Cursed Is a Homeland Owned by a Tyrant!

Published in Arabic in Sunday June 16, 2016

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Firstly: laughing until feeling pain

1- We laughed until we felt pains when we read a headline written by a Saudi media figure about Saudi nationalism. This poor media figure forgot intentionally the history of the tribes and factions of Arabia and the rest of its inhabitants and dwellers of villages and cities by ascribing them all to the Saudi royal family, as if this Saudi ruling family owns the land and people on it, or rather, as if the royal family members represent the whole nation. This is laughter-inducing; as if there is a Saudi nationalism like Pan-Arabism, Turkish nationalism, Kurdish nationalism, and Berber nationalism. This is the same nonsense as when some Egyptian media figures describe the KSA as the bigger sister of Egypt; Egypt is the most ancient country in the world which has been established since the dawn of history and civilization. Cairo, the Egyptian capital, has one-century-old buildings that are older than the KSA which has been established in 1932.

2- We laughed until we felt pains when we read about some Saudi citizens singing the praises of the KSA as their homeland; they tend to forget that it is a homeland owned solely by the Saudi royal family members who claim to own the land and people on it because the founder of the KSA, Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, conquered such land with the sword.

3- We laughed until we felt pains when we read about citizens singing praises of any homeland and about defending it to death, despite the fact that their homelands are ruled by tyrants that make themselves owners and embodiment of the homelands, as if they own everything and everyone in such homelands, thinking that no one has the right to discuss their decisions. 

4- Let us give an example: the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi seems to us that he thinks he owns Egypt as a tyrant; we read about his protesting vociferously against the speech of his French counterpart, President Holland, about human rights of Egyptians. Al-Sisi asserted to him that human rights of the West cannot be applied fully in Egypt at the time. It is as if there are no human beings in Egypt; rather animals or cattle. It is as if the Egyptians can be tortured or killed as he pleases! This is, we think, his view of Egyptians! He thinks he owns Egypt and its land and people; recently he decided to sell two Red Sea islands to his Saudi masters! When asked about such a topic in the media, he said he would rather not to discuss such a topic now, as it is an irrevocable decision! How could he sell part of Egypt so easily, while spending billions to seek Russian help in building nuclear reactors to produce electricity? Why no one dare not to question him? Is he the owner of Egypt? Does he embody Egypt? This is the logic of slavery, even in his joke that he would sell himself if he could for Egypt's sake. As if he owns the land, he would not imagine that people would protest against his decisions; he would torture, imprison, or kill any of them if he liked! His dogs in the media would do his biddings and slander people, his judicial dogs would imprison people, and his Salafist and Azharite dos would declare people as infidels or apostates!

5- Tyrants usually feel that they own homelands and its peoples; they could attack peoples if they revolted against them. For instance, Mubarak ordered his military army officers to strike and shoot hundreds of thousands of protestors in Tahrir square in 2011, but if it had not been for the fact that military army officers refused to obey him and for the fact that the USA stopped aiding and supporting him, a tragedy would have happened similar to the massacre in a square in Peking on 1^st of June 1989. Saddam Hussein massacred thousands of Kurds and Shiites, and he used poisonous gases in attempted genocides; he used to punish many groups in many areas inside Iraq. Hafiz Al-Assad massacred many people in cities of Aleppo and Hamah, where he shot civilians using planes and tanks. His son and successor, Bashar Al-Assad, has thrown barrels of bombs at people of Syria, let alone atrocities committed by Qaddafi in Libya.

6- Hence, any tyrants raise the motto of "I am the State and Homeland!", and they destroy the state and the homeland if people revolted against him. Within ordinary circumstances, tyrants enjoy torturing prisoners. When revolutions or revolts break out, tyrants raise the motto "I will rule you, or kill all of you!", a motto raised recently by followers and supporters of the terrorist MB president of Egypt in 2013, within the MB terrorist group.

Secondly: what kind of homelands is this?!

1- We cannot all a country a homeland when it is owned by its ruler who fully controls it along with its dwellers, commanding them to cheer and praise all acts and words of this ruler.

2- Such a homeland is nothing but a big prison for the free persons who pray to God as follows: "…Our Lord, deliver us from this town whose people are oppressive, and appoint for us from Your Presence a Protector, and appoint for us from Your Presence a Victor." (4:75) "Our Lord! Bring us out of this. If we ever returned, we would truly be unjust" (23:107). Free Egyptians who has suffered from rule of tyrant pharaohs would pray to god as follows: "…save me from Pharaoh and his works and save me from the wrongdoing people." (66:11), and they would be happy to leave it and say: "…you have escaped from the wrongdoing people." (28:25) "…Praise be to God, who has saved us from the wrongdoing people." (23:28).

3- We cannot call a country a homeland when some of its inhabitants flee it by the Mediterranean Sea within illegal immigration, even if this leads them to certain death by drowning.

Thirdly: what is a homeland?

1- A homeland is not a stretch of geographical land with history of tyrant pharaohs to be praised; rather, a homeland is people living in this stretch of geographical land enjoying justice, equality, similar duties and rights, so as to make homeland distributed equally among them. If Egyptians are indeed 90 million citizens, them every citizen is 1/90.000.000 of the Egyptian homeland, regardless of this citizen being male or female, rich or poor, Muslim or Copt, from Upper Egypt, Lower Egypt, Sinai, Nubia, Alexandria, or Cairo. Each citizen owns the homeland equally and has a share in it as per equal opportunity principle with social solidarity to the poor, the needy, the impoverished, and the handicapped. This is the meaning of a homeland.

2- This homeland should be owned by citizens who choose the government and councils and the parliament within free transparent elections, and who have the right to question and try in court all responsible officials and ministers and other high-rank employees, who might be imprisoned if proven guilty.

3- In countries ruled by tyrants, laws are issued to protect tyrants from being questioned or criticized, and the same applies to state institutions under them. Laws to punish such critics are made in a vague phrasing to make room for punishing almost everyone anytime by commands of tyrants. In free homelands, the opposite is true; all citizens have the right to criticize or even to verbally abuse presidents, but not ordinary citizens like them so as not to be tried in courts. The reason: ordinary citizens have their privacy, but presidents have no barriers between their private and public lives and spheres, as their decisions influence the whole country, and thus, all citizens have the right to criticize and question them.

Fourthly: examples of a free homeland:

1- We will not cite examples of the USA, Canada, EU, Japan, and Australia, as they are well-known examples. Let us quote the example of Israel.

2- In Israel, an Arab Israeli citizen has rights for which most West Bank and Gaza Palestinians wish. Such rights are the dreams of Egyptians in Cairo, Iranians in Iran, and any Arab citizens in their respective countries in the Middle East tyrannical regimes. Israelis defend their homeland as they enjoy full rights and feel that Israel is a real homeland for them owned by all citizens equally. That is why 5 million Israelis defeat all Arabs, and its military army still in a state of war waged since 1948; yet, no emergency laws were imposed. Such military concerns did not prevent advancement in inventions, sciences, education, industry, production, and marketing. In contrast Middle-Easter tyrants have no victories except over other tyrants or over their people.

3- Hamas terrorist group in Gaza Strip never cares about lives of people in Gaza, whereas Israel cares for the life of every Israeli. Hamas terrorists force people in Gaza to be used as human shields and terrorize Israelis to incite Israel to defend itself. We know that Israel tries to avoid civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip in vain, as human shields are killed and Hamas use them in its anti-Israel propaganda and to beg billions from the Gulf monarchies under the pretext of rebuilding Gaza. Of course, such billions enter pockets of Hamas leaders. Then, Hamas owns its homeland, Gaza Strip, and trade in bloodshed of dwellers of Gaza, and in some cases lynch them in streets using its men that roam streets with covered faces like bank robbers!

4- Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has stolen countless amounts of money; he and his son own billions of $, in contrast of Isaac Rabin who tendered his resignation when his wife is discovered to have a bank account in the USA. Some Israeli ministers were put to question because of financial mistakes. Abbas rules the West Bank as a tyrant imposing himself (like his predecessor Yasser Arafat), who sees that he owns the wealth of Palestinians with no barriers between their wealth and his!

Fifthly: it is strange that:

1- It is strange that Israel manages to exist amidst tyrannical regimes; if Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, and Lebanese people and other Arabs had the chance to immigrate to Israel, they would not hesitate!

2- It is strange that the same contrast occurs between the USA and Mexico. The Americans confiscated, in different ways, four states that were under Mexican rule before. If such four states had remained within Mexico, they would have suffered backwardness and poverty like the rest of Mexico. The south of the USA is similar to geography of Mexico, but the vast difference lies in the ruling regime. The USA motto is a homeland for all and justice for all; whereas Mexicans suffer corruption and tyranny, despite the fact that it is one hundred times better than Middle East countries.

5- When Spain confiscated some islands from Morocco, Moroccans wanted desperately to retrieve them in the 1960s of Nasserist mottoes of nationalism. But now, Moroccans living in such islands under Spanish rule enjoy better life conditions than Moroccans who wish to immigrate to these Spanish islands.

Lastly:

 A piece of advice addressed to the Middle Eastern citizens: before you say that this is your homeland, ask yourselves if it is indeed yours or the tyrant's.