The Reckoning

Sometimes I read my posts of the early revolution days and laugh, and at other times I read them and feel sorrowful, but for sure it was an exceptional, albeit costly, learning experience, not just for me, but for the current generation of my fellow countrymen. We saw dreams rise and fall before our eyes, something that not many people in the world did in their lifetimes; most people live and die with their big national dreams staying the same, just dreams, without materialising into facts. Some say that whole lifetime experiences that normally span several decades were compressed into two and half years, the adolescent ambitions, the realization of the big gap between dreams and reality and the discrepancy between the future plans of each party forming a coalition, and the disillusionment of witnessing dreams turning into nightmares.

Sometimes I blame myself for getting carried away with the revolutionary wave and the hopeful spirit like that, and think that I should have known better, but then I recall how all the country’s writers and intellectuals shared in the sweeping euphoria of those days. It was rather foolish to hope one day that democracy and progressiveness could be achieved without secularism. Me, out of everyone, should have known better. There were signs that many of us deliberately ignored during the early days and decided to go through with the revolutionary spirit. This proved costly, and all of us paid the price, some more than others. Of course there are the sole winners, the victorious followers of certain political/religious ideology who ended up achieving what they have been planning for years, these reaped what they, and their allies, sowed for years and decades and their political shrewdness during the transition period proved much superior to the naivety and gullibility of the civil secular parties. It is even questionable that these civil parties, dominated mostly by the left-wing and Nasserists, would have been much better if they reached power.

I can't believe that my response, during the early days of the uprising, to the question of what will happen next, was that I don't know and I don't care, and that I despised those who sought clear future plans. How I was unaware of the monster in the waiting, a monster who knows exactly what it wants and sets realistic goals and works towards achieving it, is beyond me now. As much as I hate saying that, one of the people I used to make fun of was actually right when he said in the early days, that we two roads, a known and an unknown one, and that it was a no-brainer to refrain from the unknown one. I owe an apology to General Omar Soliman as well whom I despised, the same way I despised anyone who repeated his famous words "but when..". The basic definition of democracy is confused in the minds of most of my countrymen with fascism, and it was clear since the first referendum that things would go the way it went later, the way the realists expected early on. Now, seeing the outcome of all of that, regardless of who did what and what the influence of external powers was, I realise the price we, or rather poor Egyptians, paid for try to fix things by radical revolution rather than legitimacy. It is funny how I ridiculed in the past those who called for respecting legitimacy, the same way “reformist” at some point was considered a libel opposed to the “glorious” term of “revolutionary” is some mediums.

After 1 year it started to become clear, even for a determined revolutionist and proponent of radical change, half a year later it became so obvious and impossible to ignore. Considering the difference between reality and dreams became a must if we really care about common people that everyone likes to preach in their name and achieve political victories on their expense. The poor won’t eat our revolutionary slogans that won't lead anywhere. Fighting epic lost battles can be morally satisfying for our egos and the tempting attitude of “us against the world” can be quite seductive for many but the reality is that there are millions out there who are unwilling to have this fight and we had to respect and accept that, and accept as well that an overnight change was impossible expect with a huge cost that almost none of us and most certainly the common people we talk about are not willing to pay, and that gradual reform is the less painful alternative specially with the heavy burden of poverty and illiteracy we are carrying. It was also lamentable how some activists and many of us were dragged into ridiculing how common people cared about (trivial) things like food and security rather than freedom and democracy that global media and international journalists like to think and talk about, and like to believe that all Egyptians fight for them but that's not the truth, and it's equally fascist, like military and religious fascism, to decide on behalf of the people. 

So what did I learn? A lot, at times I feel I've grown up 20 years in these last two years which, despite being beneficial hopefully, can be sad in itself. Sometimes I catch myself missing these days when I believed dreams can come true for a nation, the same way we miss the days of childhood innocence and the days I believed in a god whom I asked solve my problems on my behalf.