Amr Bey told the general what had happened and the general scowled. “Strange story,” he said. “Anyway, take time off until you’re better.” But Amr Bey smiled and with his left hand produced a piece of paper that he placed on the desk in front of the general. The general read it quickly and then cried out in disapproval, “What’s all this? Have you gone mad, Amr? Would anyone leave State Security?”
“I implore you, sir.”
“Give yourself a chance to think, my son. You’re one of the best officers in the department and you have a great future. Can you tell me why you want to leave the department?”
At that point, without speaking, Amr Bey held his bloody right hand in front of the general’s face.
Democracy is the solution.
March 7, 2010
Why Was the General Screaming?
The young men and women who came out to demonstrate in the streets of Cairo on April 6 did not break the law or do anything wrong. They only wanted to express their opinion. They were demanding freedom, justice, dignity, fair elections, the abolition of the emergency law, and constitutional amendments to ensure equal opportunities for all Egyptians to stand in elections. All of these demands are just and legitimate. So why were these youngsters abused and beaten, dragged off and detained? No respectable state in the world punishes its citizens in this brutal way just for expressing their opinions. What happened on April 6 will remain a shameful stain on the reputation of the Egyptian regime forever. The youngsters were surrounded by a cordon of riot police, who pressed in on them until they almost suffocated them, then the karate units of the police pounced on them, hitting the demonstrators on the head and body with thick sticks. I have never seen such barbaric methods used on protesters, other than by the Israeli army against Palestinian demonstrators during the Intifada. Why do Egyptians attack fellow Egyptians with such brutality? The young people were screaming and some had such serious injuries that the asphalt was covered with their blood, but the beatings did not stop.
Finally a man in his fifties appeared, well-built, swarthy, and dressed in civilian clothes, with a large prayer mark on his forehead. The man, addressed as “General” by the policemen, gave orders that the girls be taken out of the cordoned area one by one. “Bring me that whore over there,” he shouted to his assistants in a voice like thunder. Immediately the men rushed off to drag the girl away from her colleagues. The youngsters fought hard to defend the girl, protecting her with their bodies and shielding her from assault, but the police attacked with such ferocity and inflicted so many injuries that in the end their resistance flagged and the police managed to remove the girl. They pushed her from behind and hit her until she was standing facing the general, who greeted her with a barrage of vulgar insults. He raised his hand and slapped her several times, then grabbed her hijab and removed it. Then he took hold of her hair and dragged her along the ground, kicking her as hard as he could as he went until he threw her toward a group of policemen, who kept hitting, slapping, and kicking her until finally they dumped her, a total wreck, in the police wagon. The image of the general attacking girls in the same way appears in all the video material that escaped confiscation by the police.
But I noticed something strange: while the general was attacking the girl and dragging her off, his face was contorted and he was incessantly screaming. He was making strange rasping, guttural noises as though it were he who was in pain, and I wondered: Why is the general screaming? It’s obvious why the girl would scream when she was being savaged in the streets within view of all the passersby. But the general who was hitting her, why would he scream? He was strong, powerful, and in complete control of the situation. He had everything in his favor while the poor girl had nothing. His word was law and he could do what he wanted with the girl: hit her, slap her, drag her along the ground. Even if he killed her no one would punish him. So why was he screaming? In war a fighter might scream out loud in battle to frighten the enemy, but the general was not at war and he was not facing an armed enemy. He was attacking a defenseless girl who was almost dying of fright, pain, and a sense of humiliation and shame. Was the general screaming as he attacked the girl in order to overcome the reservations of his subordinate police officers, some of whom might refuse to assault an innocent Egyptian girl who had not committed a crime or broken the law? Was he screaming in order to forget that his real duty was to protect this girl from assault rather than to assault her himself?
Was he screaming in order to forget that this girl, whose hijab he had removed and whom he was dragged along the ground, was just like his own daughter, whom he no doubt loves and cherishes and whom he would never allow to be insulted or harmed? If his own daughter had a difficult exam or just had a simple cold, the general would not be able to sleep without checking on her. Was he screaming because when he graduated from the police academy thirty years ago, he had dreams of upholding the law and justice and swore to protect the dignity, lives, and property of Egyptians, and then little by little he had been drawn into protecting the Mubarak regime, until in the end his mission was to abuse girls?
Perhaps he was screaming because he is religious, or at least considers himself religious, because he prays and fasts regularly, even performs the dawn prayer on time whenever he can, has gone on the hajj and on the lesser pilgrimage more than once, and has had the prayer mark on his forehead for years from all his prostrations. Perhaps he was screaming because he knows that he is over fifty and his death may come at any moment. He might die in a traffic accident or he might be struck down by some serious disease, or even, as happens with many people, he might go to bed one night in the best of health and in the morning his wife tries to wake him up and finds him dead. The general knows for sure that he will die and will stand before God, who will hold him to account, and on that day neither President Mubarak nor Interior Minister Habib al-Adli will be able to do him any good, nor even the prosecutor general, who has been shelving all the complaints against him for lack of sufficient evidence. On the great Day of Judgment, everyone will abandon him—the bodyguards, the informers, the riot police, the officers, his friends, his wife, and even his children. On that day his general’s rank will do him no good, nor his ties to senior officials, nor his wealth. On that day he will stand as naked as the day his mother gave birth to him, weak and defenseless. He will tremble in fear at the judgment of the Creator.
On that day God will ask him, “Why did you assault a poor Egyptian girl who could not defend herself? Why did you hit her, drag her along the ground, and abuse her in public? Would you like it if someone did that to your daughter?” What will the general say then? He cannot tell God he was carrying out orders. Orders will not absolve him or spare him God’s punishment for the crimes he has committed, despite the general’s authority and influence, despite the tens of thousands of riot police and thugs and police karate units that, like vicious trained dogs, await one signal from him before they beat and abuse innocent people. In spite of all this overwhelming power, the general felt deep inside as he assaulted the girl that he was weak and wretched and unable to control himself and that little by little he was being drawn into committing horrendous crimes in order to protect President Hosni Mubarak and his family.
The general felt that the girl he was beating was stronger than him because she was defending truth and justice, because she was innocent, noble, pure, and brave, and because she loved her country and would defend it with all her strength. As they dragged her along the ground, kicking her with their boots, she did not beg, or call for help, or appeal to the brutes. She was chanting: “Freedom, freedom, long live Egypt, long live Egypt.” And at that point the general had a strange feeling. He realized that he could kill this girl, tear her body apart if he wanted, but he could never defeat her, or humiliate her, or break her will. He felt that despite all his power he was defeated and that it was this poor abused and violated girl who would triumph. At that point all the general could do was scream.
Democracy is the solution
.
April 12, 2010
Should We Start with Moral Reform
or Reforming the System?
Two illustrative incidents from my student days come to mind in discussing professional standards, morality, and corruption. The first incident occurred when I was studying dentistry at Cairo University. At the end of the year we had to take theoretical and practical exams, followed by an oral examination that was the magical gateway to favoritism and the misuse of influence. I remember that a fellow student in my year, a woman by the name of Hala, had a father who was a professor of medicine at a provincial university and so was friends with most of the professors responsible for the exams. As luck would have it, I went to the oral examination on physiology together with Hala and another woman student. The professor asked me a barrage of difficult questions, which I managed to answer. He then grilled the other woman with abstruse questions, and she stumbled and could not answer. When it was Hala’s turn the professor looked at her, sitting next to me, and said sympathetically, “How are you, Hala? Send my regards to your father.” He then told her she could leave. I came out of the appointment feeling humiliated and wronged, because I had passed a difficult exam while the professor had not asked Hala any questions at all. When the results came out, Hala and I were graded ‘excellent’ in physiology; in my case because I gave good answers during the exam and in Hala’s case because she sent the professor’s regards to her father.
The other incident took place some years later at the University of Illinois while I was studying for a master’s degree. The statistics professor was a white racist woman who hated Arabs and Muslims, and although I completed the final exam with no mistakes I was surprised to find that she gave me a ‘very good’ grade, instead of the ‘excellent’ I deserved. I complained to one of my American colleagues and she advised me to read the university regulations and to make an appointment to see the professor. I read the regulations and discovered that students who felt unfairly treated in exams had the right to submit a complaint against the professor, in which case the university would appoint an external group of professors to review the exam paper. If the student’s complaint was unjustified the university would not take any measures against him (the aim of that provision was to make sure that students were not too intimidated to complain), and if the student’s complaint was justified the result would be changed at once and a formal warning would be sent to the professor responsible. If a professor received three such warnings, his or her contract would be automatically invalidated. I went to see the bigoted professor and after discussing it with her I was certain she had treated me unfairly. Calmly, I told her that in accordance with the university regulations I wanted to photocopy the answer paper because I was going to submit a complaint against her. This sentence had a magical effect: she paused for some moments and then said she needed to review the paper carefully. When I went back to her at the end of the day, as she had requested, the secretary told me she had adjusted my grade to ‘excellent.’
After that I thought long about the significance of these two incidents. The bigoted American professor was just as unfair as the Egyptian professor, but she failed to have her way because the regulations at the University of Illinois protect the rights of students and punish anyone who treats them unfairly, regardless of rank. The regulations at Cairo University, on the other hand, give professors full authority over students, so they can do what they like with impunity. The factor that brings about justice in any society is the application of the law against powerful people rather than against the small. What happened to me at Cairo University is what happens right across Egypt. Many people obtain things they do not deserve as a result of their personal connections or their ability to pay bribes, or because the security agencies or the ruling party have selected them. But most Egyptians live in inhumane conditions—poverty, disease, complete despair about the future—and the law in Egypt is usually applied only against the weak, who cannot escape it or obstruct it. The junior civil servant caught taking a few hundred Egyptian pounds in bribes is tried and thrown in jail, whereas nobody touches the senior civil servant who takes commissions worth millions. Given this widespread injustice, it is pointless to urge people to act ethically without changing the corrupt system that pushes them to be dishonest.
Some years ago a well-known television program on a government channel invited me to talk about the phenomenon of bribes in Egypt, and I was surprised when the presenter portrayed bribery as merely a moral failing caused only by a flawed conscience and weak faith. I told the presenter that what he said is true but that it is not enough to explain bribery, which cannot be studied without discussing the level of wages and prices. He strongly objected and ended the interview early. In fact what that presenter did is the same as what all government officials do: portray ethics as invariable, completely divorced from social and political circumstances. Generally they attribute Egypt’s current tribulations to the poor morals of Egyptians themselves. Perhaps we can now understand why President Mubarak is always accusing Egyptians of being lazy and unproductive. Such thinking ignores the fact that productivity in any country requires a good education, equal job opportunities, and salaries that allow a decent standard of living. All these tasks President Mubarak’s regime has completely failed to accomplish for Egyptians.
In the same context we can now understand the recent behavior of Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr, who is already infamous as the president of Ain Shams University who brought armed thugs to beat up students protesting on campus. Badr, accompanied by journalists and television cameras, has been making surprise visits to schools, where he abuses teachers who are absent or turn up late. He appears on camera lecturing teachers on the virtues of discipline, as if God created some good teachers who are disciplined and other teachers who are evil and lax by nature and who need to be severely punished until they learn to be disciplined. This perverse logic ignores the fact that government schools have no supplies, no equipment, and no laboratories, and the teachers receive such derisory salaries that they have to beg from those who pay them for private lessons or look for a second job so that they can provide for their own children. The minister does not want to see or hear all this because it would imply that he has a duty to carry out real reform, which he is unable to do. So he just lectures us on morals in isolation from any other considerations.
The same logic has been adopted by minister of Health Hatem al-Gabali, who is one of the giants of private sector investment in medicine in Egypt, as well as the man most responsible for public hospitals deteriorating to the point that instead of treating and caring for the poor their function is to finish them off and send them to the next world. Amid this decline, the minister, always accompanied by journalists and cameras, makes surprise visits to public hospitals and appears on the front pages of newspapers berating doctors who come in late and lecturing them on a doctor’s humanitarian vocation. Of course he overlooks the fact that under his fine supervision these hospitals lack the most basic medical facilities, that rats and various insects are making merry throughout them, and that these wretched doctors are not paid enough to provide for their children and have to work day and night in private clinics to earn in a full month what His Excellency the minister earns from his private hospitals in minutes.
Appealing for moral reform in isolation from political reform, besides being naïve and unproductive, prevents a clear understanding of the situation and distracts people from the real reasons for decline. We cannot ask people to do their duty when they do not enjoy the most basic rights. We cannot hold people accountable until we provide them with a minimum of justice. I am not trying to justify corruption and I know there is always a category of outstanding people who are immune to corruption, however bad things get. But the morality of most people is influenced by the system that governs them. When someone senses justice it brings out the best human traits in him, and by the same token if he feels wronged or desperate then he is liable to be immoral and aggr
essive toward others. However eloquent our sermons may be, we will not wipe out prostitution until we wipe out poverty and we will never get rid of bribery and corruption until we set up a fair system that gives everyone his due and punishes wrongdoers, however powerful and influential they may be. Political reform is the first step forward and everything else is a waste of time and effort.
Democracy is the solution.
April 26, 2010
Are Freedoms Inseparable?
This is an important issue. A group of lawyers in Egypt recently filed a lawsuit in favor of confiscating the book, A Thousand and One Nights, on the grounds that it contains obscenities. Obviously these lawyers have never read the classics, as most classical works contain graphic details of relations between men and women, including Kitab al-aghani (The Book of Songs) by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, Kitab al-imta’ wa-l-mu’anasa (The Book of Enjoyment and Conviviality) by Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, and others. Even al-Jahiz (781–869 CE), the undisputed master of Arabic prose, wrote a famous epistle entitled “Mufakhara bayna ashab al-ghilman wa ashab al-jawari” (Debate between Owners of Concubines and Owners of Ephebes), in which a man who likes young boys has a discussion with a man who likes women. The work contains some obscenities but remains a beautiful and exquisite literary text. Censoring the great Arabic literary heritage opens the gates of hell to destroying and mutilating it. We must preserve our great heritage as it is. Even if we print expurgated texts that can be taught to adolescents and youngsters, the original texts must be maintained without any changes or deletions. That is my opinion and that is why I enthusiastically joined those defending freedom of literary expression against censorship and reactionary ideas.
On the State of Egypt Page 20