Michelle Dunne is at it again chiding those who express
confidence that the situation in Egypt is turning to normal. Among
these are the investors who bet on the big projects which are currently being
undertaken in the country, and the rating agencies that have expressed
confidence in the future of the country and, by extension, in the soundness of
those projects.
Contrary to these sentiments, Dunne offers the opinion that
the situation may not be turning to normal, and that it may even be worsening.
She wrote an article on the subject under the title “Egypt 's Sisi and the Insurgency”
which first appeared on the Al Jazeera website on November 4, 2014, and then
reprinted on the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The question on her mind is: “Whether the scorched earth
methods practiced by Sisi and his government are helping to build legitimacy
among the Egyptian population, or if they fuel radicalization and alienate
large swaths of the public.” What she says here – whether or not she believes
it – is that she more than understands the Egyptian temperament; she pretends
to actually feel what the people of Egypt feel. Well, let me tell you
something, Michelle Dunne, you are light years away from achieving this
“oneness” with the Egyptians. Every time you pick-up your pen to write about
them, you so demonstrate in a very blunt way.
If Michelle Dunne had even a trace of what is necessary to
identify with the people of that country, she would have jumped on the
opportunity to show it when a judge sentenced hundreds of people to death for
the role they played in the riots which caused the deaths of innocent people,
and the destruction of property. She would have known (actually felt) that this
was the judge's way to say to the defendants: You deserve to die. This is my
verdict which I pronounce so that you may realize the severity of what you have
done. But the judicial process will continue and at some point, the sentence
will be commuted, and your lives spared for, this is the Egyptian way.
Another thing that Dunne, and everyone writing in English
does not seem to have developed a feel for, is how much the Egyptians frown on
acts deemed to be opportunistic. The thing that pains an Egyptian most is to
see someone take advantage of the tragedy that has befallen someone else, and
benefit from it personally. When the tragedy has touched the whole country –
such as the double revolution that lasted three years – the public will not
sympathize with those who still make demands, however peacefully they make
them. The public will want everybody to just be quiet till the country had
gotten back on its feet ... then make their demands if they still have them.
Thus, for Michelle Dunne and others to say that the public will not like the
crackdown on the few that disrupt life and continue to make demands, is to show
a complete rupture – not just a disconnect – a complete rupture with the people
they say they understand and feel for.
Where she continually demonstrates a disconnect of one
degree or another is when she tells half the story of what she describes. For
example, she mentions: “the bulldozing of hundreds of houses in the border town
of Rafah .” What
she does not say is that a billion pounds (roughly a hundred and fifty million
dollars) were allocated to compensate the people of that town, providing them
with temporary accommodation elsewhere, and helping them rebuild their lives.
For the readers who wonder, a billion pounds is a huge sum in Egypt .
Another point that Dunne and the editorial boards that
venture to write about this subject miss, is the fact that when two things are
happening at the same time, it does not mean they are connected organically. In
fact, the terrorism that is happening in the Sinai has nothing to do with the
student movement that is happening on the university campuses. Luckily, no one
in Egypt
is tarnishing the students by associating them with the Sinai activities. These
fantasies are perpetrated only in English and only on the North American
continent. There may be a “Freudian” reason for entertaining such thoughts, but
I prefer not to delve in this kind of discussions. Let those who think in that
manner explain themselves.