• Iran
  • June 10, 2007
  • 7 minutes read

Baheyya, An Egyptian Voice that Soared High, Then Disappeared !!!

Baheyya.blogspot, An Egyptian Voice that Soared High, Then Disappeared !!!

Well-known Egyptian journalist, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, was a regular reader of baheyya.blogspot’s analyses that have been anatomizing the political and cultural situation in Egypt . His secretary has been printing these analyses for him in his Cairo-based office. He said this once in Aljazeera show.
 
The following days witnessed increasing clicks and hits on baheyya.blogspot after Heikal mentioned it in his program. The number of weblogs increased as well. Observers of the blogosphere all over the world started to shed more light on Egyptian and Arab weblogs and how far they affect the status quo of the Arab societies.
 
Baheyya was unknown for every one. She said about herself in her profile that she chose the name of Baheyya because the name is a symbol of the Egyptian female, for whom sheikh Imam Eissa sang a song written by Ahmed Fouad Nagm.
 
I Once sent her a message, but she didn’t reply to it. I sent her a message from Ikhwanweb.com but we haven’t received any reply up till now!!
 
Baheyya started blogging after amending constitution article 76 that allows Egyptian President Mubarak to a president for Egypt for life due to the majority of his ruling party that succeeded in rigged parliamentary elections, and depending hugely on the security forces whose budget became bigger than the Egyptian army’s!!
 
Baheyya moved emotions of its readers when she criticized the Arab presidents during the Israeli war on southern Lebanon first and on all Lebanon after that. She said at that time that socio-political movements like Hezbollah and Hamas that started to emerge to restore the Arab dignity, will never be blocked by cluster bombs, demolishing infrastructures or even killing infants!!
 
She wrote, before the war on Lebanon , about the 2006 Spring crisis of the judges whom she described as heroes. She concluded her blog in this topic with:”  No right is restored without sacrifice. She wrote after that about prisoners of conscience.
 
She did not forget also the ferry disaster that drowned in the Red Sea killing 1500 Egyptians on its deck and she described it as a tragedy.
 
Baheyya’s weblog did not neglect the cultural side in Egypt and introduced to us some of the well-refined voices, according to her.
 
Baheyya has stopped blogging now. Why has she stopped blogging? Is she expressing her protest against amending the Egyptian constitution that sets the scene for transferring power from Mubarak to his son, according to political observers. We do not know!!
All we know is that she wrapped up her blogging with a last blog about the opposition of the Muslim Brotherhood MPs and other opposition and independent powers in parliament to amending the Egyptian constitution. She said: It is clear crystal that we are miles away from having a real parliament that can hold presidents accountable and establish coalitions outside parliament. Of course, we want to see this happen!!
 
“Where is people’s support in comparison with the support given to the judges in their crisis last spring?. People still see parliament as a hotbed for thieves and imposters!! , she said.
She summed up her blog asking:” When and how can the Egyptian people turn into a a real and effective power?. When will parliament be a real contribution in representing people and following up the executive authority? I do not have any idea, but I am concerned with pinning huge hopes on the role of the independent MPs regardless of their political affiliations.
 
Teamwork, establishing relations with voters and the ability to disturb the ruling regime and fragment its authoritarian power are the real cornerstones for a representative democracy.
 
Of course, we hope that this will happen. We hope that Baheyya’s stopping blogging is not due to security manhunt like what happened with the administrator of sandmonkey weblog. We also hope that she didn’t stop her weblog in protest at amending the Egyptian constitution. Her weblog kicked off after amending article 76 of the Egyptian constitution!! We want her to come back because we still possess the future and we still can resist.
 
We didn’t write about Baheyya’s stopping blogging only because we have been expecting her blogs every day. When we waited for so long, we decided to ask her to come back very soon.
 
When asked about Bahiyya.blogspot, Egyptian blogger Hossam Al Hamalawi said that despite its widespread popularity but Bahiyaa’s weblog was not updated regularly since it was created. It had considerable reactions during the crisis of the judges.Then, she started blogging lightly.
 
Al Hamalawi excluded that there were any security pressures that forced Baheyya into stopping to blog because it was rumoured to be updated outside Egypt. She stopped because of possible personal conditions.
 
Ikhwanweb hopes that Baheyya comes back to her weblog to join Egyptian bloggers in their battle against the Egyptian corrupt and repressive regime and to raise her mouse and keyboard against corruption so that her clicks may contribute to creating a better future. We hpe that her stopping isn’t due to a direction towards isolation and despair of changing the current situation in Egypt . We definitely want her to click and blog to be sure that she is OK.


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By Dave Lucas(Dave Lucas)