance and made them stop at that point… I remember, feeling very proud, that my tank chain was the mark defining this point as it was the last tank directly facing the enemy…”

“… A brigadier in the international emergency forces, another of the Egyptian army, and the battalion’s leader came and asked me “where exactly was your tank position last night?”… I pointed to the place which the officer of the international emergency forces recorded over his map… that point was Kilo 101 over Suez road… all what I said was recorded and published in an Israeli book titled “the dereliction” translated by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the beginning of the eighth chapter…”

“… My question to that Israeli claiming that our land was open before them to Cairo: why haven’t you advanced specially that the command of the third army was at Kilo 95? Why have you stopped at Kilo 101?... I was an eye-witness over the lie and arrogance of the Zionists who claimed that, as I was among the Armoured forces that fought in Defreswar breakthrough and stopped them”… words of Dr. Safwat ended here.

I am honored to present a model that draws a picture for the great Egyptian family… such family that did not spare any effort in supporting the fighters… read with me a comment written by Dr. Safwat’s sister over the incidents related to what we talk about… as she, Ne’amat Ibrahim, said: “We knew what it means to love our country when we saw how much you love and care for everything in it… I give my testimony that you, throughout your life, never attacked your country like they do right now… you always provide constructive criticizing based on your sense of responsibility… remember that gift you brought with you from the warfront?... rings made from the metal of the Zionist airplanes that fell down…”

Here the academic scholar and fighter remembers: “… I will never forget what you Ne’amat along with our sister Olfat did when you wrote about 200 letters to the folks of 200 fighters of my colleagues who assigned me the task of delivering postal orders of their salaries to their folks… that was nearly on October 28th before the Lesser Bairam Feast… I was the first to go on vacation from the warfront… when I went to the post office and they were about to close… I told them that those postal orders belong to my colleagues in the warfront… I was surprised that all citizens helped me in writing all those postal orders… and that the employees postponed closing the office for about an hour until the volunteering citizens finished their job…”

“… I received the postal orders and you and Olfat started to put each one in a letter and write the name and address over it… it was a great surprise that the salaries of the fighters reached their folks accurately and with no mistakes… my regards to you, dear sister”.

This is real Egypt, you mean bastards… you who want to kill it either by deadly terrorism or by scuttling its attempt to develop with empty talking and doubting everything.

Next week, I will continue writing about the resistance in Suez as a model… we will talk about that great resistance along with some of its leading heroes who survived the hundred days besiege and did what places Suez in the same status occupied by resistance cities in Russia and Europe during World War II… and I will not get bored of calling on the patriotic leader president Abdelfattah es-Sisi to pay his attention to the city of Suez… as I have already asked him this few months before… so, until next week, to continue writing about those who strived, resisted, and contributed to making the victory.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar




This article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on October 20, 2017.

To see the original article, go to:


#alahram #ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #Suez #resistance

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