Once upon a time there was a great war; so great that almost the whole world took part in it one way or the other. The war was started by a mad man who wanted to shape the world to his whims, and his people followed him for he told them that he would bring them power and prosperity, and they called him Führer; leader, guide. He won battle after battle, conquering and murdering. He brought countries to their knees, other countries that had already conquered the world one way or another. He destroyed London and occupied Paris. He hated the jews, why exactly? No one really knows. But he hated the jews, and he used his power to round them up and kill them, as many as he could find. He gassed them, burned them, shot them, worked them to death. The jews of Europe suffered during his reign. And as the jews suffered, so did the rest of Europe; people dying in the United kingdom during the Blitz, people dying in the battle of France, hundreds of thousands killed, wounded, imprisoned, or lost.
In that same war, Japan, a great empire, merged its war with China into the same war, conquering parts of china, entering the Chinese capital, Nanking, and massacring its people; up to 250,000 people killed. They wanted to control Eastern Asia, and they wanted the United States and the United Kingdom to lose their grips and influence on the east. They bombed Pearl Harbor, causing the deaths and injuries of American troops stationed there, going officially into war with the United States. The Great War went on for years and years, but in the end, Germany was defeated by the cold and the soviets and the allied forces. Japan surrendered after the Americans dropped 2 atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; killing hundreds of thousands of civilians from the explosion, debris, and radiation sickness.
When Germany fell, it had a lost economy, and the men were dead; lost to the war and the cold. It was a country at its weakest, divided, its people expulsed, its factories dismantled, and all its science, technology, and patents, harvested by the US and the UK. Never the less, they took a stand against the dismantling of their industry, they were able to lift some of the limitations by joining powerful European communities. Once they were allowed some ways and money to rebuild their economy, they were able to get back on their feet with food production and strong industries, growing year after year to be the great country it is now, reuniting its two halves, and regaining their pride.
Japan, the broken country, was occupied after its surrender by the allied forces for 6 years, demilitarized and de-industrialized. Japan was left a weak country with limited resources. The political and economic powers of Japan united; bringing help from other countries, using the cold war to their advantage, and were able to create the post war economic miracle that they are. Now, they are country so advanced in science and education, with one of the strongest economies and the 6th largest military budget in the world.
As for the Jews, they went off to create a country of their own. They have earned it after all the suffering they’ve been through, haven’t they? But they’re country already had people living there, a small matter of killing them to make room for the new Israeli citizens. What are a few massacres of innocent people to take their land; Deir Yassin in 1948, a small village, 110 dead, Al-Dawayima massacre in 1948, another peaceful village, 100 to 200 killed, the conquest of Lydda and Ramle, another 200 killed, all in the same year of 1948. Another 10 here and 15 there, unarmed villagers, so many children, all for the sake of the Jewish state, what’s a small number next to the numbers killed in holocaust or the war? Women and children are collateral damage. All because they suffered so much, and the suffering begot hate, and the hate begot killings and murders. The killings never stopped, and still go on till now. At least 6500 Palestinians were killed in the last 10 years, 1500 of which are children, murdered in hospitals, in schools, in their own homes. The Palestinian refugees were 711 thousand people in the years of 1946 to 1948, their descendants now are an estimated 5 million people, driven from their homes by fear and war and not able to return anymore. Hail Hitler, Hail Israel.
The Jews have lost so much during the world war, but the worst of it all was how they lost their humanity and respect for life. Maybe the Germans and the Japanese understood the meaning of loss when they lost the war, maybe they had a new perspective, maybe they would have been just as bad or even worse had they won the war. But the thing is, when the war was over they cared about restoring their humanity and their dignity. They refused to live as leaches or consumers, or put more simply, they refused to be weak! They were able to rebuild themselves, they recovered. The Israelis became scarred; bitter and angry, murderous in their quest to have a home of their own, and not caring about who they step over to reach their goal or how many died in their hateful quest.
Deir Yassin Massacre
So here we are, Egyptians after long years of suffering under military disctatorships, one after the other. Each faction of Egyptians so wronged in their own way; the poor, the salafis, the Christians, the Bedouins, the Nubians, the workers, the farmers, the fishermen, the liberals, the Nasserites. Each faction wants to help rebuild Egypt and undo the wrong that was inflicted upon them. So here we are, Egyptians; creators and survivors of the revolution that marveled the world. We are the Egyptians that took down the dictators, we are the spirits of all those who died throughout our bloody history; against the Mamluks, against the French and the British, against corruption and hunger. We are the fighters of dignity and of humanity. We are and always have been one people no matter how many sects or factions we have. And here we are, Egyptians, fighting each other and wronging each other; surviving one long cruel dictatorship and an impossibly long era of injustice for hundreds of years, only to wreak the same injustice on each other. We were united Egyptians wronged and dominated for 18 days until we thought we killed the monster that is corruption, only to remember our differences, to fight among ourselves, and because each faction was wronged in its own way, each faction believes in its right to recover, and its right to rebuild Egypt, but they all forget that they were not the only ones treated unjustly, and they forgot that even though they had so many rights lost to them, others have rights too. Now in rebuilding Egypt, instead of thinking Germany or Japan, we are thinking Israel; how to eliminate everything else so that we rule, so that we get our way. So here we are, Egyptians, losing our humanity.
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