The Great Divide

Instead of ranting on about things we don’t know, I’ll list the things we do. There is a great divide within Egypt. The truth is bitter. We’re in the same dictatorship, the Islamic factions are on the rise, people are sedated and revolutionaries are alone yet again. Tahrir has replaced the steps of the journalist syndicate, where a few warriors soldier on and the rest of the people are oblivious to what is truly happening.

People are tired; they’ve been dragged into a revolution they could have done without and with the heat, and with Ramadan, the situation has become unbearable. The businessmen are sick of not doing real business, they’re in limbo. If it’s a free market economy, so be it, if it’s a dictatorship, they need to know who’s running the show so they get down to business. The Copts resent the revolution because the Islamists are gaining ground. The Muslims aegypt, life, politicsre sick of what’s become of the revolution because it slows down Islamists from coming to power.

The liberals and the leftists want real change and policies that will ensure a democratic process and they are hoping for education to enlighten the people politically. The Islamists are happy to use religion as a political tool to mobilize masses. The SCAF is happy to let the whole thing burn as long as the pay off from Washington to protect Israel’s interests does not stop.

This is a great part of the truth, but the divide does not come from the truth, but from denial. There is a denial that prevents real unity. It is those little things around the truth such as intentions and interpretations that are causing the great divide.

Let me start with the revolutionaries, as others will take more offence to what I will be pointing out. Public support and international pressure is what aids a sit-in or protest. Without these, there is no winning, especially when up against an army of sinister men. There is great value in resilience, but the environment has to be conducive to this resilience. The lies of State TV work and Egyptians are alienated because of their lack of political foresight.

As for the masses, almost everyone knows that the sit-in that started on 8 July has nothing to do with security or our economy, yet many delude themselves into thinking that people there are spies, take money and are the cause of the economic problem. They are in denial that the SCAF is punishing Egyptians for the sit-in and that the regime we aimed to bring down is still alive.

Many of the moderate Muslims are in denial that the so called ‘Islamists’ are no representatives of Islam at all. Islamists have proven aggressive, deceitful and have a history of back stabbing anyone they’ve made a deal with. Many tend to forget that the Muslim Brotherhood sold out the Egyptian people to the English back in the day. They tend to forget that Islamic groups pick up arms in order to control other people’s lives. They tend to imagine that a few hundred thousand showed up at different cities at the same time, shouting the same slogans in defiance to prior agreement and left at the same time without it being orchestrated.

The Islamic groups being hunted down for ages and imprisoned are in denial that they are supporting the same injustices inflicted upon them. They hail the military ruler whose unjust sentences destroyed the lives of at least 7000 Egyptians from 28 Jan to date.

So much more denied, so much more. That is the real reason of the divide. It’s easy to listen to State TV and get the simple convenient lie that everything is fixed. It’s so much easier than finding out the troubling truth by reading between the lines and asking the right questions. It’s much easier to believe that the coming elections will be fair without any real evidence than to imagine the day where everything is bought and rigged again. It’s much easier to believe that our protectors are really protecting us than to believe that we’re being betrayed by corrupt men in uniforms.

It’s much easier to believe that those who were hurt deserved it and that it could never happen to you. It’s much easier to believe that you would now be respected in a country that robbed you of dignity, than think that you’re a voice that they want silenced if you speak the truth. It’s easier to believe that others don’t understand things the way you do, and that they’re deluded by one thing or another than it is to carefully examine all the facts and really listen to what others have to say.

It’s easy to have beliefs that oversimplify the truth and put your mind to rest, but the easiest of them all is to believe that it’s not your battle, that your choices will not make a difference; that they will do whatever they want anyway. The easiest thing is to believe that speaking up will not change a thing, and that it’s someone else’s responsibility to make things right.