In the spirit of revolution... I thank you very much
“The rush and tumult of events makes it hard, sometimes, to draw the most important general conclusions from their significance. This said, the revolutionary tidal wave, which began in Tunisia and Algeria, reached its crest in Egypt and is currently sweeping other countries such as Libya and Bahrain, offers a unique opportunity to watch how people can reshape history as they reconstruct their fates and futures” [1]25 January 2011 a date when Egyptian history has been re-written. During 18 days, series of model peaceful demonstrations snuffed out a 30 years old political regime that was taking a 5000 years old nation to a black hole that is darker than the one of Milkyway. I travel heavily since few years due to work, professional commitments and for leisure. My circle of networks extends to cover people from Washington to Laos PDR and I literally stepped a foot in an airport in every continent except for the Antarctica. Nevertheless, I have to admit it, while I am abroad I used to keep my passport‘s visibility to the minimum , in every conversation I had with friends, colleagues or even with the cashier in the supermarket I always tried to divert the conversation away from speaking about my country. This had reason, I had a state of chronic depression towards the development prospects in Egypt. But wait, don’t judge based on this. Several times I tried to be optimistic, think positive and work my thoughts out to draw a picturesque plot of Egypt 2020 or 2030 or even 2040 yet each time I was slapped hard by the brutality of facts: 30% nationwide illiteracy rate [2]reaching to 10% unemployment , chaotic management of population growth with fading trials to integrate it with the development wheel and finally the cases of corruption of which a bandwagon effect ran in to the circulation of a population that had the most advanced civilization at different epochs in the history of mankind, truly it was a nightmare. Thanks to the revolution youth. They reshaped the future of this country, protected it when our police forces pulled back and re-ingested hope in many people like me.
I thought deeply of who shall be tagged as a leader of this revolution, revised my class notes were we analysed different figures who were spotlighted during the revolution, skimmed through the vast literature on the internet. I couldn’t give this “leader of the 25th of January revolution” to any of the following: El bouazizi in Tunis, Mohamed El Baradei, Wael Ghnoim, opposition political parties, Muslim Brotherhood, Amr Mousa, Sayed Bilal, Khalid Saeed not even Elmoushir Hussein Tantawy (commander of the armed forces). For all of them I could identify fallacies and loopholes and easily question their integrity and values they stand for[3].
My argument in choosing the Egyptian youth as the leaders of this revolution is summarized in the below points:
1. After a 30 years of oppression, this youth adapted to resist fear, go to streets chanting freedom and social justice. They basically went through a paradigm shift point in their lives causing a mutation to their obedience and indifference genes to genes of martyrs who fears nothing in face of oppression.
2. They went beyond their authorities[4]: Egypt is a country of institutions (although mostly were corrupt and dysfunctional from efficiency view point) yet we had a system that respects roles and players. The Egyptian youth went beyond institutional authority to the street authority, they created a common goal and momentum that was cascaded along the different layers of the society.
3. They went to the heart of danger: Taking the risk and courage facing thugs (paid and professional), dealing with the trained secret police forces who were not even known to them and organizing themselves in to civic defence forces to protect their houses, families and properties at a time when the only known was the uncertain.
4. The unethical , provocative and sneaky tactics used by the failing regime’s key figures did not push them to abandon their position, lose their victories ,get dragged neither to the (give us a chance until the end of the year) nor to the( you are lost without us) traps that they tried to play they went off the dance floor to the balcony guided by their values, beliefs, dreams and an internal instinct that victory is close which was as effective as a “Garmin Nuvi” [5]GPS navigator.
[1] http://palestinenote.com/blogs/blogs/archive/2011/03/08/lessons-from-the-egyptian-revolution.aspx
[2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html
[3] http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadchr.html
[4] http://www.slideshare.net/ralston2152003/leadership-on-the-line-power-point
[5] http://www.squidoo.com/top-rated-gps-navigation-systems-2009
