Five things you can tell about the Egyptian people from the current state of affairs

First of all, I’d like to start off by wishing you all a happy Ramadan and hoping it was the spiritual and socially active month we’ve all come to know and love.

The past three years have had so many events crammed in them that the future Egyptian Schools’ curriculums are probably going to have entire school years dedicated to studying them and learning from the mistakes made (or so I hope). What I’ve come to notice, however, is that a lot of what happened sheds a light on the Egyptian persona. Through all the ups and downs, Egyptians have consistently reacted the same way to everything, to the point where you start suspecting that someone, somewhere, is handing them scripts.

This article is objective and will in no way discuss politics, but rather point out five very obvious things you can tell about Egyptians just by watching the news.

PS: Of course it will discuss politics. I am Egyptian, after all.

1-      Egyptians are sarcastic and funny

To start with the most obvious one first, anyone who was anywhere near Tahrir Square or even Facebook would know this. We Egyptians excel at looking at everything in the most sarcastic way possible, joking our way through life’s major crises when other peoples would probably be crying at home. However, this also makes it difficult to follow authority figures when they adopt certain policies –no matter what political ideologies they follow- and that would be problematic should a national crisis arise where the people just need to flock behind a leader.

Do you think Churchill was a popular leader? Think again.

The media makes it look that way because all British people supported him as their authority figure, and they put their differences aside and focused on the war at hand. However, Churchill was a heavy drinker and bat-shit insane, as obvious from the fact that he wanted to restart WWII by arming the defeated Germans and pitting them against the newly victorious Soviet Union. The freaking operation was even called “Operation Unthinkable”. Churchill was removed from office months after the war was over.

My point being that with the general atmosphere, we would never support a national leader like the British did in WWII, and when you really think about it, it’s our loss.

2-      Egyptians forgive and forget easily, and they like being lied to

Barely a year ago people were protesting against SCAF. All of a sudden, because the armed forces removed a wildly unpopular president, people became very eager to support them and forget all the crimes they themselves had accused them of doing. Suddenly everyone believed all claims that everything bad in the country was the Muslim Brotherhood’s doing, and the old regime started making a gradual sneaky return to the political scene, blaming all their failings on the Brotherhood. And what’s worse, people are buying it. I’m not here to state a political opinion (yeah I am), but this showcases that we, Egyptians, live in denial, and we’d rather bury our heads in the sand than face our problems. We’ve taken “it’s easier to hear a sweet lie than a bitter truth”  to the whole new, Egyptian level of ”HAHAHA I LIKE BEING LIED TO, ba2ollak eh, sme3t 3an Q-net?”

3-      Egyptians like gossip and rumors

We’ve all heard them, and we’ve all probably mindlessly shared one or two pieces of unconfirmed news on our Facebook walls. Things like “Khairat El-Shater was paid 8 billion dollars to sell the Sinai to Israel” or “Morsi is Jewish” or “El-Baradie received a billion dollars from the Israeli Prime Minister to buy him toilet paper”, You name it. Before you know it, the rumors spin wildly out of control and get blown way out of proportion, morphing into giant ugly lies armed with a huge shotguns, which they pummel you over the head with rather than shoot you, because they’re also very stupid. Over time, the rumors become cold hard facts, engraved into every Egyptian’s brain, and people would calmly recite the facts and figures as calmly and nonchalantly as if they’d studied them in history class.

 If there is one thing you can be sure of, it’s how far rumors can spread in Egypt –to the point that the armed forces have to outright deny some of them- and how creatively destructive those rumors can be.

4-      Egyptians are world-class conspiracy theorists

We all know Egypt is a very strategically important country. However, we Egyptians tend to believe that everything is a plot to destroy Egypt. If two Iranians came to Egypt on vacation, for example, then they’re automatically preaching their Shiite beliefs to bring down Egypt. If army generals talk to American officials, then they’ve agreed on some diabolical plan where Egypt becomes an American puppet state. If Netanyahu were to blow his nose in the general direction of Egypt, then Israel is plotting to invade Egypt. This is also where rumors make an outstanding debut in the Egyptian society, where warring factions dub each others “traitors” or “heretics” and spin wild, game of thrones-style tales of betrayal that are rarely true.

5-      Egyptians want to have a pharaoh.

We all want someone we can blindly trust and follow in times of crisis. However, we Egyptians take this to a whole new level, where that person barely comes short of being a deity and his/her (mostly his) supporters would go to insane heights to make sure they come out on top. Proof? All the “Supportive demonstrations” we constantly have all over Egypt, which I’m sure are unheard-of anywhere else in the world. It’s OK to trust your chosen leader, but to blindly refuse to hear any criticism of said person is to create a pharaoh, an art we seem to have perfected. 

We’ve lived in an autocratic state for so long that people didn’t know how to behave when they were presented with democracy. When the cage’s door was opened for the raging lion that is the Egyptian people -instead of leaping out of the cage and roaring its defiance for the whole world to hear- the lion whimpered and dragged the whip to its fallen tamer, shuffling pathetically back into the cage of its own accord. The old regime is back, the police state is back, the army has the country in a firm grip… and the people are out in the streets, cheering and celebrating their imprisonment.

In the words of the great Egyptian leader, Saad Zaghloul: “Mafish fayda” or “All hope is lost”.

6-      Egyptians don’t know how to disagree with each other

Plain and simple. I, for example, support El-Baradei. If he were incompetent, I would support his removal. Sounds logical, right? If it does, then you’re not Egyptian, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU TRAITOR, EGYPT WILL NEVER FALL TO YOUR MALICIOUS PLANS.

Egyptians do not, and cannot, understand that it’s OK to disagree. As a general rule in Egypt, you either agree with someone, or you’re their mortal enemy and they would raise a giant mob and burn your house down. Seriously, it happens. 

If all I said was right, then the following would hold true:

Point 1 would mean that the liberals are currently making fun of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and the Muslim Brotherhood supporters are making fun of the liberal leaders... And the whole world is laughing.

Point 2 would mean that people are buying up any excuses the Armed Forces come up with.

Point 3 would mean that each side is coming up with destructive rumors about the opposing side.

Point 4 would mean that everyone is saying that the US and Israel are orchestrating all the unrest.

Point 5 would mean that half the Egyptian people are supporting El-Sisi, and the other half is supporting Morsi and Badei’.

Point 6 would mean that everyone hates everyone, and no one accepts any opposing opinions.

Isn’t that kind of EXACTLY what we’re doing?