The tuk tuk driver who shook the throne

An ordinary, hardworking Egyptian citizen, like the majority of the Egyptian people, who is suffering from a lack of the basic necessities for a dignified life, appeared on a television show hosted by Amr Al-Leithy. He was riding his tuk tuk and they had a conversation that lasted less than three minutes in which he was able to express the suffering of the entire Egyptian nation. He was able to speak on behalf of all the Egyptian people, while his president rambles on for hours and no one understands a thing he says! When the host asked him about his level of education, he responded that he graduated from the school of tuk tuks!

The tuk tuk driver who shook the throne

It is normal for everyone to be impressed by him and circulate the video of him on social networking sites. This drove officials to delete the video from YouTube. However, the social media generation anticipated the state deleting the video, so they used modern technology to their advantage and prevented the video from being deleted from their pages, even if the original video posted by Al-Hayah television was deleted. The fact that the state deleted the video only increased its circulation on social media, which drove the coup-led government crazy, causing it to ignite a violent attack against the many. It cued the state orchestra, spreading rumours that he is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter, that he is a secondary school teacher, that he works in a school run by his Brotherhood supporting father-in-law, etc. These are the same lies and fabrications that the state always resorts to.

It even reached the level of Sheikh Mazhar Shaheen, who was labelled as preacher of the revolution during the January 25^th Revolution and later exposed after the revolution, appeared on television and said that the Muslim Brotherhood trained 1,000 tuk tuk drivers to spread pessimism and frustration amongst the Egyptian people in order to create a pessimistic atmosphere in the country. This has become a new accusation added to the state prosecution’s repertoire and is punishable by law. Those accused are put on trial on charges of “spreading pessimism in the country that harms the economy”. The interior minister himself announced in a press conference that a Brotherhood cell aiming to spread pessimism in Egypt in order to harm the economy was arrested and their confession tapes were broadcast in the coup-led media.

Have you seen anything more stupid than this? The state really is a foolish state, or a “semi-state” as referred to by the coup leader himself, who said in one of his speeches, “Do you think we are in a real state? No, we are in a semi-state.” This is coming from the same man who said, after the coup, “tomorrow Egypt won’t only be the ‘mother of the world’, it’ll be as big as the world!”

This is the same state whose throne is shaken by a tuk tuk driver who fled, along with his children, out of fear of arrest, while the host, Amr Al-Leithy, may be fired. This is a weak state and its president, who came to power by means of a military coup, knows he’s done wrong and tries to hide it in all of his speeches. He is overly sensitive due to this and feels that the world does not respect him because he reached his position through a military coup. Deep down, he is weak and he is trying to hide this from the public eye, but the tuk tuk driver exposed his weakness and put it on display for the entire world to see. A tuk tuk driver was able to shake the Egyptian throne; what a disgrace!

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