In his article in Deutsche Welle (Arabia edition) Alaa al-Aswani explains the importance of mocking the head of state. He underscores the point by relating an encounter of himself and his daughter, people from another country, with the New York City Police. This is a browser translation from Arabic at the link.
Alaa Al-Aswani: Who harms Egypt's reputation?
September 11, 2018
In New York, I called my daughter Mei to see a play by David Carl, a well-known American actor and director. David Carl compares the play between King Lear to Shakespeare and the character of US President Donald Trump. We were there before the show, and we found the hall full of spectators. For two hours, the president of the world's largest country was ridiculed and described by David Karl as stupid, ignorant, trivial and racist because he was hostile to Muslims, Mexicans and African Americans. |
| Alaa Al-Aswani is one of Egypt's leading public intellectuals. I transcribe his weekly columns at Deutsche Welle for future reference. |
I went out with Mai from the theater and rode the Metro on our way home. The subway was not crowded, and in the penultimate station the subway door opened and some passengers got out. In a moment someone jumped into the subway and grabbed the mobile phone from my daughter's hand and jumped out. There was a thrill and a run down and we ran down to chase the thief. Some of the passengers ran around running behind the thief who turned out to be a runner. No one could follow him, so the phone disappeared before our eyes forever.
Mai asked me to tell the police and I was not enthusiastic about that. What would the police do to us? New York is a giant city inhabited by millions of people and this thief disappeared into the crowd and we could not even distinguish his face. After pressing from Mai, I called the police and they told us to wait. We stood up and soon two officers appeared and took the words of Mai and the witness who pursued the thief. There was an administrative problem because the theft took place inside the subway vehicle and therefore it belonged to the Metro Police and not to the regular police. Two police officers appeared quickly and one of them said "Please do not expect to find the phone easily because the thief often breaks it and sells it as spare parts."
The officer gave his phone to Mai and asked her to tell the mobile company about the theft of the phone with a telephone number. I did what the officer asked. After about a quarter of an hour, someone called me and said that the phone was in his possession and he wanted to return it to us for $50. The officer responded and agreed to the offer. Then, as in the movies, the two officers disappeared and I and I stood in front of the station door.
A shabby man came and told me "Your phone is with me. Give me fifty dollars..." Before completing the sentence, the two officers surrounded him and one of them said to him "before you answer my questions you should know everything you say is on video recorder."
(Here I noticed a small camera installed in the officer's clothes)
The officer began questioning the man who confirmed that he had bought the phone and did not know that he had been stolen and that he found it closed and called us back for $ 50.
In the end the officer said "You bought something stolen and this is a crime. I'll catch you." [i.e. You're under arrest.]
Came up and put his hands in the clippers [handcuffs] and stopped him tied in front of the wall and then returned to Mai to make sure they recovered her phone and then said to me "This man will be tried if you decide to continue the communication, but if you just retrieve the phone we will be released.
We asked him to release the man because we do not want more than the phone. The officer removed the claws from the hands of the man who seemed unconfirmed that he had survived. The officers warmly thanked us and went home and found me wondering...
Why did the officers show all this interest in the theft of a telephone? We are ordinary passengers and we are not influential and we do not have the recommendation of an important figure, but we are not mainly Americans and then why the officer treated the accused with respect, so he did not slap him and not accuse him when he is arrested?
The answer is that the task of the police in a democratic state is to protect people, not to protect the regime. There is a certain connection between the play that ridicules the head of state and respect for the law and citizens by the police. To make fun of the president means to take away any holiness, and confirms in the minds of people that he is not the inspiring leader nor the symbol of the nation, but is just a public servant in the service of the people, he took office with real elections not to buy the votes of the poor oil bags and sugar as the Brotherhood does not In which the state apparatus biased to one candidate such as Sisi, arresting all other candidates and fabricating charges against them.
When we mock the president, we affirm that the citizen is much more important than the authority and that the prestige of the state is never embodied in the president, but in the law. People who are incapable of ridicule their presidents are governed by dictatorships whose inevitable end is disaster, defeat and total deterioration that brings the country to the bottom.
Democracy is the solution
(Here I noticed a small camera installed in the officer's clothes)
The officer began questioning the man who confirmed that he had bought the phone and did not know that he had been stolen and that he found it closed and called us back for $ 50.
In the end the officer said "You bought something stolen and this is a crime. I'll catch you." [i.e. You're under arrest.]
Came up and put his hands in the clippers [handcuffs] and stopped him tied in front of the wall and then returned to Mai to make sure they recovered her phone and then said to me "This man will be tried if you decide to continue the communication, but if you just retrieve the phone we will be released.
We asked him to release the man because we do not want more than the phone. The officer removed the claws from the hands of the man who seemed unconfirmed that he had survived. The officers warmly thanked us and went home and found me wondering...
Why did the officers show all this interest in the theft of a telephone? We are ordinary passengers and we are not influential and we do not have the recommendation of an important figure, but we are not mainly Americans and then why the officer treated the accused with respect, so he did not slap him and not accuse him when he is arrested?
The answer is that the task of the police in a democratic state is to protect people, not to protect the regime. There is a certain connection between the play that ridicules the head of state and respect for the law and citizens by the police. To make fun of the president means to take away any holiness, and confirms in the minds of people that he is not the inspiring leader nor the symbol of the nation, but is just a public servant in the service of the people, he took office with real elections not to buy the votes of the poor oil bags and sugar as the Brotherhood does not In which the state apparatus biased to one candidate such as Sisi, arresting all other candidates and fabricating charges against them.
When we mock the president, we affirm that the citizen is much more important than the authority and that the prestige of the state is never embodied in the president, but in the law. People who are incapable of ridicule their presidents are governed by dictatorships whose inevitable end is disaster, defeat and total deterioration that brings the country to the bottom.
Democracy is the solution
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