“When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When
a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.” ― Bette Davis. Reflecting on a myriad of stances in which we
blame others for what is loathsome, we
find ourselves being caught up in doing it, though it is to a lesser degree,
but that does not relieve us of our fair share of self-criticism and accountability.
Sometimes we get implicated in employing
a double standard approach when making decisions or judgments on similar
situations. Usually narrow vested interests or personal agendas are the motives
to get us involved in this sin, resulting in loss of our moral credibility and integrity. The plight is such that we live with Egypt
today.
Egypt's general atmosphere now bears two major
hallmarks of a stark humanity crisis: hypocrisy and double-standard approaches
to its never-ending controversies. This is
vividly manifested, for instance, when proponents of certain belief system or
party react negatively to their opponents' adversities or prosperities because they are greatly influenced by some
beliefs, prejudices or predispositions. However, the case is much worse when
society leaders, especially influential thinkers among them, fall into the
entrapment of duplicity in their dealings with both sides lest truth mayn't be
by their side.
The concatenation of events following the 2011/Revolt
was regarded as a litmus test for those self-proclaimed leaders of thought and liberalism in
Egypt. It debunked many myths of their
heroism and self-consistency. Their actions belied their claims of
commitment to democratic values, liberal ideals and balanced approaches to
build a nascent Egypt, for all Egyptians.
Many liberals are now recognized as ardent supporters and apologists of
the military intervention in political life. They are serving as its
mouthpieces to indoctrinate the masses into submission and obedience.
In the immediate aftermath, many liberal
parties applauded the government's decisions to tighten its grip on the country
by brutally liquidating sit-ins, banning protests through a draconian law and
dovetail the constitution nicely with their interests. Those decisions left
hundreds killed, thousands detained and many others injured, staining Egypt's
recent history with an indelible series of atrocities, clampdowns, witch-hunt reprisals, the like of which is unheard
of before. The government-sanctioned atrocities are deemed by many as a
horrific scene of carnage in the scenario of Egypt's recent history. Yet our Liberals have chosen to turn a blind
eye and a deaf ear to all of it, or rather they are just part of it. The regime
is still hell-bent on stifling any divergent voices, subduing any real
opposition force to their devious agenda and dampening any prospective
revolution.
The ordeals we are facing came to draw
attention to their hypocritical and narrow-minded views over issues, and how
they don't practice what they preach. Whenever
a protestor is killed in the pursuit of clamoring for his/her rights, they
inspect into the deceased's political and ideological affiliation, and then the
political arena ludicrously become teeming with blithe discourse of either
grievance and lamentation from the part of the deceased's kin and kith or with
nonchalant attitudes, callous schadenfreude and demonization. The once united
social fabric of Egypt has been now divided into several parts, intolerant and
opposing to one another. This is a dangerous vicious circle that adds
up to exacerbating the situation into the pitfall of 'dehumanizing the other'.
When double standards, therefore, turn into a single basis of assessing issues
and determining attitudes, society entirely loses the credibility component of
its intelligentsia, and the public falls into despair and disillusionment. The youth who constitute a major part of the
populace, are totally marginalized even though all the past upheavals that
rocked our life, were precipitated by youth because of their discontentment and
despair. Youth are mostly accused of
terrorism for free speech by venting their inhibition and standing up for what
they believe is right. Yet Egyptian
liberals' sycophantic support for the regime blinded them to the facts of those
youth plight that resulted into meteoric rise of their radicalization and
growing malice against their elders, unprecedented in recent history.
Persisting in the duplicity, especially from
the part of advocates of civil state, has put us in an unenviable,
self-contradictory position. We have to objectively
and seriously think about what causes the absence of justice, the debacles of
the political process, and the widening rifts within the country because the
link between society's duplicity and liberal glitterati is a two-way street. Duplicity has various tracks one can tread,
yet it has been a scourge on us, razing the residue of moral credibility and public
unity we are striving to maintain.
No comments:
Post a Comment