On 24 January Egypt was rocked by a number of explosions all over. Al-Qaeda offshoot “Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis”, claimed responsibility, and the Ministry of Interior acted accordingly went and ambushed leftist activist Nazly Hussein at the Maadi Metro station on the 25th and charged her of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Nazly, she of the loose hair and who risked her life at the Itihadiya clashes, has spent the last two days in jail awaiting the investigations of the National Security apparatus to clear her of being a Muslim Brotherhood member (By the way, the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t have female members; it has a sister organisation of their housewives and daughters called the Muslim Sisterhood, and Nazly is neither wife nor a daughter of a member). The lawyer who went to her aid on the 25th got beaten up by the police and the taxi he arrived in was attacked and smashed. Friends who went to check on her were threatened with arrests.
I hope the population feels safer.
One cannot help but feel utter pity towards the general Egyptian population. I do not share the feelings of other 25 January people who are all on some self-pity and depression trip, mainly because it misses the bigger picture. It’s not, as one of the head-cheerleaders of the self-pity brigade has said, that “devastation is upon us”, with us meaning the “jan25ers”. Nope. I wish that was the only price that had to be paid, for we would pay it gladly. Devastation is upon all of Egypt, and none of those cheering now can see it coming.
Let’s do the math, shall we?
We have two distinct disenfranchised large groups of the population: the youth and the Islamists, and each are getting more radicalised every day, thanks to the antics of the Ministry of Interior. If you shoot a student in the head in the middle of his university, it’s bound to have an undesirable effect on his friends and fellow students, no matter what his political affiliations may be. Add to it that it is now obvious that the interior ministry intends to arrest anyone they dislike by charging them of being Muslim Brotherhood members (see also Mohamed Adel Fahmy), the jig will be up very quickly. The inevitable conclusion: generations upon generations of enemies of the interior ministry. Many of them are newly created and above regular suspicion of having an Islamist background. They should have fun anticipating their moves.
Add to those two our new Al-Qaeda franchise, and the current state of our borders, and you have the recipe for a security disaster. I have spent the last three days in the Red Sea, where I was invited for a meal of Sudanese lamb. How did they get Sudanese lamb? Well, from Sudan, without passing through any border check point. I was even invited to come to Sudan and play hopscotch on the borderline, because it is so unguarded. I am not kidding. And if you can get lamb through, you can get anything through. Have you noticed how advanced the explosives that the ABM are using? They are not homemade. On top of all this, we have the current government turning a blind eye to the Saudi funding of Salafis, again, because our current government needs Saudi money to survive.
I should stop fear-mongering though, since we might end up having “a very handsome man”- according to our great Prime Minister El-Beblawi- who might decide to run for president. If you follow the media, and the people who went down to Tahrir to celebrate on this 25 January, you would get the feeling that everyone wants him to run, and yet, he still hasn’t made up his mind. Maybe he is reconsidering the security logistics of his campaign and discovering that it will be impossible to secure in the current climate.
Either way, we wish all of those involved the best of luck, and I promise I won’t be upset as the country goes down the tubes as it will. You see, I am a firm believer in euthanasia, and those in charge and their support groups seem intent on having a group suicide session, which I believe to be their god-given right. Who will clean this mess on the long run though, I have no idea. Just let our innocent friends out and enjoy playing your war games.
