Welcome to Egypt, 2014

From whichever angle you look at it, the situation in Egypt is unbelievable. It is unfathomable that three years after the Egyptian revolution, for which 1,000 martyrs paid with their lives, torture has become prevalent in our society. The re-emergence of torture not only constitutes a serious violation of human rights and dignity, but also marks the return of the Mubarak regime and the security state. It also keeps the revolution from going down in history as a significant mark of progress and marks a huge victory for the counter-revolution.

Nor does it make sense that people have grown accustomed to such violations which are now normal daily news items. What is even worse is that torture and killing are justified and celebrated by some citizens. The security state continues to deny that torture takes place despite the fact that eye-witness accounts are being published on social networking sites on a daily basis. Many of the “official” versions of events seek to spread falsehood about the victims whereas most of the accounts published online come from the victims themselves, their families and their lawyers, and many would not think to discount such evidence of state wrongdoing.

What is no less dangerous than torture, which is a crime against humanity in every sense of the word, are the online voices that no longer question or deny the state’s claims. Anyone who reads such comments made in response to accounts of torture, imprisonment or death sentences, will be shocked by the degree of brainwashing and lack of social consciousness; some people even claim that it is the victims of torture who violate the law and that death, torture and tyranny are deserved punishments that fit the alleged crimes.

This type of thinking brings to mind the Nazi ideology of 1940s Germany, in which no one blamed or questioned the regime for its belief in the superiority of the Aryan race and its attempt at the ethnic cleansing of the state. The problem lies in the fact that such blatantly racist ideology had many supporters in German society. We find ourselves facing a similar situation in that the revolution that was launched against tyranny in 2011 somehow paved the way for a quasi-Nazi movement in 2014 Egypt.

Ironically, the concept of abolishing the Other and accepting a policy that seeks to eradicate outsiders is promoted on a daily basis in a time when official political discourse claims that it does not seek to exclude anyone. The contradiction here lies in the fact that any group or organisation that affiliates itself with the authorities will not be excluded whereas those who oppose the regime’s vision are regarded as outsiders.

Surprisingly, the circle of those who support torture, hate speech and exclusivity is not limited to ordinary folk but has come to include a number of the elite who have abandoned their moral values. They have chosen instead to side with the authorities by remaining silent (and thus, they believe erroneously, neutral) on the matter of its gross violations.

I have read and heard some of the opinions of those who seek to justify these violations and practices under the pretext of the law, which is what compels me to remind them that the text which allegedly justifies such actions is dependent on three contextual factors.

The first is that circumstances must require such a response; state violence should not be subject to a political whim or fraud. The second factor is that the need for such actions should not be contradictory in nature or exaggerated, meaning that violence should not be without limits but should be proportionate to the confrontation or threat. The third and most important is that the taking of such action benefits society in that the end goal remains legitimate and noble by all reasonable measures.

The surprises continue as certain political figures announce their intentions to run in the upcoming presidential elections without making the slightest reference to the large festering wound plaguing our society – the ongoing human rights violations and the thousands of victims languishing in both known and unknown prisons. Palestinian-Egyptian poet and scholar Tamim Barghouti wrote in Shorouk Newspaper that the Egyptian revolution has been destroyed and replaced by a disturbing form of fascism so that Egypt now resembles Idi Amin’s Uganda, Jean-Bedel Bokassa’s Central Africa, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya and Pol Pot’s Cambodia. That is a damning indictment.

In a matter of a few months, since the “glorious June 30th revolution”, Egypt has given birth to four massacres, one of which is considered to be the worst in the country since the late 18th century. There have also been 23,000 politically-motivated arrests, including those of women and underage girls. Egypt is now a place where a puppet can be accused of terrorist activity, a bird has been imprisoned as a spy because a field tracking device was found on its leg and a “miraculous scientific discovery” has been revealed with the state in possession of a device that converts diseases into balls of meat which can be consumed by the masses… It really does beggar belief. Welcome to Egypt, 2014.

Translated from Shorouk newspaper, 14 April, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.