To Mona Seif

Update, February 10. I stand corrected. It was Mona Seif's sister, Sana, who was imprisoned and who protested in Tahrir on January 25th. My apologies for the error. However, this doesn't change the gist of the post. Both sisters have mutual feelings towards the current regime, and both are full of anger. 

This is in response to your words pleading with foreigners not to come to Egypt “Coz this country is so blood thirsty it’s feeding on people’s lives,”

In a matter of seconds your words went viral on social media. The foreign press found it yet another opportunity to slander Egypt, while Egyptians fumed in anger at the thought that an Egyptian like them would utter such profoundly disturbing malice.

I’m a bit perplexed at your inability to see the consequences of your words. It is terribly simplistic on your part to send out such a message without realizing its repercussions. Better yet, since you aren’t simplistic, you must have known how such words will resonate across the world and with foreign media, and yet you still went ahead and uttered them. So, what was your aim exactly? More notoriety or Egypt’s destruction? Before we delve into such matters, let’s look at your perspective.

You have definitely suffered, imprisonment if nothing else. Your brother is serving a five-year sentence. Your nephew is growing having not known his father. Who wouldn’t be mad at those who caused the suffering? Who wouldn’t be mad at where she is?

Fair enough. Be mad. Cry out loud and tell the world it is not fair and that you and your loved ones deserve better. Call on justice to be served. Name the culprits and go after them. Go to Tahrir and become the lone protester; get your photo circulated around the world as the one and only person willing to protest a regime while the rest of us would have loved to, not true, and are afraid, and you aren’t. But.

But when you consciously and purposefully want to slander your country, when you knowingly go after your country’s welfare and your people’s livelihoods, when you hope to effect Egypt’s downfall, then you have gone beyond your rights.

Your words came after the Italian Ph.D. student, Giulio Regeni, was found dead having been tortured and stabbed. His tragedy is a terrible one, and our commiserations and condolences go out to his family.

However, neither your nor foreign media’s focus is on the terrible tragedy. It’s on accusing the security apparatus of the wrong doing. You say, “The majority of us think the security apparatus is behind this.”  Not true, the majority of us don’t believe that the security apparatus would’ve gone that route.

If your assumptions are true, then the security apparatus is dumber than dumb. Do you honestly believe that an officer, in his right mind, in today’s ambience, would be stupid enough to torture an Egyptian, let alone a foreigner? Does he not know that he will be causing a domestic crisis if not an international one? And what official in his limited but evil scope of vision would throw the body of a foreign student along the side road, after having removed nails and the tip of the victim's ear, and left cigarette butt burns on his body?

My dear Mona, this is the work of either someone who is trying hard to slander Egypt or the work of a lunatic of menacing brutality. Regular human beings, like you and me, don’t function that way. It could also be the work of an ISIS fanatic; haven’t we seen ten-year-olds kill? Haven’t we seen sons kill their mothers? And haven’t we seen dozens beheaded simultaneously? But you don’t want to let a crisis go to waste; you come out with your bizarre conclusions and hope that, according to the Egyptian saying, “The bullet that doesn’t hit its target makes a lot of noise,” and it has.

You realize, of course, that once you said these words, they were to immediately be used against Egypt. But maybe that’s what you are after. Let’s focus on one article: Betsy Heil's in TriLive. All what Hiel needed to do to slander Egypt was quote you and your family. She tells us that Giulio Regeni’s death chilled the expat community in Egypt, not because of the horror that he suffered but because who his abductees and murderers are.

Heil quotes you. “Egyptians [must] be more vocal and … tell the world how dangerous it really is in Egypt and to put up warning signs so people are more informed before they decide [to come to Egypt].” These are the words of a person who hates Egypt so much that she is willing to see it crumble under the pressure of lost resources and a destroyed tourism industry. You actually want to see Egypt rot, and that goes beyond anything a true Egyptian may say. You, by saying these words, branded yourself a-Egyptian.

Then you go on to say, “Even if security are not behind this, the fact that he faced that fate on that day — with the highest level of security preparations — shows a real deterioration of security,” she said. This is proof that you don’t know much; you are making up stories as you go along, and that the aim behind your attack is mere vindictiveness.

To the world out there, to expats in Egypt, and to tourists hoping to visit Egypt soon. Please don’t believe this immature, simplistic, void-of-any-sentiment-towards-her-country woman. She is angry and is slashing blinding unaware of the consequences and has no evidence to support her case.

Egypt is safe, and Egyptians love their country wholeheartedly, with its oddities and its disparities. Egyptians hate what happened to the young student, but they refuse to fall into the prejudiced blaming trap.

 

Comments

[Scota Meritaten]

Love the Egyptian expression:
هى عبيطة ولا بتستعبط؟
A very apt question indeed.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to Mona's letter. I am yet to see Italians responding in such a manner to the killing of the American student which happened in Rome! No one in his right mind would write such a letter anywhere in the world against his own country.

[Dr Hassouna]

I completely agree with the respectfully worded rebuke. What makes the greatness of the US citizens is their unabashed and unwavering loyalty to their country. The US bombs the only drug manufacturing plant in Sudan and one and all 300 million US citizen stand behind the government. Iraq is illegally invaded and all 300 million US citizens stand strong and protect the perpetrator George W Bush from being indicted by the world criminal court. As soon as the US national anthem is played all heads are raised in pride. I agree totally that Mona Seif should restrict her denigration of my beloved Egypt, Mona Seif can criticize and admonish, she may wish that it could be better, suggest alternatives propose constructive plans, but never publicly
denigrate my country. Suzy Hassouna

[Azza Radwan Sedky]

Thank you for your response. I totally agree with you.

[Dr. Adel Badr]

Are you living in Egypt? You claim the police are not dumb enough to torture or kill. Is your head buried in the send? Do you not know of the regular disappearance and torture sometimes death of political activists,students and opposition. Besides the general suppression of basic freedoms and human rights.
It seems you also don't know how tourists in Egypt are commonly sexually harassed and cheated at every step, many vowing never to return.
The country that breaks King Tut's beard and then fixes the mask with epoxy glue. Where under the watchful eye of the police and tourism authorities pieces of the pyramids are broken off and sold to tourists.
Unfortunately you want people to come to Egypt while denying the pitiful state it's in and how it treats it's own people let alone tourists.

[Mira]

Egypt is way past rot, dear lady. Mona is right and not engaging in delusion. The truth hearts. The security apparatus never went away after 2011--the same men, same logic remains. That's a reality. Look beyond Mona's husband, the Italian etc--there are thousands who've been swept up by security. And no, they have nothing to do with ISIS and everything to do with representing threats and challenges to the state. We can criticize our country's regime. We should. And not be accused of 'hating' our country'. Wrong. It's precisely because the situation is so vile that we should. Nothing could be more patriotic. Let's not be ostriches and stick our head in the ground and pretend everything is lovely. It's not, dear lady. I for one refuse to go back to 2010 delusions. And for what it's worth, why should any tourist come and invest their hard earned money when things are so unstable? They can go to Italy, Greece, etc instead until this state and the security situation improves. Any rational foreigner would not come here now. You may be uncomfortable with that, (and it saddens me honestly as well) but that's the reality.

[Sawsan]

Mme Azza, are you aware that you have just proposed the possibility that inside Egypt, there are non-government groups that are trained and fully capable of inflicting laborious and exhaustive torture on civilians? I hope you realize that this is a much much more dangerous proposal than Mona's scenario, and puts Egypt's reputation at a much worse condition. After all, there are documented torture cases by the Egyptian police that makes it somewhat logical to think of them as a potential suspect. But the scenario that you "uttered"? You're putting Egypt equal-footed with a failed Somalia or Mali, and then in the same time you somehow propose that Egypt is safe.
Your proposal is not simplistic, it is dangerous to Egypt's reputation.
Best.

[Nadine Toppozada]

I admire your loyalty and nationalism, but I do not agree with your position. Egypt is no longer a safe country for many (if not most). Women are harassed in the streets, God forbid you're blonde or a foreigner, in which case you earn yourself double the harrassment. Our youth dissappear (or die) in the dungeons of the alleged "justice system" because they dare to differ with the regime. I am an egyptian and i am marruef to a foreigner. I would not dream of exposing myself, my foreign husband, or my foreign-born children to the harrassment people endure in Egypt on a daily basis. The reality is harsh to admit. We are proud, but we must not be blind...we will then be arogant fools.

[Azza Radwan Sedky]

Thank you for your comment, Nadine. I, too, have lived abroad all my adult life, and yet, I neither feel insecure nor in danger. I took my daughter and my granddaughter with me this year. We were all just fine.
See "Cairo, again and again" http://azzasedky.typepad.com/egypt/2016/01/cairo-again-and-again.html

[Mahmoud Elghannam]

i say "GOD BLESS YOU". What a true Egyptian you are. Thumbs up for you.

[Ghada Shahbender]

Much as I appreciate your love for Egypt, I'm astounded by how naïve your assessment of its administration and especially its police force is. It is not "simplistic". It is naive and uninformed probably because you don't live in Egypt. My guess is you visit Egypt when you are on vacation or to collect your inheritance monies. If that is not the case , then you visit Egypt when you venture outside Zamalek, Maadi or some gated community in Katameya or Sheikh Zayed. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The police force you are defending have killed over four thousand Egyptians in the past five years. They are so brutal and yes so dumb that in one police station alone 32 Egyptians have been tortured to death last year. That was in Mattareya if you know what that is like.

They have also been known to kill ex pats . This is not the first incident . In 2013 a French teacher was beaten to death in Kasr el Nil police station... Yes that beautiful villa behind the Four Seasons Hotel in Garrden City. His family are seeking justice in Europe because our judiciary is nothing but a tool in the hands of the administration.

Please spare us , who are daily witnessing this brutality , your condescending , tongue in cheek advise.
Mona was not the lone demonstrator . That, Madame, was her twenty one year old sister who spent a year and a half in prison.

You really have no idea how harmful your naive meandering is. You are not serving your beloved Egypt from afar. You are encouraging more killing.

[Noha Gaballah]

We all feel terribly bad and sad for the killing of the young Italian researcher. Mona Seif could have all her reasons to hate the police and government for the long imprisonment of her brother and sister before, but in my view No Police Officer would do such killing torture to a visiting foreign researcher! If Mona Seif and others claiming his neck was twisted and broken by beating (even if by a mistake), I am sure Police would have never left stupid torturing marks on the corpse as burning of cigarettes and pulling out all his hand nails !!!! Something we only heard about from ISIS gang!!

I strongly believe this was done by Terrorists who could be of any type and wanted to blame it to Egyptian Police, but the marks they left this time were so stupid to make people suspect and believe it was made by Police !!! Please Mona Seif stop this campaign against the country if you want to say that you still love it !!

[Karim]

When we rectify ourselfs first, then and only then can we invite foreigners to visit. Our love to our country not blind us from our problems and mistakes.
Only with work and proper education can we conquer what's coming (cooking) for us.

[Scota Meritaten]

Was surprised to see a few defending Mona Seif to the hilt. I kindly ask them to read the following post by Dr Nour Farahat:

Nour Farahat
16 hrs
انتهى الطب الشرعى الإيطالى من تشريح جثة الشاب جوليو روجينى .
قال التقرير الأيطالى أن الشاب روجينى تم تعذيبه ونزع أظافر أصابعه وكسر عنقه بطريقة حيوانية لا إنسانية .
عفوا لقد أحطأ التقرير : حتى أكثر الحيوانات شراسة لا تعرف تكنولوجيا نزع الأظافر وإطفاء السجاير فى جسم الضحية .
شخصيا استبعد بنسبة مائة فى المائة أن تكون أجهزة الأمن المصرية متورطة لعدة أسباب :
1- أن هذه القسوة المفرطة فى التعامل مع الضحية ليست قسوة الحصول معلومات بل هى قسوة انتقام مفرط
2- أنه فى حتى أشد عصور سطوة الأمن وقسوته لم تتعامل الأجهزة بهذا القدر من التشفى، فما بالنا والضحية أجنبى من دولة أوروبية صديقة وليس من صالح الدولة المصرية استثارة عداوات غير مطلوبة وبلا ثمن
3- حتى ولو كان الضحية جاسوسا فليس هذا هو أسلوب أجهزة الأمن فى التعامل حتى مع أخطر قضايا الجاسوسية.
أميل إلى افتراض وجود تنظيمات إرهابية أو مخابراتية أو هما معا ، تسعى عن طريق عمليات القتل العشوائى والوحشى إلى تدمير علاقات مصر الدولية بانعكاساته السلبية على الاقتصاد المصرى وحادث الطائرة الروسية ليس ببعيد.
ومع ذلك فواجب الدولة فى اليقظة وجمع المعلومات أمر لا يجادل فيه أحد