To a Country that Betrayed Me

Watching tele today I was watching the patriotic and sometimes patronizing “Raafat El Hagaan”. For those who don’t know, this is a spy series that was made somewhere around the mid eighties and it retells the true story of an Egyptian spy that was staying in Israel from somewhere in the fifties till the sometime in the seventies.

The real Raafat El Haggan

I say it’s sometimes patronizing because it isolates the viewers from some of the very negative aspects of life during these days. Yet the shock is that the details that it does portray are very accurate and not only that, but they are also guilty of being inspiring and uplifting. Some of the negative things were also portrayed accurately, but of course never enough to show what kind of torture the people living at that time endured.

I’m not writing this now to talk about the inaccuracies of the negatives, but about the inspiration of the positives. In one episode there was an account of how 28 Egyptian armed with light weaponry defeated a fully armored team of Israeli troops right after we were miserably defeated in ‘67. As I heard this on the show I gave a very sarcastic look and whimpered yeah right, do they expect us to believe that. I was surprised by my father’s response to my smirk. My father who was much more skeptical than I am that good things that may have happened or that might happen responded by authenticating this account. I said, “Did that actually happen?”, he said yes, it did happen. So I asked, “How’s that even possible?”. He replied, “I don’t know, but we didn’t really fight in 1967”. So the patriotic account wasn’t so patronizing I could see.

Then there was a scene describing how people were optimistic that we will fight again and attain a victory that will regain some of our demolished pride. Another “Yeah Right” was in order, but this time I chose to ask, “Could people who have been defeated so cruelly have had the will to believe in another fight?”. Yes. I wasn’t conned again, I’m telling you some of these things have a tendency to be true. I heard the words on that series with different ears, I heard of how hopeful people got and I remembered how dopeful others became. I heard how enthusiastic people got and I remembered how disappointed others became.

I’m not in a position to judge what happened back then, how people wanted to do something for their country, while others forsook their country. I’m not in a position to judge how well people handled the challenges, while others ran away. What I do know is that more and more people today have fled and betrayed the country. I know that many more are running away and many more are corrupting the country from within.

So let me not preach and invite all saying, “Let’s work together for each other”. I will not adopt a patriotic and patronizing tone. I will only say that sometimes people do great heroic things when motivated.

This isn’t a cry out to come together and be something. This isn’t a slogan I’m holding up for others to see. This is what has become, and this is what I have against a country that has betrayed its people. Most people in this country are oppressed, and when that changes it becomes a choice between oppressing and being oppressed; unfortunately most people choose oppressing . The people of this country have betrayed the people of this country. The elected have betrayed the electors. The country betrayed its countrymen.

Deprived of the right to live and the right to know, deprived of a right to choose and right to speak, deprived.. that’s all there is to it. We have been deprived of our freedom a long time ago and when we were given a chance to be free, we chose to give up that right.

Deprived, that’s how I can sum it all up. Those who can give never want to, and those who want to never can. But the worst part about all of this is that those who deprive us of our rights lose theirs as well. They are criminals that are always looking over their own shoulders, silencing their conscience every day, content with their devious behavior excusing it with the years of oppression they have faced. In seeking their own interest and neglecting others, they have neglected themselves too. They have deprived their own children or grand children of a better life to live in. We have deprived our children and grand children of a country that can take care of them.

We not only betrayed each other but we betrayed ourselves.