No More Fear - Almost

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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The news were electrifying.  It was February 11, 2011, evening, when the big TV screen in Tahrir Square, in Cairo, came alive with the thundering news that Hosni Mubarak has relinquished his post as President.  The dark night of military dictatorships which descended upon Egypt since 1952 was suddenly over.  The youth revolution which began on January 25, returned Egypt to its historic role of guiding the Arab world towards the promised land of democracy, dignity and equal opportunity. 

Yes, the Arab Spring began in Tunisia, but Egypt, with its demographic weight of a population of 90 million (25% of the entire Arab population) gave its unlimited oxygen.  On that evening of February 11, Tahrir, and with it all Arabs beyond its boundary, went wild with joy.  A foreign correspondent, in Tahrir, shouted this question to a young Egyptian woman, "What do you say now?"  Her answer is seared in my mind: "NO MORE FEAR!!"

The legacy of oppressive fear which began with Nasser in July 1952 and ended nearly 60 years later began to dissipate.  The phantom of fear, both real and imagined proved to be no match for the millions shouting all over Egypt, "Go/IRHAL!!"

The success of the masses in ending the 60-year military coup brought to my mind the last scene in a novel which was published for me in Cairo in 1948.  It is entitled, "Charlatan in the Village" (Dajjal Fi Qariah).  In it, the Charlatan's aide runs to him at night to urge him to leave the village that night because the villagers had discovered that they were the victims of a huge swindle.  Upon hearing that, and fearful for his life, the Charlatan snatches from the hands of his aide the bag in which his ill-gotten loot was placed.  Then he flees under the cover of darkness for fear of his victims' wrath.  His last words to his hapless aide whom he leaves behind to face his fate, "I do not care about them.  I was their shelter and refuge... Those ingrates!!" 

Every Arab dictator perceives himself as the great savior,  not the wicked oppressor.  Like the Charlatan in my novel, revolt against his wicked ways is an unforgivable treason.  In the hands of those dictators, fear of the unknown is their great barrier against regime change.  The army, the police, the intelligence personnel (which in Egypt numbered 1.2 millions, more than the number in Egypt's armed forces), the Republican Guard, the one-party system, the media and corruption are all in the service of the perpetual degradation of human freedoms.  The people's voice in these fear regimes, became an inaudible whimper that can only be heard in the dungeons of torture.

Now fear is largely gone.  During the first session of the Giza Criminal Court, south of Cairo, three of the symbols of the defunct Mubarak regime sat in mid-June in the defendeants' enclosure to hear the people's thunder.  They were Amr Asal, the former Commissioner for Industrial Development, Ahmed Izz (the former monopolizer of the steel industry) who was a stalwart in the now dissolved Democratic National Party, and in absentia, Rasheed Muhammad Rasheed, the former Minister of Commerce and Industry.  The charge: wasting and stealing public funds.

In a full-throated voice, devoid of any trace of fear, the Public Prosecutor, Counselor Abdel-Lateef Al-Sharnoubi told the 3-panel Court, "I stand before you today to accuse these defendants of destroying Egypt, of emptying its treasury and of causing perverse poverty among millions of Egyptians."

If fear from dictatorship is gone, yet fear of chaos which usually ensues after a prolonged period of oppression.  The diehards of the Mubarak regime are still lurking in the alleys.  Tourists are afraid to return, though they are beginning to trickle back.  Coptic-Muslim relationships are still being repaired.  Border security is on the mind of policy-markers.  But, as the Berlin wall fell, so did the fear wall in Egypt and beyond.