All our eyes are on Egypt, and our hearts with its people. The crisis in Egypt is a general Arab disaster. The nation rises and falls as Egypt rises and falls, and no country or group of Arab countries can assume Egypt's leading role. Focusing on Egypt, however, makes us lose sight of the reality in other countries. For instance, Lebanon has taken the path towards a dead end, Iraq is still being violated and terrorism continues to assassinate its people every day, and Sudan has been partitioned in half. Peoples from North Africa to Yemen are rebelling, and al-Qaeda continues to murder Arabs and Muslims, a target much easier than ‘Jews and Crusaders'. And while we were waiting for deliverance to come from Egypt, we now pray for God to deliver it. I have known Egypt since the 1960s, i.e. before three quarters of its people knew it. To me, Egypt is in the same rank of importance as Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and every Arab country. Yet, I do not understand what is going on. My relationship with Egypt is as strong as that between its people and this country. However, there are limits to this. For example, I cannot give myself the right to rebel against or support the President of Egypt, as this is the right of the Egyptians alone. It is the people in the Nile Valley alone who decide whether to keep the president in his post or impeach him. I say that my fondness of Egypt does not give me what is the right of the Egyptians alone. Yet, an American thousands of miles away tells President Hosni Mubarak to step down ‘now', and then changes his mind the next day and tells him to stay for a few months. Who gave the United States the right to decide on behalf of the Egyptian people? Barack Obama told the president directly to step down, and sent him an envoy with a message to that effect. Vice President Joe Biden also reiterated the same request to Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, and so did the U.S. Army Chief of Staff to his Egyptian counterpart. All that is left now is for the taxi drivers in Washington D.C. to ask the taxi drivers in Egypt to oust the president. Now, the U.S. administration says that the immediate departure of Hosni Mubarak is a bad idea. I would like to be shown the mandate that gives the U.S. administration the right to make such requests. Even if U.S. aid to Egypt is given for the general good and for the sake of the Egyptian people, it does not mean that Egyptian sovereign decisions can be taken away. However, U.S. aid is not for charity or for the sake of the people. It is first and foremost directed at Israel to secure Egypt's continued adherence to the peace treaty, which denied Egypt full sovereignty over the Sinai. President Hosni Mubarak saw the results of Gamal Abdel Nasser's military and political adventurism, and saw how Anwar Sadat's role ended, and so decided to spare his country any more adventures. Perhaps his stance was wise and justified, but it was not popular. I can say that more than half of Hosni Mubarak's problems with his people are caused by the peace process and the relationship with Israel. He receives the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu in Sharm el-Sheikh while the Gaza Strip is under siege and the Egyptian people is boiling with anger. If peace had improved the living standard of poor Egyptians then that would at least have been an excuse for it. However, the population explosion along with endemic corruption and a rotten oligarchy pushed an overwhelming majority of Egyptians to seek change, a majority that has no ties what so ever with U.S. policy, except in that it questions American's intentions to the extent of loathing everything the U.S. represents in our countries. But it would not be ethical of me to say about Hosni Mubarak today, what I have not said in this column while he was still in power unchallenged. Instead, I will say today what I did not say about the president prior to the rebellion against him. Every Egyptian knows that Mubarak was one of the heroes of the October War, and that he was the commander of the Air Force that fought the enemy, made the crossing of the canal possible, and whitewashed the shame of 1967when airplanes were destroyed while still on the tarmac. However, few of the Egyptians know that Hosni Mubarak was also one of the heroes of the struggle against colonialism in the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, and was one of the Egyptian soldiers sent by Abdel Nasser to fight with the Algerians in their independence war against France. The Egyptian fighters were arrested in Morocco as they tried to sneak into Algeria across the border, and were sent back to Egypt. How many Egyptians know the other stories about the struggle of Hosni Mubarak? He is an Egyptian hero. However, this does not invalidate the fact that the voice of the people is above all else, and if the people decides that the president should leave then he must leave…in dignity, pride and reverence as he deserves. As I follow the developments in Egypt I fear that I may soon become bereaved by the entire nation. Then I remember the articles I wrote on the last day of last year and the first two days of this year, where I urged the Egyptian President to stand to the U.S. Congress, and reminisced about the glories of Egypt between 1800 and 1850. If the president had heeded my advice, by taking a simple international stance and enacting some domestic measures, things would have been different today. [email protected]
