Our generation has finally rediscovered the lost revolutionary heritage of our forefathers - we must keep the dream alive.
By Abdel Razzaq Takriti
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 18/02/2011
I was born the same week Hosni Mubarak came to power. Arabs of my generation grew up with a keen awareness of two realities: that we did not have any say in choosing our leaders, and that our countries were still living the colonial present, still not free from foreign control.
Something we couldn't get hold of was preventing us from representing ourselves or defending our rights. Some dark force seemed to be imprisoning us metaphorically, while if we protested this state of affairs or campaigned to change our fate we were imprisoned in the literal dungeons of the Abu Zabal prison, or countless others police stations across the Arab world. Many of us are stuck in the much larger jail that is Gaza. Since Camp David, a very special breed of security states were built, all geared towards the direct containment of our aspirations for freedom. Our generation knew nothing other than these regimes, which to us appeared eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent.
Older generations knew things were not always this way. Sometimes they would discuss, in lowered voices, the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser when Egypt was at the helm of Arab resistance. In other moments, they would tell stories of the Palestinian revolution of the 60s and 70s. Yet, they too were bitterly disappointed at our present, feeling disempowered, unable to tell us what happened, and how it was lost.
To be sure, the past gave us a tradition of which we were proud. Yet, that tradition seemed ever so distant, its legacy of hope and achievement way beyond our reach. How many of us watched films and documentaries about this era, reading old books, all the while dreaming of being young and Arab in that extraordinary hour when Egypt launched its epic confrontation with colonial rule in 1952; or when the Suez canal was nationalised and the British, French and Israeli aggression was defeated in 1956; or at that heady moment when Algeria celebrated independence in 1962; or when thousands joined the struggle for Palestinian liberation in the 60s and 70s?
The tradition to which those moments of hope belonged was so vivid in our imagination, but so far from our reality. For the past 30 years, those who fought for freedom were imprisoned, tortured, mocked or marginalised.
Those of us who campaigned for change were ignored and brutalised. Yet, by the grace of this Egyptian revolution and its Tunisian sister, the struggles of the last decades have been vindicated and the tradition has been reclaimed. Popular movements now will begin a new chapter of legitimacy and honour in a struggle for genuine representation. We are living a dream.
Against all the odds two tyrants have so far been overthrown; and Arab youth across the world are exchanging excited messages. "Mabrouk" (congratulations) is the word of the day and 11 February 2011 will be permanently marked as an anniversary of celebration and joy, a milestone in the international history of democracy.
This Arab quest for freedom and liberation has always had powerful opponents; our dreams are their nightmares. They know as well as we do that the Egyptian revolution represents not just the overthrow of the ancien regime, but the decolonisation of the country. The first condition of true representative democracy is independence. But this is not something that the American, Israeli and other foreign governments wish for Egypt or any other Arab country, in spite of the attempts at presenting the Egyptian military establishment as a free-standing independent actor.
Yet, it may still be possible to realise our dream if we can keep close to popular consensus, which in Egypt's case has growing influence within the lower ranks of the army, who are overwhelmingly patriotic. The challenge for this generation of Arab youth is not to lose the momentum: our generation has finally rediscovered the lost revolutionary heritage of our parents and grandparents. Today, hundreds of thousands are struggling for their freedom in Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine. If the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions have taught us anything, it is that we organise without respite until the rest of the Arab world is also free: we carry the dream.
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