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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