Alaa Al Aswani: Have we lost the battle of change in Egypt?

Alaa Al Aswani: Have we lost the battle of change in Egypt?!

[Browser translation here -- original at DW.]
There is a state of frustration among the revolutionaries in Egypt because they feel that the revolution they have made has been stolen twice. Once when the Muslim Brothers betrayed them and colluded with the military council against the revolution in return for their coming to power, then on June 30 there was a real revolutionary wave demanding an early presidential election against a president who canceled the law by the constitutional declaration. Then the old regime jumped on events and created a repressive military dictatorship that represented the counterrevolution. Have we lost the battle of change in Egypt and ended up? Apart from emotional slogans and phrases we will try to answer with a few objective facts: 

Alaa al-Aswani is a tireless advocate for democracy in 

Egypt. He speaks to all who seek more democratic 

alternatives to authoritarian systems.

First : the nature of the revolution

Revolution is a unique moment in human behavior in which people forget their personal interests and are ready to die for freedom and dignity. Revolution differs from protesting against a particular decision or uprising in order to improve living conditions, revolution aimed at radical change of state and society. The phrase "the people want to topple the regime," echoed by millions in the January revolution, meant not only the change of Hosni Mubarak but the overthrow of all old ways of thinking and behavior. 38 per cent of Egyptians are under the age of 35 years. These young people revolted not only because they reject the situation, but because they reject the way their parents deal with these situations. While parents see the solution to a contract in the Gulf for wealth creation, the youth of the revolution rejected individual solutions and insisted on changing their country. The Sisi system is dominated by known revolutionary names, who are thrown into prison and seek to break their will with solitary confinement and torture.

Major Generals Egypt's rulers do not understand that torture may destroy the revolutionary life but does not eliminate the revolution because it is an idea and ideas do not die. The millions who forced Hosni Mubarak to step down and forced the military council to try Mubarak are still alive and are in every family, every city, every village and every neighborhood. The future will be the property of these young people and not the property of the elderly rulers by virtue of the laws of nature and history.

Second : Díaz vs Sisi
The dictator Porfirio Díaz

He ruled Mexico with a fist of iron from 1884 until 1911 and when he took power he called a meeting attended by all the ministers and then grabbed his left hand with a loaf of bread and with his right hand a heavy stick and said to those present:

Here is my way of ruling: This bread will be accessible to all citizens, but any citizen who asks for more than bread will love this stick on his head.

This was Diath's equation: to deprive the people of their political rights and to grant them jobs, housing and education. Many rulers have applied the Diath equation and have settled in the government for years, but the Sisi system does not apply the formula of bread or stick, but applies the equation of stick or stick. It grants privileges to the categories on which it relies on its control, while it does not care about the suffering of the majority of the people, because the powerful machine of repression is capable of crushing anyone who opens his mouth to oppose injustice. Dependence on repression alone has never succeeded in establishing any political system. People are a double-edged sword. At some point people will realize that repression will fall on them anyway and they will have nothing to lose.

Third : The date of validity of the Propaganda

The Sisi system uses an old-fashioned propaganda machine based on full media control and direction, and gives media space to a group of "political mentors" who explain to the people aspects of the genius of the leader and the seriousness of conspiracies made by traitors and agents (of course anyone who opposes the leader or does not recognize his genius).

This type of propaganda was common for decades and was used by Nazi, fascist, socialist, Baathist and Nasserist regimes, but it was simply no longer valid in the time of the communications revolution. The Sisi system has spent billions on propaganda so that the minds of the Egyptians have the required specifications. The propaganda has succeeded a little at first, but it is losing its validity day after day because the citizen can not believe the propaganda of the regime and lies its daily suffering. The copy of the propaganda that the Sisi regime is implementing is actually poor. Who look at us every night of television rather than being an industry of public opinion turned into cartoon characters that make people laugh and bewildered.

The Egyptian revolution has not achieved democracy yet, but it has created a new awareness in society and given the Egyptians a new vision of the world that made them rethink everything, from their false sanctification to religious preachers who turned out to be charlatans and even discovered that corruption everywhere even football management and their realization that Egypt Will only advance separation of religion from the state and the return of the military to barracks. These are the lessons of the revolution that taught us what we want and how to be the state that we will establish.

Historians say that "contemporary veil" in the sense that when we live events less our ability to see them in their historical context. The revolution may not occur, but if it happens, it is never defeated and it is impossible for the situation to return to what it was before the revolution. A few years in the calculation of history is just a moment in the lives of peoples. Those who rule Egypt now have not read history and will soon learn that the revolution is impossible to eliminate because it may sometimes be broken but in the end it must triumph and achieve its objectives.

Democracy is the solution.