The Significance of Shaimaa's Death

I’ve thought a lot about why the death of Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh has been more painful than many of the unjustified recent deaths we’ve encountered recently. It could be because she’s close to my circles, or because she looked pretty or because of the innocence of attempting to place a wreath of flowers in memory of the fallen martyrs or because the photos captured moments before she passed away were truly heart wrenching.

It may be all of that, but alongside, the more pressing reason is because her passing resembles the murder of Khaled Said, all over again. If we can capture the revolution as a single demand, it was so that we never have another Khaled Said. It doesn’t mean that people are never killed again, but that the regime does not get away with murder and does not use its institutions to cover up their crimes.

But there have been so many Khaled Said’s over the years, and we haven’t been able to stop them. The revolution has failed, utterly and categorically in fulfilling its epitomised demand. What’s worse is that, on the eve of January 25, the counter revolution delivers the strongest message possible, that it has triumphed and will kill any Khaled Said in whatever shape or form he is re-incarnated, that it will continue to get away with it and that it will continue to target us.

The defeat is doubly painful as people cheer on criminals in uniform making up excuses for them. In their defence of the uniform, people have resorted to all sorts of explanations catered by propaganda that helps sedate the conscience. State sponsored explanations range from, let’s wait and see to find out what happened to the more extreme support of her death because she chose the wrong time to protest without a permit.

In between, an endless middle ground of diverting attention, accusing the Muslim Brotherhood or her friends of killing her and casting doubt on the testimonies of those who saw it happen. Now isn’t the time to discredit the police because they protect you, they say. They say it as the police itself shoots at and eventually kills an unarmed woman.

This is business as usual for the police and authorities, along with the usual forensic, judiciary and media cover ups for what has happened in clear daylight. We are asked to shut up about the whole matter because the judiciary is charged with investigations, but when has the public prosecutor ever arrived at real conclusion or true condemnation for regime crimes?

If anything, prosecution and the judiciary in Egypt have systematically attempted to disprove what we’ve seen with our own eyes. Witnesses are pressured, videos disappear, the Ministry of Interior logs disappear, and there is every attempt at hiding what we have all seen. Yet they dare call it justice.

If I were reading this about a different country, I would have written it off as a hyperbole, a gross generalisation, the ramblings of an angry citizen with poor analytical skills. But the true tragedy is that time and time again, events have proven these words to be true, unexaggerated and perhaps even understatements which don’t reflect current reality strongly enough.

Strangely enough this incident not only resembles the Khaled Said crime but combines that of the woman in Tahrir in December 2011 who was part-stripped by the military during the Cabinet Clashes. Like the unknown battered woman, Shaimaa was smeared by questioning her motives of being out on the streets. Doubts as to the actual perpetrators were raised and lies about who killed her were unjustifiably spread.

It was this event of targeting a woman so shamelessly in December 2011 that mobilised a nationwide campaign by the name of Kazeboon that dared to call out the regime on its lies. Likewise women who identify with Shaimaa have decided to defy fear and stand this Thursday in the same spot she fell despite the risks of being unjustly targeted like Shaimaa. The fate of this protest is unknown at the time of writing.

There is a constant attempt to shift the debate to everything other than the murderer of Shaimaa.  Not only did security forces shoot Shaimaa until she dropped to the ground, they continued shooting at the gathering that was already dispersing even after she was hit, refused to get her medical attention and arrested those trying to help her. This determination on treating our lives as cheap and the audacity of covering up this crime is a blow to Egyptians willing to confront the truth of their perceived worth.

The real monstrosity surrounding Shaimaa’s death is the unwillingness of society as a whole to bring its perpetrators to justice. The people seem to have been desensitised to injustices. They only see legitimate grievances when affecting state institutions or perpetrated by opposition to the state.

The revolution’s promises seem now like a mirage rather than an oasis. Those who dared to stand up to oppressive forces in pursuit of their dreams have done so with very little on their side and continually pay a heavy price. They have been targeted, crushed, drained and killed just like Shaimaa, with few to mourn, and even those few are smeared.

Those who dreamt of change have constantly tried to use truth as their primary weapon. The truth is that Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh was killed and left to die by the Egyptian police. She was shot at close range possibly because she refused to run and be intimidated as security forces charged the gathering. But even when truth is on your side, sometimes it’s just not enough.

First published in DNE on January 28, 2015

Moments of Travel

Moments of travel are the most nostalgic, like you haven't done enough where you were at. They make you feel as though one needed more time or perhaps desired more events to have taken place before you were to leave where you were at. It's mostly a feeling that you are parting with someone or something you've come to know; something you've experienced firsthand, something you've examined up close. No matter where you're heading, that feeling of some sort of slightly palpable but deep sorrow generates a cloud around you much like invisible vapor droplets that occasionally stimulate your skin with a sense of touch. It's this parting that I dread and which weighs on me heavily even when the destination is desirable.

Yes, even when the destination holds brilliant promises of great times and unforgettable experiences, I can feel that weight, for even with the splendor of a promise it remains lacking in one aspect when compared to reality, in that it remains unfulfilled. The smallest bit of reality can conquer the greatest promise by exploiting that weakness which all promises are fated with. It is this contrast that causes the dilemma predominantly for a materialist. For reality manifests itself through everything that can be seen, touched, heard or smelled but promises manifest themselves in the realm of imagination drawing their images from fragments of memories combined with many thoughts and mixed by brain churns that place them in their proper place inside that jigsaw puzzle offered by promises. The reality of parting is ever so present at moments of departure when you can see all you left behind and can only imagine what's ahead.

But despite the weakness that each promise possesses, it can offer something beyond reality. It can create a better version of something experienced, perhaps even a version that cannot be imagined. Certain promises rely only on faith; faith in something beyond creative imagination; faith in the limitations of human abilities; faith in experiences and words of others. Even when reality is at its best, promises combined with faith can overturn it, can change all of its sweetness and take away its bitterness. But even then how can you overcome the feeling of parting?

I guess that's the way it is with journeys, even death the journey of the greatest distance in perhaps the least amount of time. Parting is almost insurmountable and even the best of promises cannot change that. The promise of an afterlife can only rely on faith and fragmented memories of the happiest times magnified to trigger the imagination. While the imagination can take you far away places, it can fail to reflect what’s to come, offering far better alternatives to reality. Yet to wait a lifetime for a promise is a little too much, and some will choose this moment over a promise that might not be fulfilled.

Once you’ve made the journey, things start to change, when you're en route or in the air you can only attempt to focus on what's to come. You look to fulfill the yet unfulfilled promises relying on faith to turn these promises into reality. But once these promises are fulfilled, they disappear and the faith that brought them life dissipates.

Note: Written BR (Before Riyadh)

Death of a King - Michael Jackson

There are very few who would not appreciate nor understand the indescribable feeling of loss concerning the death of arguably the greatest musician of our time. No matter what you might think of him, there is no way that anyone who understands a thing or two about music or dancing cannot but admire Michael Jackson’s talent.

Michael Jackson caused a great deal of commotion because he was different and didn't belong anywhere. Ever since his youth, it seemed as if everyone loved him for his talent and uniqueness but rejected him for the same reasons. There is a lot of contrast between MJ and Peter Pan, effectively they're both kids who never grew up and they have their own Neverland. Jackson would visit his Neverland and bring us back the most unique, beautiful and amusing ideas, songs and dance moves. It seemed he had a bag of ideas like Sport Billy's out of which he would dig in and bring out something marvelous. Could it be that MJ will find immortality like that of Peter Pan through his music?

But what am I really trying to say? I think that many were afraid because Michael Jackson was so different. The trouble with the human race is that we want to belong and not just that, we want others to belong. Michael belonged to childhood, and the adult world could not accept that. He belonged to Neverland, but that was so inconceivable. It was as if everyone was fighting, and needing him to belong. The black people wanted him black and got angry when his skin color underwent changes. Didn't all our ideals in this modern age revolve around the insignificance of skin color?

"Dont tell me you agree with me,
When I saw you kicking dirt in my eye"

~Black or White.

When his skin color changed, he actually did prove that skin color doesn't matter, but the world would not accept what it had preached. They did not accept that it didn't matter what the skin color really was because there was the same human underneath.

"Im not going to spend
My life being a color"

Even MJ as a white man wasn't welcomed. He was much too different, he was from a different world, and quickly the controversy of child molestation started taking form. There had to be something wrong with him. I know and confess he was indeed different, his whole body structure, his face, and everything in him, but did we really have to reject him for it?

He was different, he had to be something we understood, otherwise we could not accept him. He had to fall into a mould otherwise we wouldn't know what to do with him. His creativity was marked as eccentricity, and he was ridiculed and mocked in an age that advocates freedom and equality, yet when it comes to something different, how quickly we return to being conformists. We want freedom boxed by a set of boundaries we understand.

"You talk about equality and the truth either you're wrong or you're right."

If Michael Jackson taught us anything, he taught us that we can sometimes be the biggest hypocrites, advocating one thing and doing another. He taught us that there is great music that can be created, new ideas and he taught us that people differ.

Michael Jackson was an alien, but while our tolerance might have not been enough to accept him for all that he is, our emotions were enough to love him and admire his work.

This is a tribute to the man who brought me Billie Jean, Black or White, Liberian Girl, Smooth Criminal, Little Susie and so many more; someone whose musical genius moved mountains, forced people to respect him; someone who’s dance moves inspired millions; someone who suffered the scrutiny of a world that did not want to leave him alone in peace; someone who has been grabbed by fans, harassed by reporters, crucified by the media and disdained by people. This is a tribute to a legend who despite how different he was, despite how confused he might have been and made us feel, earned our love and compassion and our best salutation.

“Neglection can kill, like a knife in the soul”

I’m sad and sorry that he’s gone, but I pray that the King of Pop receives in death the kind of peace he was never able to attain in life.

Death of a Businessman

I'm against capital punishment, and even more so with fishy cases like that of the guy who killed Layla Ghoufran's daughter and most recently Hisham Talaat Moustafa. The problem with such cases is that it's obvious there is something wrong with them, something doesn't add up and that presents what is referred to as reasonable doubt. 

The fact that there is reasonable doubt is enough to set someone free, and perhaps I'm not even asking that, only asking that he not be put to death. One of the many problems with the death sentence is that humans can make mistakes. We've heard non fictitious accounts of people being locked up for decades and then found to be free. It also gives room to malice. An unfair judge may put someone to death on purpose, the allowance of a death sentence gives power over life which man shouldn't have. Oddly enough the same people who advocate the death sentence may be against abortion. 

Sanctity of life, it's a phrase that's so overused to the point that its meaning may be diluted but the word sanctity is very powerful and I find it more spiritual than it is physical. But the spiritual world can have no meaning if it can't make its way to the physical world in one way or the other. I find it hard to imagine that both the murderer and the one who incited the murder should get the same sentence. Plus of course the details surrounding the case point to some kind of foul play or set up. Ever watched a movie where someone is being set up? The evidence is very powerful, very strong that it seems almost too easy. 

The man who killed took every positive step to ensure that he would be caught, despite the fact that he is ex police, how come? In any case, even if these are just delusions, it seems vicious and unfair to take away someone's life. I suppose the death penalty serves as something to deter people from committing such a crime. 

The world is such a jungle, it's worse, it is a place where people do evil things without necessity. The fact that people can do wrong in the world is something that I can accept, but that the law or what is supposed to be right is failing is something which we must not accept. It is our duty to try to reach perfection in our constitution and laws despite knowing for sure that we will not reach. But knowing that we will fall short is no excuse not to try our best. 

The death of a businessman reflects an extremity that is so characteristic of our country. In Egypt so many bad deeds go unpunished and when the law is implemented, it can take an extreme of being implemented with too much viciousness according to the whim of those entrusted with its implementation. We're extremists in our lethargy and in our viciousness. We turn a blind eye to many evils and when it comes to punishing, we kill even if there isn't enough proof and we burry alive those poor pigs who have done us no harm.  

Passiveness and aggression co-exist within the fabric of our society. It has seeped through like a sly venom, and I'm afraid flushing it out will be a monumental task that no one has begun.

The Only Way to Live

There's nothing here for me,
I found that my desires do not mean a thing,
with all the pain they bring.

I know I long for life,
but the more I strive,
the more death I find.

The only way to live is to die,
and only then will I experience life,
I have nothing to give,
and that is why perhaps 

I have everything to take.

There's nowhere left to go,
save the only place I should,
The place I've been looking for,
but never understood.

To go inside myself,
and find out what I am,
find out what's been lost,
find the inner man.

I've spent so many years,
bounded by my fears,
and now I finally learnt,
what I should have done,

but after I've found out what I know,
I realize... I comprehend my true fate,
I am to pass this knowledge on,
because for me,
it's become too late.

Strangers Passing in the Street

"Nothing is stranger, more delicate, than the relationship between people who know each other only by sight – who encounter and observe each other daily, even hourly, and yet are compelled by the constraint of convention or by their own temperament to keep up the pretence of being indifferent strangers , neither greeting nor speaking to each other. Between them is an uneasy and overstimulated curiosity, the nervous excitement of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need to know and to communicate; and above all, too, a kind of strained respect. For man loves and respects his fellow man for as long as he is not in a position to evaluate him, and desire is born of defective knowledge."

Thomas Mann - Death in Venice

I'm Not Afraid

I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of pain and loss.

What Moves You

What is it that moves you? Money, Power, Mercy, Love, Kindness, Friendship... What is it that is left after you've had all your success? Everyone has an answer I'm sure, but in my own opinion some are right answers and some are answers to be re-assesed.. I was just thinking if you told a greedy person that all that he wants in the world is his, what more would be his purpose? I'm just thinking out loud; the luxury of having thinking time.

5 Years ago I was reading about how Socrates was arrested and condemned to death, he was offered a chance to escape, but he didn't. He believed in the system that condemned him to death unjustly, and that's why he didn't run. I thought him very stupid not to save his skin, but later on after thinking about it, I realized he was lucky to know exactly what he would die for. For one to be worth something, he has to care enough about something to die for.

So what is it that moves you? What would you die for? That's a question I asked myself and I ask you, because only by answering this will we know what is truly important.

What If..

What if you had the most interesting and intruiging book in the world, but you knew the day you finish reading it would be the day you die, what would you do?

A Bullet to the Head

Driving down the street tonight, I heard a loud sound and then, just as they always do, my thoughts drifted to an absolutely absurd thought. I thought what if that sound was a bullet, I knew it wasn’t a bullet really because it sounded nothing like a bullet, but what if there was a bullet and that I had been shot.

Well, since my mind never stops at just that, I wondered, what if this bullet came through my windshield and through my head. The thought was scary at first but then for a while it seemed not to be. For I would not feel any pain and my life would be over anyway in a single instant. There would be no shock, no pain, no need to worry about it and it no longer seemed to be a scary thought.

But something about how my mind works makes me imagine thoughts in a frighteningly accurate manner. They become so terrifying because of how real they get and the truth is, that this thought is terrifying through the lens of reality.

The reality that strikes me is what would I feel next. Would I be dead and not know it and roam the land of the dead? Or would I be instantly transported to that other world if spirit? Or would I just cease to exit completely and all that I am, completely obliterated from the face of the earth. All these thoughts, all my feelings, all my life… suddenly gone. What is to become of me in an instant? An instant I cannot foresee; an instant that happens mid thought, while I’m thinking of something utterly silly or genuinely profound; a thief of an instant that sneaks up on you and terminates your existence.

And if I am to go to some other place of spirits, will I know what has happened to me? Will I know that my life has ended or will I be confused as to how I arrived where I did. Will it be light or darkness, will I remember who I am?

How would it feel to just teleport to somewhere so unknown, will I be lonely and scared? Will I be able to feel something?

It scares me a little not knowing what will become with my consciousness, with my thought. What will I be thinking of before that thief of an instance.

That point of no return will not scare me with any of its pain but it scares me with the uncertainty of what’s in store for me beyond.

A Death Perspective

Death is not what we see in the movies. I know I’m stating an obvious truth, but the thing is that it struck me when I realized what death in real life is all about. In the movies we see people dying, bombs exploding, bodies flying and blood splatter. It’s horrific, it really is. It’s heartbreaking and it’s very intense. Sometimes we see the agony of people dying slowly and their loved ones surrounding them, and it’s also agonizing to watch. But the thing is, except if you’re in a war battle seeing all these things or walking in on someone who has fallen ill all of a sudden, death is not as direct as all that. Death is a piece of news and that is all. The most gruesome part of this piece of news is that you’re not provided with pictures and vision, you’re just given a piece of information. You are told that you will not see the person you love alive again and that sometime while you were doing something, this person’s life ended. The piece of news leaves you so void, void of knowing what happened exactly, void of imagination and the things that go on in your head are ghastly since they are left to your imagination. This piece of news left you void because you could not see it coming, it just happens and you cannot rewind and pay attention to the last time you spoke that person. You cannot rewind and do things differently; you cannot rewind and appreciate things differently.

Death in the end is a piece of news, that’s what it really is. It doesn’t go like the movies where you see what happens and hope for things not to take a worse turn. You’re provided with the end first, that the person is dead, and all you can do is flashback to what might have happened because you cannot change a thing that has passed.

I would change the famous saying by John Lennon to, “Death is what happens to you while making other plans.” It is just so invasive and so unreal. Sometimes you can just hear a piece of news and not want to believe it, and yet it is so real in our hearts. How can words without any sort of vision cause such great sorrow? Death as we experience it is just words, just news, and yet when it’s a loved one, it strikes us more powerfully than any other vision could.