People of our beloved Egypt always prove how deep
their noble values are, atop of these values are loyalty and expressing gratitude.
They always prove that they haven’t lost the will to dream of a better reality
and future. We can see all this represented in their stance towards Gamal
Abdel-Nasser whom we celebrate his birth centenary these days.
When we say people of our beloved Egypt, we mean the
broad masses of peasants, small owners of agriculture land, laborers, skilled
professionals of different specialties, intellectuals of diverse ideologies,
also soldiers out of whom Gamal Abdel-Nasser came… as to those who kept for
long decades spending money and plotting conspiracies for assassinating Nasser
alive or assassinating his character after he left our world, they represent a
minority of the Egyptian people. How shameful for that bunch that their
billions they spent over satellite channels, newspapers and traitors went in
vain and proved nothing but their failure when they see how Nasser is still
present not only in Egypt, the Arab nation, Africa and the third world, but in
the unbiased intellectual circles in the developed world as well.
Some wonder: what is left from Nasser? and I believe
it’s better to say: what is left for Nasser? Some others wonder: what if Nasser
lived and faced what took place of changes. Such question has nothing to do
with the scholar discipline of history, for history does not recognize such
thing as “what if”, rather it recognizes that there are incidents that took
place and which had beginnings and courses and produced results; those results should
be discussed and interpreted to take lessons from them in order to benefit the
present and establish for the future.
What is left for Nasser is his pure Egyptian composition;
meaning simplicity, spontaneity, sense of humor and assuming burdens. And before
and after all this, his continuous strong feeling of dignity and pride, and
consequently connecting those traits to the national sovereignty and people.
What is left for Nasser is his outstanding ability to
respond to challenges. The bigger and tougher the challenge is, the stronger
the response. There are tens of situations and incidents confirming that taking
into consideration that the challenges were not only foreign, like the challenge
of old occupation, the Zionist enemy, modern imperialist colonization,
challenge of keeping the Nile flooding, challenge of dismantling the Arab nation
and challenge of fighting reactionary powers in the region; those which used
religion in fighting nationalism and Arab-nationalism, all those and more were
foreign challenges facing him. However, there were also domestic challenges that
were not less serious, like the challenge of national independence, challenge
of achieving comprehensive planned independent development, challenge of
fighting poverty, ignorance and diseases, challenge of thwarting attempts
fueling doctrinal and sectarian strife, challenge of standing against powers
opposing change, challenge of building a strong national army… in general, the
challenge of achieving renaissance and defending the country.
In response to all those challenges, he adopted
policies and made achievements that some of them were recorded in the
international history like the High Dam which is internationally considered as the
most important construction project in the twentieth century.
What is left for Nasser are the millions of Egyptians
who realized that their personal dignity is connected to their country’s
dignity and to their right in having life; having food, water, health services,
education, knowledge, culture, art and work, in addition to hundreds of
thousands of engineers, doctors, technical professionals, lawyers, accountants,
teachers and many others who graduated from the universities spread nationwide
and who were the makers of renaissance and messengers of our beloved Egypt to
its Arab nation and African continent.
What is left for Nasser are his endeavors to stand up
for the rights of the people of Egypt in all directions; what is more important
and comprehensive is his ability to dream; that was what distinguished and pushed
him to achieve what he achieved and then leave our world while he was only 52; his
dream of a liberated country, free citizen and a united Arab nation expanding
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, dream of a third world liberated
from colonization, subordination to major international powers and
under-development, dream of an international world based on justice and mutual
respect among nations; dream of a balanced human who knows how to satisfy his conscience
and make balance between his mind, soul, feelings and body, that’s why Egypt’s
soft power grew exponentially in cinema, theater, folkloric arts, singing,
music, and opera and operetta as well.
If we knew in details what is left for Nasser, we
would definitely know why he, represented in his method, vision and dream,
became a standard model residing in people’s conscience, as one sees them
connecting their reality to what was in Nasser’s dream. We would also know why the
masses still raise his picture and chant his name at every big political event,
not only in Egypt but in many countries all over the world from Palestine to
Latin America.
Based upon all that, one can understand the ferocity practiced
against his character, method, dream, history and achievements as if the man is
still alive; such ferocity by those whose only sacred thing is gaining profits
and accumulating fortunes even if it was dirty money made from corruption and exploiting
the efforts of workers, peasants and employees, to the extent that those bunch
considered conspiring with the occupier and aggressor an acceptable behavior
even if the result is destroying the whole country and threatening its
security, safety and future of its generations.
The identity of those who conspired and cooperated first
with the British occupation, then worked in media institutions of the aggressor
in 1956 war and even celebrated the victory of the Zionist enemy in 1967 and
some of them prayed to God thanking him for what happened, is no longer a
secret.
Finally but not last, this conflict will last as long
as there are goals that were, are and will always be present in our national
agenda; such as defending our national sovereignty and independence, fighting
the aggressors either foreign or terrorism on the domestic level, and not
ending by achieving social equality which is the pearl of all dreams of
millions of people.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published in
Al Ahram newspaper on January 15, 2018.
To see the original article,
go to:
#alahram #ahmed_elgammal
#Gamal_Abdel_Nasser #Egypt #renaissance_dream
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