There are various indications that could help explain the degree of controversy that has arisen over the killing of Egyptian activist Shaimaa Al-Dabbagh on the fourth anniversary of the 25 January Revolution, may she rest in peace. Such indications hold true in particular when we consider that not much attention has been given to the 24 others who were killed that day or the hundreds of others who have died since the coup in July 2013. This sudden awakening over the fact that there are many people losing their lives in Egypt poses many questions as to why people are once again waking up.
The question simply begging an answer is why the minister of the interior would go public in person to deny the events that took place only to promise later that wrongdoers will suffer the consequences of their actions. Why do such people act apologetically, and where was all this sympathy while Al-Sisi’s coup was taking place? Why has all of this only started with Shaimaa’s death, and why were they not like this when they should have been investigating the deaths of so many Egyptian people rather than flaunting the numbers of those who have been murdered and tortured?
Those who are following this tragic incident from afar might assume that Shaimaa’s death was the first time that an Egyptian has been killed since the coup. In fact, this is the belief of the dominant Egyptian elite that has been ruling Egypt since the days of King Farouq. There is, indeed, a belief that the elite belong to a superior race and that the rest of the Egyptian people are up for slaughter as they increase in number. There is no problem, therefore, if they are killed wholesale. There are still debates about the numbers of those who have been killed. Is it four thousand in total or one and a half thousand? In the end, it does not really matter; if a single hair on the heads of the elites is touched, though, it would be the end of the world as we know it.
This is reminiscent of European colonial history and the legacy that it has left in our region as a Denshawai-grade scandal occurs on a daily basis in the courts of Sisi’s Egypt, with the authorities riding roughshod over the rights of the poor. It is regarded as a crime of monstrous proportions to spill Jewish blood or to kill an American or a Frenchman, but it is honourable to swim in the blood of others. Ultimately, the names or identities of those killed do not matter, or even how many lose their lives; what matters is that the authority sends a clear message about who is in charge.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter rests in the fact that the Egyptian bourgeoisie basically advocates a leftist-style purification. This is evident in the policies that are supported by the ideas of billionaire Naguib Sawiris and left-wing thinker Galal Amin, who have mulled over the good old days when the Egyptian aristocracy monopolised the public sphere and the farmers and public servants knew their place. Both men agree that today’s court has been polluted by the presence of women in hijab among other savages and that this has happened to the point where one feels as though they are walking in Tehran rather than Alexandria (Sawiris) or alienated in their own country (Amin).
It is said among the elite that the Nasser era is responsible for this new social equation as it opened doors for the children of the poor. The irony of this claim, of course, is that Nasser would not have been able to enter the Egyptian military if the restrictions on entry to the military had not been changed in the 1930s. This was amended, unfortunately, during the Mubarak era and was confirmed by Al-Sisi. In Nasser’s time, the basis of exclusion was class but the result is the same today, because the children of the poor are the most religious members of society.
It appears as though the features of the old regime resurfaced during the Nasser era when Shuhdi Attia died in prison after being tortured in the mid-1960s. Nasser ordered the end of prison torture after he was embarrassed while being questioned during a conference in former Yugoslavia. Soon afterwards, he ordered further investigations into the communist activist’s death. For the first time in history, thinkers within the ruling elite began to condemn torture in the government’s prisons although they knew very well that this did not begin or end with Attia.
All of the factors mentioned above describe the reality of the conflict in Egypt for it is not a simply a matter of disagreements between secularists and Islamists or between liberals and conservatives; it is a dispute between Egypt’s ordinary people, those who are rooted in its soil, and the elite who have been determining the way of things since the time of Muhammad Ali and his successors. These elites are the people who have hijacked the state and monopolised the nation’s wealth for use as a weapon against the people so that they may know their “place”. The strange members of the elite have placed the people under a fait accompli so that they have no choice but to be satisfied with crumbs and remain silent.
There are only two solutions to such a problem and no more: either we follow South Africa’s example of handing power over to the majority, the people, or we wait for the elite to face the same fate as Marie Antoinette.
Translated from Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper, 29 January, 2015
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.