Let us catch our breath

I know that humans are more important than rocks as stated in God’s doctrine… that is what we were told in the Holy Quran: “They ask you about the sacred month - about fighting therein. Say, "Fighting therein is great [sin], but averting [people] from the way of Allah and disbelief in Him and [preventing access to] al-Masjid al-Haram and the expulsion of its people therefrom are greater [evil] in the sight of Allah. And fitnah is greater than killing“, verse 217 of al-Baqara Chapter.

Therefore, I am one of those who believe that the Zionist crime taking place right now in threatening Al-Aqsa mosque, changing its nature, or working to knock it down is not only targeted at Al-Aqsa mosque… in my opinion, thinking in this way helps the Zionists complete their full crime against the Palestinian people and against all the human legacy opposing racism, aggression, and occupation.

Now, one definitely wonders: why has the Zionist state taken this step of targeting Al-Aqsa mosque in this timing in specific when the public image of currents of political Islam started to fade and falsehood of their ideology unfolded… including those who claimed to represent enlightened political Islam… also when an international, regional, and Arab cooperation began to stand against the Islamist terrorism and fight it as we see right now?

Why in this timing in specific has the Zionist state fueled this issue in particular that leads to reviving the Islamist argument saying that Al-Aqsa mosque – first Qibla to which Muslims used to turn at prayers, second holiest mosque, and place where Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him, set off on his Night Journey of Isra and Mi’raj – is in danger?

I believe the answer is clear… we can start by saying that the Zionist state was not away from the establishment and reinforcing of that current so that the Arab nation and countries can fall into the mire of sectarian, doctrinal, and religious strife or Fitna… such a gloomy and deep mire where nations and peoples before fell into and kept fighting for hundreds of years until they wasted their energy and squandered their resources as known from history.

We can also relate this to what those Islamist terrorist groups became after the strikes they received in Egypt on the hands of the Egyptian army and police and due to the vigilance of its people… or in other Arab countries that stood alone or through international coalitions against this terrorism… and so a rescue scheme had to be drawn up for those groups so that they can remarket their ideology once again under the pretext saying: stop targeting the Islamic groups and go fight the Zionist state that does what it does to the holy Aqsa.

The answer could also be that the Zionist state means to embarrass Egypt in specific and put its regime and government in a difficult situation as what would be said and publicized for politically and in media is that the regime in Egypt has to take a decisive practical stance against the Israeli actions and must not just condemn them or call for restraint… and of course this practical stance requires giving the chance for the terrorist groups in Sinai to do what they can against the Zionist state… and that the Egyptian government should not only postpone any disagreement with the Islamist group Hamas, but also support it in every possible way including supplying it with arms so that it can take action against the Zionists and, in doing so, reduce the pressure over Al-Aqsa mosque.

There could be other more accurate interpretations than what I go for… but what I want to say here is that we – as civil powers in the Egyptian street in specific and the Arab one in general – should once again handle the conflict as it should be; a conflict between the right of independence and liberation against aggression and occupation… a conflict between the will of people seeking development and welfare and rejecting violence and war… against an aggressive colonial racist settlement movement which managed through aggression to occupy lands that do not belong to it and to seek support from its international colonial back in order to practice more aggression and keep flouting the humanitarian norms, international laws, and tens of resolutions of the United Nations (UN) and international organizations.

We have to catch our breath after being exhausted in engaging with political Islam currents and terrorist criminals… we were also consumed out of discussing issues it is time now to put an end to and take lessons from… atop of these issues is the political movement in Egypt since the 1919 revolution to July, 1952 revolution… and from July, 1952 to January, 2011 revolution… as going into arguments over disputed matters will do no good and will only increase the gap between constituents of the Egyptian mentality.

After catching our breath and having a careful look over the region’s map, we will find that the Zionist aggression is getting stronger… it has also found support in the mire of sectarian, doctrinal, and religious conflict we fell into… such support made the Zionist enemy stronger and allowed it to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, however it wants fearing no Islamic or Arab reaction.

I believe we should relate what is happening to Al-Aqsa mosque to the essence upon which the Arab-Zionist conflict is based; a conflict between national liberation and racist settlement colonialism… including the intention of that colonialism to eradicate the cultural and civilization fundamental constituents of the country it occupies… since this conflict was and shall not be religious or doctrinal in any way.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on July 26, 2017.

To see the original article, go to:

http://ahmadelgammal.blogspot.com.eg/2017/07/blog-post_25.html

#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #alaqsa_mosque #political_islam #Palestine #Israel #occupation #colonialism #Egypt #history

Our immune system… Egyptian patriotism ordeal

Dr. Gamal Hassan, the psychiatry medicine consultant in the UK and distinguished Egyptian novelist, has disagreed with me over the harms that hit our Egyptian immune system. I mentioned some of these harms in previous articles regarding how such extremist terrorist Cancer, called muslim brotherhood, spread through our Egyptian society.

She said: “Dear friend… let me disagree with you, despite your accuracy in describing the harms you listed before; I believe the other side of the chaos we witness these days is our resistance to survive the upheaval that is hitting the whole world due to corrupt souls of mankind on all levels. This is only the Egyptian episode of this series. Remember how Egyptians turned the June, 5 1967 defeat into perseverance in June, 9 and 10 of the same year and through the war of attrition until the great victory in October, 6 1973. Hope is born out of pain. We have hope in God. Hope exists as long as God exists, and God is eternal”. These were Dr. Gamal Hassan’s words.

I agree with her. Despite the harms that hit our Egyptian immune system, especially what affected its cultural and human existence in the core, I believe our beloved country possesses all resistance and renaissance factors.

It’s what Egyptians did throughout their history; they resisted, as deterioration and decline have hit our country throughout Egypt history; ancient, middle, modern, and contemporary. And if a general equation is to represent and predict movement of our Egyptian history, it will be a sine wave signal fluctuating between deterioration and renaissance. But, at that time, the nation was able to face these challenges and stand against such deterioration. In this article, we will continue talking about our Egyptian immune system by writing about resilience factors and our ability to start over.

What Dr. Hassan said about June, 5 defeat and what later followed when Egyptian people resisted and fought bravely until October, 6 victory was achieved, goes directly in the heart of what I said before. As there is great difference between harm caused by a sudden hit with a big club that keeps you paralyzed for a period of time, and other harm caused by cancer stealthily sneaking into your blood and bones until it takes control of all your body. The latter is a malignant disease that keeps eating your healthy cells unceasingly until it’s too late to recover. That’s why we were able to resist after the defeat; our Egyptian national immune system was still functioning well; its ability to resist and fight was represented in our ardent patriotic will. But later our ability to resist weakened because harm this time was caused by cancerous cells that spread through the Egyptian body itself; those malignant cells that took command of our country until they came to power!

Another major harm that targeted our collective immune system was the profoundly-misleading mix between reaching a solution to the Palestinian cause against the Hebrew state and colonial Zionist occupation, and destroying the geographical, historical, cultural and civilized constituents of our Egyptian patriotism. The concept behind this is that all that may contradict with such approach to deal with the Zionists has to be exterminated and is considered against free thinking and economic interests necessities governed by regional and international balance of powers. Such concept backs the Hebrew state to be the most powerful state in the region. In this way, gaining satisfaction and approval of the so-called state became the golden gate for the heart and soul, and treasury as well, of the USA.

In this context, terms of patriotism, nationalism, Arab nation, third world, and global liberation movement were mocked. Not only were these terms mocked as definitions, but as concepts as well, such concepts that played a role we may disagree about how important it was in our country’s history, but it did exist. Those who “committed” such mix went far in attacking others and even widened their circles of influence until they became in control of some media and journalistic outlets. People reacted to such diverged national stances by repulsion and so the public opinion was divided, clearing the way for the extremist terrorist religion-dressed cancer to pass through our social depth.

That worked well for the benefit of the extremist religious perspective that has no definition for homeland in its dictionary. In their opinion, their religion is homeland, Quran is the constitution; and legacy of al-Banna[1], Qutb[2], al-Mawdudi[3], al-Albani[4], Ibn Taymiyyah[5], and others are their doctrine and nothing else.

If we added to all the above-mentioned the deteriorated education system; cinema, theater, and TV drama poor works and low production; absence of popular cultural centres; and civil society communities and non-governmental organizations funded by parties aiming at dismantling Egypt and hitting its national compositions in the core, such organizations and groups that went wild and became stronger than the central state in many fields, we would realize the tragic ordeal we have now.

Challenges like foreign invasion and occupation of our country or any other Arab state, with the Palestinian cause in the heart of all this, have been great stimuli of our Egyptian will to react and resist in all battle fields. But the enemy became a friend, and then an ally, and later a master that has the right to grant and deny through the USA gate.

And so, one finds himself facing a great challenge; that is searching for our lost Egyptian immune system and inquiring how to reactivate it in order to work as usual.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on March 3, 2016.

To see the original Arabic version, go to:

http://www.ahram.org.eg/News/131834/4/483055/%D9%82%D8%B6%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A1/%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%B2%D9%86%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B9%D9%89-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%86%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%

#Al-Ahram#Ahmed-Elgammal#immune_system#Egypt#cancer#muslim_brotherhood#usa#israel#Palestine#palestinian_cause#challenge#zionism#occupation#Arabs#Arab_nation#third_world#global_liberation_movement#nationalism#concepts#hebrew_state#middle_east#gamal_hassan#Egyptian_history#october_6_1973#june_5_1967#resistance#resiliance#hope#victory

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[1] Hassan al-Banna: (Arabic: حسن البنا) (14 October 1906 – 12 February 1949) founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

[2] Sayyid Qutb: (Arabic: سيد قطب) (9 October 1906 – 29 August 1966) was a leading member of the Egyptian muslim brotherhood. Qutb is considered to be responsible for the extremist ideology adopted by the muslim brotherhood.

[3] Al-Mawdudi: (Arabic: أبو الأعلى المودودي) (25 September 1903 – 22 September 1979), was an Indian-Pakistani islamist . He strove not only to revive Islam as a renewer of the religion, but to propagate "true Islam", a remedy for the weakness from which Islam had suffered over the centuries. He believed that politics was essential for Islam and that it was necessary to institute sharia and preserve Islamic culture from what he saw as the evils of secularism, nationalism, and women's emancipation. (Source: Wikipedia)

[4] Al-Albani: (Arabic: محمد نصر الدين الألباني) (1914 – October 2, 1999) was an Albanian Islamic scholar who specialized in the fields of hadith and fiqh. He is recognized as one of the leading figures in Salafism. (Source: Wikipedia)

[5] Aḥmad ibn Taymiyyah (Arabic: ابن تيمية) known as Ibn Taymiyyah (22 January 1263 - 26 September 1328) was an Islamic scholar, theologian and logician. He lived during the troubled times of the Mongol invasions, much of the time in Damascus. He was a member of the school founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and is considered by his followers, along with Ibn Qudamah, as one of the two most significant proponents of Hanbalism. Ibn Taymiyyah sought the return of Sunni Islam to what he viewed as earlier interpretations of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.(source: Wikipedia)