Egyptian Citizen and the Constitutional Amendments

I still remember these times which have passed long ago; I still remember you while you were lecturing us and we were holding our breaths lest we may miss any hint or word of what you have been saying, not because of the exam, but because we were seeking more knowledge in this branch in which you have been an excellent lecturer; I still, along with many colleagues, owe you so much for understanding and loving this branch of law.
 
I still remember you when you was gathering us around you and taking care of our activities with tenderness in an age that lacked this kind of unique professors- I think they are extinct nowadays- who teach, instruct, raise, sponsor and possess pure springs of love; Egypt was having the lion’s share of this love as you were speaking about loving its soil and people with whom you were sympathetic because these people were abused, oppressed and deceived; we wished that you or we- your students-could awaken these people and make them aware of their rights and stir them to revolutionize again; I still remember you when you were threatening with full enthusiasm- at that time- these persons who chose to be loyal to the ruler and to be his weapons against people’s dignity and freedom and to help this ruler in deprive the hungry of their living; you were threatening them that the nation will throw them in the garbage of history; do still remember this, doctor?.
 
Life has actually changed; days ago, I was listening to a debate which was run by a young man of our fellow citizens who reject your schemes against them, their future and on their homeland; one of them mentioned, while he was expressing his-and our- endless frustrations, your name; I feared that I may hear something about you that hurt me- if he said he would be right; but I still that student who still keeps a tender love to her professor; I said in a warning tone:” He is my professor”, I didn’t know that their condemnation will be more painful on me. Are you still able to feel some of our pains, doctor?
 
Now, allow me to ask you the same way I was used to do during these times; I will try to imagine you sitting in the lecture room answering me with your fluent style: Your “bad smell” has spread from your “kitchen” in which you are preparing “bad meals” to those unconscious and helpless people to add more poverty to their poverty and more unemployment to their unemployment, more defeat to their defeat and more humiliation to their humiliation; let me ask you: What have you reaped from this? You chose to throw these piles of your knowledge behind you and chose to dance in the so called “celebration of democracy” over the ruins of the subdued and unconscious people; what have you reaped?; please answer me?. Was what you taught us at the university a mere deviation, or what you are dictating from the People’s Assembly is the deviation?
 
Please- your student who is still keeping your old picture in her memory asks you, look at your mirror and count how many years have passed and how many years will com; do you think the remaining years are more than the years that passed?. I don’t want to talk to you about death because it is nearer to all of us from the next breath; I am taking to about life, about your calculations about your gains and losses; for what have you sacrificed the love and respect of your students when you were lecturing them at the great university; for what have you sacrifice that indefinite trust from naïve the youth who weren’t contaminated by greeds and whims; for what have you sacrificed this?: is it for a handful of posts?: most of these posts have gone with the wind amid the conflicts of villains and the remaining ones are about to go with the wind as well; is it in return for a handful of money?: you are not in need of this; is it in return for a procession escorted by cold policemen who surround you and make way for every step?: the hearts of your faithful students were surrounding you in a sincere procession without seeking any greed and with faces that won’t ignore you when you are relieved of your posts.
 
Your hands, our professor, are smeared with the blood of my people whom you stabbed; how can I shake hands with you when I meet you one day, while your face appears every day through media outlets like the faces of grave diggers whose profession deformed their features. Can I, if I met you, look at a face that has been deformed by the dust of the graves that you dug for our helpless people after you stripped these people of everything they possess and signed on behalf of them a document in which they concede their properties, freedom and dignity?
 
My professor who was (…). My pen can no longer write you’re the letters of your name while you are there…dancing with them in your “celebration of democracy” while the Egyptians are here in a state of mourning that overwhelms all of them, crying over the our dear homeland whose remains have been destroyed by your poisonous constitutional stabs.   
 




*Counselor Noha Othman Al-Zeiny is a brave judge who broke the barrier of silence and blew the whistle on election rigging and fraud during the 2005 Egyptian parliamentary elections.
 
Al-Zeiny obtained her PhD degree in constitutional law from Cairo University and a master in public law from the University of Paris. She also earned a diploma in French literature from the Sorbonne- Paris. She is an author, a poet and a person with great personal characters.
 
The writer speaks in this column and an a literary style about a personal experience; about her university professor whose elevated principles and tender love to Egypt inspired her when she was a student; but when he assumed a government post, everything changed and he threw his principles behind him; she laments that he and others will be thrown in the garbage of history but after turning Egypt into a waste land
 
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