This
time, I will not write the names of whom I believe are closely related to the purport
of this article, only because I have good connections with
some of them, as we have things in common in loving our country Egypt and it
would be a loss to waste such things. Also because some others of those names
produce no thought or vision and behave as if they are suffering from what I
called before “the syndrome” that worsens and becomes acute in certain times.
Deemed as patients, it wouldn’t be humane or noble to address sick people.
I
have already written long before about what I’m going to write about now. It
has to do with the cycles or circles of the history of nations and peoples;
those connected cycles included in one context called the movement of history,
or one can say they are connected cycles, with every cycle retaining its own
features and ethos relatively governed by the
geographical necessities; natural, demographic, political and economic
necessities.
It
doesn’t make sense, either logically or scientifically, to deal with the
ancient history of Egypt as if it’s accidental and fruitless; such history that
goes back in time to the ancient
eras until about six thousand years ago when
writing was used in recording history. Since being accidental means it started
away from any kind of interactions with the geographical situation which our
beloved Egypt lies in the middle of. Being fruitless, meanwhile, means it brought
about no effects and carried no genes that were passed on to the circles or
cycles accumulated later.
In
my opinion, being accidental and fruitless does not make a people or history
like the Egyptian people and history. In addition, feeling proud of the
patriotic history, understanding and drawing lessons from it through its
circles and cycles is totally different to being a chauvinist; the one who
usually claims descending from a noble origin distinguished from all humans, or
a fanatic who regards others in an arrogant and biased way.
For
example it happened that the Roman Empire was attacked by the tribes that were
called barbarians – not Berber as barbarian is the killing brutal savage. Surges
of Goths, Vandals, Magyars, Germanics and Huns kept attacking the Roman Empire
until Rome and the empire crumbled in September, 476. The Roman citizens
thought it was the end of the world and it was Doomsday. It also happened that
the area including France, Belgium and parts of Germany, western of the Rhine,
were called the Roman
Gaul countries.
At
the end of the fifth century, the Germanic tribes – in specific, the Franks
tribe; part of the Germanics – stormed the Gaul countries. The attack was led
by Clovis I who changed the name Gaul to France; after the name of his tribe.
He also changed the language and religious creed from the Christian Egyptian Arianism
doctrine – that prevailed after Saint Ulfilas had translated the Bible according
to Arius’ teachings – into Catholicism.
Moreover,
the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties descended from these barbarian
invaders. Also, Charlemagne descended from the same origin; this man who
changed the political history of Europe when he took the empire crown from the
hands of the Pope and crowned himself. In doing so, he put an end to an entire
era when the Pope was the one crowning the emperor, meaning the first has the
upper hand over the second.
I
can’t imagine a chauvinist Gaulist – from Gaul – idiot hosted right now by a
French satellite channel, or sitting in a café in the Latin Quarter in Paris or
in a seminar, and who decides to cancel the history of France before the
foreigners’ invasion and keeps talking about the glory of the Eastern Goths, and
before them the Romans and those who came before the Romans…etc. claiming that
he is revenging for the history of his country.
Living
nations and respected thinkers deal with the history of their countries as
connected circles and cycles. They interpret the phenomena in light of the
human, temporal and spatial circumstances that governed them, not according to
their affections and what they think is the only right thing.
It’s
true that the ancient Egyptians taught humanity, in the time of Dynasties,
philosophy, medicine, mathematics and engineering; meaning all branches of “wisdom”. It will
cause no harm to Egypt, its history and conscience if we said that Egypt
benefited from the Greco-Roman eras, or from
converting to Christianity and benefiting from the
Christian eras… etc. until reaching to Muhammed Ali and his family, then the patriotic
rule established by the great Egyptian army.
Finally,
I have a word to say to my physician friend who adores the ancient history of
Egypt: have mercy on yourself… don’t force others to go into an argument that
we have no time to go into right now… we have contradictions with terrorism and
all those claiming possessing the religious authority, the thing that makes contradiction with July 23rd revolution
and Nasser a secondary one compared to them and so, it can be postponed.
Translated
into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper
on November 15, 2017.
To see the original article, go to:
#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #ancient_Egypt
#history
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