It would not be useful to delve into the debate over the footage (the “videos”) of what happened in front of the Maspero building, because every side shows the scenes that support its point of view and back its claims – such that the same particular scene has been interpreted by some as evidence of the Copts attacking army soldiers, while others have relied on it to prove that the army assaulted the Copts' (peaceful) demonstration! Everyone became preoccupied with searching for how the incidents had taken place, and what each side had done while they were taking place, while few cared to answer the question: why did those events take place to begin with? But more importantly, no party admitted to having made a mistake, which arouses fears that the matter will repeat itself at the first occasion, not just because the sectarian issue strongly imposes itself, or because the Coptic issue is in need of solutions, but also because every party will walk the same path it has walked before, because they all believe that they have behaved soundly and that only the other parties make mistakes. And if former President Hosni Mubarak failed to have his son inherit power, he succeeded in having many Egyptians inherit the culture of not apologizing, most prominently the representatives of the Egyptian people in the political elite, and in fact in the religious elite as well. Thus every party is behaving after the Revolution as if it was alone on the stage, with no consideration for the interests of other parties, and for the fact that the other shades of the political and religious spectrum have to accept that its shade should prevail alone! This kind of behavior provides those who seek to stir up trouble with countless opportunities to pour more oil on the fire. Thus heartbreaking pictures of the tragedy are distributed, only to later be revealed to have been fake, or old, or of events that took place in different countries. And thus satellite television channels afford broad spaces to adopt the point of view of this or that side, and to increase the rate of provocation, in order to ensure more hours of broadcast, even at the expense of the blood of innocents. There is no way here to list the dozens of catastrophes perpetrated by the former regime, the effects of which could have been overcome had officials come out and offered their apologies to this or that segment of the population. Indeed, the regime had many opportunities, after the Revolution erupted, to save itself, but it wasted them all by being too late, by misinterpreting what was taking place, or by being too obstinate to admit to its mistakes. Thus its punishment was to be toppled. Yet there is an increasing space for detecting mistakes into which have fallen the parties active on the Egyptian scene, among them the Military Council, Doctor Essam Sharaf's government, the political elite and the religious institutions – mistakes which have caused the impact of the problems of the transitional period to increase for everyone, which has also resulted in missing opportunities to overcome some of its effects. Had the mistaken party taken the initiative of apologizing for its mistakes, the other parties would have calmed down and accepted the apology, and the Revolution would have settled down. It had been imagined that the Military Council's press conference would begin with an apology for a mistake committed by soldiers, which led to victims falling among the demonstrators, and the announcement of an investigation being carried out within the army to clarify the reasons for the mistake and to hold accountable those who were negligent or caused the incident. Then the leaders of the Council would have explained what happened as they did, even if the stories of attacks having taken place against the army proved true. Indeed, apologizing and admitting to one's mistakes is a duty in order to overcome the crisis, because the army is simply the side assumed to be stronger in terms of numbers and armament, even if there was a tremendous number of protesters, if some of them carried weapons or sharp objects, or if the army's soldiers did not have live bullets in their rifles. The same is true of all other parties: none of them recognized having made a mistake, and therefore none of them apologized! Moreover, the collapse of alliances between political parties over the coming parliamentary elections represents yet another example of obstinacy, of “smugness”, and of the desire to leap over the rights of others. Indeed, the legitimate struggle between political forces competing for seats in parliament has reached the extent of wanting to exclude others, which confirms that the ills of the former regime have been transmitted to the rulers of the future. As for the pledges taken by each political faction to seek consensus, participate and cooperate in building a modern state, not a single faction, party or movement will dare admit that they were mere words that were appropriate for a certain phase – a phase that has passed to be replaced by another in which there is no way but to be possessive, and justifications are always ready… and there is absolutely no way to admit to a mistake that would call for an apology… Indeed, those people do not in the first place know of the virtue of apology.
