When Soldiers Oppress The Unarmed Egyptian Nation, One Should Say: Poor, Poor Egypt!

Published in December 10, 2016

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Firstly: lines from contemporary history:

1- This story has occurred in the 1990s and it pertains to an Egyptian male youth, and local newspapers at the time had published few vague details of it. This young man used to work in the KSA, and he brought his wife and offspring to live with him there. Like most Egyptians in the KSA, he lived in peace while avoiding all troublemaking to earn his living. This young man's Saudi boss at work insisted to be invited to a hearty Egyptian meal at his house. The young man feared he might lose his job in case of refusal, and he invited his Saudi boss to dinner. His Saudi boss came with four men along. The Egyptian wife prepared a very delicious dinner. The Saudi boss entered the kitchen alone to thank the wife, and he noticed her physical beauty and pretty face. Days later, the Saudi boss insisted to be invited again to dinner at the house of the Egyptian young man, but the latter refused as he doubted the intentions of his Saudi boss. The Egyptian young man was assigned to travel into a business trip abroad for two weeks. He travelled leaving his wife and children at his house in the KSA. The Saudi boss broke into the house of the Egyptian young man, during his absence, along with his four friends, and raped the wife before the eyes of her crying children. They had her photographed to threaten her of public scandal in case she would tell her husband or refuse to gratify them next time to the five of them. When the Egyptian young man returned to the KSA, the raped, shattered wife told him everything that happened. For two days, the Egyptian young man was lost in deep thought at the house, and then, he secretly sent his wife and offspring along with all his savings back to Egypt. Days later, he booked himself a flight ticket to Egypt, but before his travel back home, he invited his Saudi boss and the same four men to special dinner that he claimed his wife had prepared for them specially. They came and were murdered by the Egyptian young man. He closed the gate of his house that contain their corpses and returned to Egypt in the same very night to flee. The corpses reeked with nauseating odors, and the policemen broke open the door and investigations were done. The perpetrator was found out soon enough. The Saudi authorities issued orders to the former president Mubarak to hand over the Egyptian young man. The Egyptian State Security Apparatus arrested the Egyptian young man and handed him over in chains to the KSA, and the Saudi authorities had him beheaded!

2- An Egyptian father used to work inside the KSA in the 1990s, and his family resided there in a house, and his offspring went to school there as well. One fateful day, his young male child told him that the school principal raped him! The Egyptian father notified the police and demanded medical check for his child. This Egyptian father was flogged 80 times, as he was accused of slandering a Saudi school principal without a proof! At the time, we were working at the Egyptian Society for Enlightenment, and we launched a campaign to defend the wronged Egyptian father, and some newspapers published the story. The criminal cronies of the Mubarak regime defended the KSA and attacked the Egyptian father who dared to defend his poor son and to demand justice!    

3- An Egyptian young man – also in the 1990s – used to work in an oil-rich Gulf monarchy. A young girl of the royal family there saw him and fell in love with him, and when she desired to become his girl-friend or paramour, he did his best to avoid her, fearing the power and authority of the royal family. He tendered his resignation and returned home to Egypt to flee threats and entreaties of the princess. She followed him to Egypt and managed to convince him to marry her and she would accept to live in poverty with him in Egypt. He accepted her and they got married, and they lived in hiding (as if he committed a crime) within a poor district of Cairo, away from his native village. The royal family of her country searched for her everywhere until they knew her flight to Egypt to marry the Egyptian young man. The royal family of her country issued orders to Mubarak to find the Egyptian young man and to punish him as well as to force him to divorce the princess. The Egyptian State Security Apparatus arrested the family members of the Egyptian young man and tortured them as hostages. The Egyptian young man surrendered himself to the Egyptian authorities to save his family members. High-rank officials of the Egyptian State Security Apparatus received money gifts from the royal family that retrieved their princess, and  those officials had tortured the Egyptian young man because he dared to get married to a princess belonging to ''the masters'', after forcing him to divorce her, of course!

4- Egyptians working within the Gulf monarchies, especially the KSA, are the ones who built the renaissance of such countries, from Egyptians who worked as builders to those who worked as university professors there; most Egyptians who worked there suffered severe injustices. The Egyptian soldiers never interfered to help the wronged Egyptians who suffered injustices there within the Gulf monarchies, especially the KSA. The Saudi embassy in Cairo represents the Saudi authorities and not the Egyptian State. Both the Egyptian State and the Saudi embassy in Cairo despise Egyptians especially if they submitted any complaints! It is rumored that the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, during the reign of Mubarak, used to work for some time at the Saudi embassy.    

5- In 1999, there was fierce competition for the post of the UNESCO  General Secretary. Some international bodies nominated the Egyptian Dr. Ismail Serag-Eddine. The KSA nominated its former ambassador to Britain, the Saudi poet Ghazy Al-Qusaiby. There were other nominees from other Asian countries. Serag-Eddine was nominated and supported by tens of international figures and 30 Nobel laureates, and his main support came from his own qualifications, as his Ph.D. thesis obtained from Harvard University tackles a topic related to interests of the UNESCO. Serag-Eddine used to work within international institutions when he was nominated, and he was the vice-president of the International Bank. He authored and co-authored 45 books, and he obtained 22 honorary doctorates in economy, sciences, and arts from international universities. He was a member of many international academies. The Saudi poet-cum-ambassador was nothing compared to Serag-Eddine. The Saudi orders were issued to Mubarak to make Egypt support Al-Qusaiby and not Serag-Eddine. Hence, the Mubarak regime had to stand against the nomination of Serag-Eddine. At the time, we were among the leaders of the Ibn Khaldoun Center, Cairo. We arranged conferences to support Serag-Eddine. Sadly, the stance of the Mubarak regime caused the failure of Serag-Eddine to reach the post and he felt humiliated. A Japanese man was chosen for the UNESCO post. Suzan Mubarak, the First Lady, had to appease Serag-Eddine and silence him by appointing him as the President of Bibliotheca Alexandrina. 

6- Officials of the Egyptian State security Apparatus enjoyed the special authorities of the tyrant ruler Mubarak as per emergency law effective at the time, as Mubarak ruled Egypt by it for 30 years. At his era, no Saudi or Gulf monarchies had to issue orders to him; rather, it was the Saudi embassy in Cairo that issued orders to Mubarak and his men at the Egyptian State Security Apparatus. They were eager to please the KSA and they were rewarded handsomely by the Saudi authorities by rich gifts, fancy cars, and large sums of money. At first, we used to wonder why they sent for us so many times at their headquarters of the Egyptian State Security Apparatus at the time, located in the Cairo district named Lazoghly. We used to wonder at the number of fancy cars garaged there as well! Later on, we knew the source of their ill-gotten money; they used to please the KSA and act obsequiously to the Saudi embassy by terrorizing and interrogating us!     

7- Upon receiving Saudi orders, the Egyptian policemen started the third wave of arrest of Quranists in Egypt in 2007, arresting so many of Egyptian Quranists including our own brother Abdel-Latif. They were tortured within headquarters of the Egyptian State Security Apparatus in the Cairo district of Madinet Nasr. They were interrogated about how they perform fasting and prayers, as if they were being tested at Azharite secondary schools! Policemen and security guards were happy and eager to torture them as 'infidels' who deserve it, as they received luxurious meals at the expense of the Saudi embassy in Cairo. This was an act of revenge because of what we have written on our website: ahl-alquran.com, and it was apparent that the Saudi embassy was ruling Egypt especially regarding how to persecute Egyptian Shiites and Egyptian Quranists – in their homeland Egypt!  

8- Not all residents of Arabia – and not all residents of Egypt, Siberia, Alaska, and Mozambique – are devils or angels, but the military tyrants who oppress unarmed citizens are the real devils. 

Secondly: lines from ancient history:

1- Most Egyptian rulers in the past were military tyrants, and some were non-Egyptians, but Egypt during their reign reached the zenith of wealth, dignity, and high-stature stature, and those ruler were generous with everyone and never begged anything from anyone. 

2- Within the long, long history of Egypt, as we are expert in it as our specialty field, we assert here that Egypt witnessed Pharaoh-rulers who were very unjust and very tyrannical, and some made Egypt great and some made Egypt in suffer worse conditions. Yet, Egypt never suffered as much as it did by hands of Egyptian military rule of modern times; no previous tyrant or pharaoh begged from minor, dwarf foreign rulers. Egypt never knew rulers who were bribed to receive orders to torture and punish Egyptian innocent citizens – like Mubarak did. This is utter, unprecedented humiliation and disgrace of the lowest type! This has made Egypt  disgraced before the whole world!

3- The internet contains photos of Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud – founder and first king of the KSA – with his retinue bowing before King Farouk of Egypt. The internet contains photos of Hassan Al-Banna – the terrorist who founded the terrorist MB group in Egypt and elsewhere – kneeling to kiss the hand of Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud. There is a vast difference between both photos captured in one era: during the reign of King Farouk of Egypt.  

4- It is rumored that most military leaders who made the 1952 coup d'état in Egypt against King Farouk were MB members. When the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser disagreed with the MB members, he quelled, jailed, and oppressed them; he was poised to crush the KSA, but his endeavors failed because of the shrewd Saudi king, Feisal Al-Saud, who planned with the USA a devilish plot in order to trap Nasser into the quagmire of the 1967 War a.k.a. the Six-Day War. The KSA became the leader of Arabs within the Arab political scene after the burlesque theatrical show of an agreement and kiss-and-make-up between Nasser and Feisal in the Khartoum Conference. When the Saudi influence increased in Egypt, Feisal urged Nasser to appoint Sadat as his vice-president. Nasser never knew that when he did just that, he signed his death certificate! Many historians believe that Nasser was poisoned in 1970 so that the Saudi-Central-Intelligence spy/agent, Anwar Sadat, would ascend to power as the president of Egypt. Sadat made the Saudis act as if they were owning Egypt! Sadat tried to replace the KSA in its stature and vital strategic importance to the USA, and he submitted all his credentials to the USA. The USA made very good use of Sadat and manipulated him in Camp David Accords, and thus, Sadat lost all Arab support and he had to rebel against the Saudi control of him. eventually, the presence of Sadat within the presidency of Egypt became a burden to the USA, and the Americans had to submit to the Saudi pressure and planned the assassination of Sadat, plotting such TV-aired assassination in collaboration with Mubarak himself, who was Sadat's vice-president. Mubarak reached power in Egypt and learned these vital lessons: never to disobey the USA and the KSA and never to appoint a vice-president who might plan to overthrow or assassinate him.             

Thirdly: army of traitors:

1- The military tyrant in Egypt rule as per his whims and caprices, and in any case, he would readily use his armed forces and security forces against the people if they revolt against him. How come an unarmed peaceful people would dare to face tanks, planes, and special forces? There is no balance of power here at all; hence, the people had to acquiesce and suffer poverty, hunger, oppression, and humiliation, or else, to revolt and thus commit suicide within either civil strife or hunger revolt. 

2- We do not mean to imply that the whole army consists of traitors; rather, we only mean the high-rank leaders and generals who are military failures and corrupt within civil aspects. The military honor is to defend homelands and nations, not to occupy and invade them, not to buy with national money arms and weapons to kill the nation. This is a situation without medial position or in-between position: any military should be either a real nationalistic one whose creed is to defend the nation and homeland or it would be a traitor who invades the homeland and murder citizens. Within streets of Cairo, tanks and armored vehicles, etc. spread and terrorize citizens, as if Egypt is like Latin American republics. It is noteworthy that most governors are army officers and police high-rank officials; as if this is a militarization of the State. Does the military invade streets to frighten citizens so as to prevent them from gathering to demonstrate?! This is broad daylight oppression by a military that invades and occupies the homeland.   

3- After such utter humiliation, what is the result and upshot? Where is the regained high stature of Egypt within the international arena? Where is its pioneer position? Where is its youths and wealth? Where is its dignity? Where is its Nile River and fertile soil? Where is its scholars and scientists? Where is its Al-Azhar? Where is its renaissance and tolerance? We expect the worst when the military ruler uses armed forces to oppress Egyptians and rob their money, and then, the tyranny shamelessly begs for more money from the Gulf Monarchies!  

Lastly:

1- The Hejaz region (where Mecca is located) used to be ruled by Egypt for centuries, within the dynasties of Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Fatimids, Ayyubids, and the Mamelukes. Even after the Ottomans conquered Egypt and ended the Mameluke era, Egypt controlled fully the Hejaz region, especially when the Egyptian caravan reached Mecca annually with Kiswah (i.e., fine black silk cloth embroidered with gold) of the Kaaba and with money and food etc. to feed pilgrims and dwellers of both Mecca and Yathreb. When Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud conquered Hejaz shortly after committing massacres in other regions, he controlled Mecca in 1924. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram published on Thursday, 24^th of June, 1924, a piece of news that military combat occurred between Egyptian soldiers who guarded the Kiswah caravan and Saudi soldiers in Mecca. Typically, the Kiswah caravan used to enter Mecca and the Kaaba Sacred Mosque along with musicians to herald the Kiswah within an atmosphere of festivity. The Saudi soldiers who were mainly among the Najd Brothers fighters were so fanatic and extremist; they were the ones who conquered Mecca. They did not like the music and they deemed Egyptians of the caravan as polytheists. They attacked the Egyptian troops of the caravan, and the Egyptian soldiers defended themselves and killed consequently more than 20 Najd Brothers fighters. Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud was present, and he readily calmed everyone down and never thought for a moment to revenge by launching a military attack against Egypt. He never wrote a telegram, to protest against such effrontery committed by the Egyptian troops, to King Fouad, the King of Egypt and Sudan at the time, and father to King Farouk.           

2- This is why one should say: poor, poor Egypt!