A Love that Died

People accuse me of treason when I say that I don't love Egypt anymore. The reality is that I'm just being honest. I've held on to that so called love for as long as I could, but I ended up having to decide between lying to myself and fitting in with the rest. There is too much demand that the love for my country be unconditional. It isn't an unconditional sort of love though. The one condition is that the country I love exists, and Egypt does not exist anymore. This may come as a surprise to some, but it's true. Egypt has been lost and we're not even aware of it. It may have left, but the more likely explanation is that we buried it.

The quest for the missing Egypt is undermined by the fake love given to its proxy. As the real Egypt sinks, we keep smothering the fake, evil replacement that we have with so much love. The more love we give to the fake Egypt, the more the real Egypt sinks. I said I don't love Egypt anymore, but what I mean is that I don't love the fake Egypt anymore. I love the old sinking Egypt that was full of kindness, full of beauty. I don't like this new one that's full of ignorance, poverty, injustice, hate, extremism and disrespect. I don't like this Egypt that turns a blind eye to hatred. I don't like this new Egypt that turns a blind eye to the sexual harassment of its women. I don't like this new Egypt that breeds hatred amongst its citizens.

I do not fool myself by giving love to this evil replica. Surely this is not my country; it's not a country that I want to be associated with. It's a country of thugs, thieves and murderers. To bestow upon it my love is to accept being a part of them, and I'm not. I'm not a liar and I'm not a hypocrite. I accuse all those who demand a sick love from me of being traitors, complicit in the evil doings of an enslaving country. To love Egypt you must first be honest and hate it. This is a country that we shape, not a person that we have to accept.

I do not love the misery that comes with the country, nor the shape of what it has become. We are not invaded by a foreign power so that I can claim to hate what has been done to the country. I hate the country because its cells have become cancerous. The bad cells are spreading and there is no fixing them. I will fight off this cancer, and because I do, I'm accused of treason. It is the country that has betrayed itself, and those asking me to love it are asking for its destruction.

Having said all that, I burrow through the rubbles for the Egypt that once was. Once in a while I see a glimpse of the real thing, but it is quickly overshadowed by something unreal, something contrived, something forced.

I fear that the time for salvation has long passed us by. While we busy ourselves pretending that Egypt still exists, and fighting for a fake love, the real Egypt sinks, and to make matters worse, we're pushing it deeper into oblivion with our dishonest zeal.