The war was not going so well. I laughed. Understatement of the century.
The Syrian offensive was repelled the day before, and the Israeli Air Force had just seized control of the Jordanian border crossing. Even though the Saudi Arabian artillery were punching holes in the Israeli armor in the South, the Israeli counter attack through southern Lebanon was as unexpected as it was catastrophic. I couldn't help admiring the Israelis... even faced with such overwhelming odds, they were still putting up an impressive fight. Their ace in the hole was their Air Force, but the combined force of the Iraqi, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian Air Forces prevented Israeli air superiority. Which didn't stop them making massive gains during the first four days of the war. However, Israeli economy can't sustain a prolonged armed conflict, and this is where we had the advantage if we could draw out the war.
But it was hard to see the advantage from where I was standing.
Sinai shares Israel's longest land border, which is why we took the brunt of their force. Which was just as well, seeing as there was an element of poetical irony that we were back here fighting our age-old enemy in the same bunkers we fought them from not that long ago. Not that my squad gives a hoot about poetical irony, as they drop like flies, one by one, bleeding out around me while I persist, fueled with rage and a thirst for revenge.
Prospects of survival were bleak.
The Libyan regiment which was our back-up was reassigned at the last minute to guard the supply lines. There was no way any special forces would be spared to help us, seeing as most of them were assigned to sabotage targets behind enemy lines... mostly nuclear missile launch facilities. The Air Force was no good either... they had bigger worries than a tank escort unit which lost their tank and had to take cover in an old warehouse. Most of my squad was down, and I'd already accepted the fact that I wasn't getting out of this one.
I looked at my remaining squad members as we ducked behind some old crates, and I nodded. There was a look of mutual understanding. We would come out guns blazing. I held up three fingers... then two- one.
"ALLAHU AKBAR" someone screamed.
I looked around me... it wasn't my squad. Confused, I gestured at them to emerge from cover anyway. We would have revenge. We would kill...
Bedouins?
I couldn't believe my eyes. "I must be delirious from lack of food and sleep", I thought. But sure enough, just as I emptied my first clip and ducked into cover to reload, one of them screamed "Allahu Akbar!" again. Israelis make it a point not to do that. What the hell is going on?
There was a sudden explosion nearby, and I was knocked into the concrete barrier I was taking cover behind. Even though my head was bleeding freely, the knock snapped me out of it. I understood... I'd been delirious alright.
Battlefield trauma has this fun little effect sometimes where it can make you delirious. Suddenly I became aware that there was no Syrian offensive. There was no Iraqi-Egyptian Air force. There was neither Saudi Arabian Artillery nor Libyan regiments. And we weren't fighting Israelis... In fact, at that point I was ironically kind of fighting for Israeli national security as I gunned down Bedouins in Sinai near the Israeli border. Moreover, I was completely on my own after the Bedouin attack on the backwater security checkpoint I was assigned to completely wiped out my unit... I'd been giving silent commands to ghosts for God knows how long.
I couldn't bear the thought that I was dying there alone to indirectly protect my real enemy, so my brain made up this elaborate, alternate reality to convince me that my death meant something. I spat, reloaded, and emerged from cover.
As I stood there, bitterly channeling my rage through the painfully inferior AK-47 that was all my government could afford me, I braced myself for a lonely, forgotten death in a far away outpost no one would ever remember. I furiously blinked tears of rage from my eyes... A rage that I was no longer able to contain.
Impossible dreams are just that... they're impossible. And Arab unity is an impossible dream.
***
Growing up in the Middle East is not easy. We are nothing short of indestructible testaments to sheer human will to survive...
We receive no healthcare.
We eat carcinogenic, expired foods.
We live in slums (well, 90% of us do).
We receive little or no education.
We get hunted down by our own police forces like rabid dogs.
We also get hunted down by our own militaries like rabid dogs.
Daily bombings are a common nuisance.
Highway men are an accepted reality.
And to top it all, when we come of age, we (at least the males) ironically get drafted into the military to help the police kill our own brothers and sisters (sometimes literally) for political reasons the military is supposed to transcend.
And yet we survive to fight another day. I would say "live" another day, if there was any actual living involved. We just fight. Our lives are like chains of small fights in a sadistic video game, leading up to the boss fight at the end -namely cancer or liver failure from the genetically modified crap we eat- which we end up losing because of the non-existent healthcare plans. Suicide bombings are an alien concept to the west because they have decent lives and a lot to lose... But here, suffice to say that more than a few people would choose to blow themselves up if the payoff is a small plot of land in a rural village where they hope their families would live in relative comfort.
Forgive me the history lesson, but with that background in mind, it's easy to see how Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser was so popular in the 1960s. Though I highly disagree with his methods, his reign marked the closest we got to having a unified Arab State and any sort of national pride. Pan-Arabism had always been a dream following the decolonization of the Arab world after World War II, but it wasn't until he was made president of Egypt that we saw the brief union between Egypt and Syria to form the United Arab Republic. Though he committed most of the Egyptian Air Force to an inconsequential civil war in Yemen which caused us to suffer a humiliating defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel; and he destroyed the Egyptian economy through a series of decisions we are still paying for until this day, he was a patriot and a born leader whose people would follow him to hell and back.
I mentally sigh when I remember the story of one of the wars Abdel Nasser stupidly got us into. In 1956, as retaliation against Britain withdrawing their offer to help build the Aswan Dam, he illegally nationalized the Suez Canal -before its contract's maturity date- while the masses cheered, not knowing that this would bring about a tripartite invasion of Egypt... Whereupon in a touching and unforgettable act of solidarity, when the Egyptian "Voice of the Arabs" radio station -which broadcast daily to several Arab countries- fell silent following an air raid, the Damascus Radio famously broadcast "From Damascus, this is Cairo"... It makes me irrationally angry that now when we read in the newspapers about the thousands and thousands of Syrians living in a wasteland that was all but part of Egypt one day, we shrug and flip to the sports section... Not for cynicism or lack of empathy, but rather because we can do absolutely nothing about it. It's very obvious that brute force is not going to solve the issue, and its not like sending the Egyptian Army there would do any good... In fact, judging by Egypt's abysmal state of affairs, it would make matters a lot worse. Besides, at this point -as much as it pains me to say it- it actually makes more sense to support Assad as he is the only hope for a unified Syria. Egyptians have seen what a power vacuum can do to a country, and its not that much better than a civil war.
But I'm getting side-tracked.
Unlike most Egyptian young adult males, I was not drafted into the Egyptian military because conscription is only obligatory if you have a brother... for some reason. However, I've heard the stories, and I'll tell you now that they can blab all they want about it being the most advanced fighting force in Africa (which is not saying much) and the biggest army in Africa (also not saying much) and the shield that guards the realms of men (Game of Thrones reference) with huge phallic-shaped swords that reflect pleasantly on the size of our collective manhood (overcompensation joke), it is still a running joke in Egypt how we use our "top-notch" F-16s (which are getting completely retired from the US Air Force by 2025, by the way) to draw hearts in the sky on the Armed Forces Day as crazed fanatics on the ground wave their posters of our "beloved" Field Marshal. But it's OK, we're putting the M1A1 Abrams tanks to good use as they reign supreme against... unarmed protesters. Well, that's not fair... They're also used to protect the military-owned factories which were originally built to produce ammunition and weapons but which now produce consumer goods and electronics. Because who needs assault rifles, right? Let's just use the ones we already have and sell washing machines instead to pad the top military brass's pockets.
It truly paints a beautiful picture of our guardians, doesn't it?
We grow up here knowing that Zionists are the enemy. Which don't get me wrong, they are... but are they the most pressing concern? Did Zionists shoot up the Cairo University campus, killing tens of students under the pretext that they are "terrorists"? The army's propaganda machine must be a force to be reckoned with, if anyone's actually buying this. Don't get me wrong, I believe that military rule is necessary in Egypt, for the same reason why I think Assad is a necessary evil for Syria. Historically, we've always been ruled by the military and it's the only thing we understand. But I am never going to come to terms with our blatant disregard for human lives for political reasons.
The Egyptian Army once gave Israel pause, because it wasn't just the Egyptian Army... It was an Arab army. Israeli incursions into the Gaza strip were unheard-of. Gaza was wholeheartedly supported by the Egyptian population, and it was reflected in our media. To hear it now, you'd think the Palestinian people are the enemy and that they should be gunned down on sight. What was once the only thing that kept the IDF in check is now running the IDF's errands in Sinai like faithful lapdogs, dispatching "terrorists" by bombing their houses in acts of savagery vaguely reminiscent of the IDF's own practices.
I don't really know where I'm going with this, except that I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy. I'm sick and tired of being expendable. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a piece of gum stuck on someone's shoe... in my own country, no less. I dream of the day that Arabs unite. I dream of the day we stop needing visas to go to other Arab countries. I dream of the day we have one currency. I dream of the day Saudi Arabia finances Somalian and Yemeni healthcare and development projects. I dream of the day Kuwaiti funds pay for housing displaced Syrians. I dream of the day Oman funds the construction of nuclear/solar power plants to make the Arab world less dependent on fossil fuels; and finally, No one wants war... But if you want peace, you must prepare for war, and I dream of the day Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, Iraqis, ARABS, mass on the Israeli borders to hold joint military excercises, finally posing a credible enough threat for the Israeli high command to rethink their policies against unarmed Palestinian children whose only fault was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In short, I have an impossible dream.
The Syrian offensive was repelled the day before, and the Israeli Air Force had just seized control of the Jordanian border crossing. Even though the Saudi Arabian artillery were punching holes in the Israeli armor in the South, the Israeli counter attack through southern Lebanon was as unexpected as it was catastrophic. I couldn't help admiring the Israelis... even faced with such overwhelming odds, they were still putting up an impressive fight. Their ace in the hole was their Air Force, but the combined force of the Iraqi, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian Air Forces prevented Israeli air superiority. Which didn't stop them making massive gains during the first four days of the war. However, Israeli economy can't sustain a prolonged armed conflict, and this is where we had the advantage if we could draw out the war.
But it was hard to see the advantage from where I was standing.
Sinai shares Israel's longest land border, which is why we took the brunt of their force. Which was just as well, seeing as there was an element of poetical irony that we were back here fighting our age-old enemy in the same bunkers we fought them from not that long ago. Not that my squad gives a hoot about poetical irony, as they drop like flies, one by one, bleeding out around me while I persist, fueled with rage and a thirst for revenge.
Prospects of survival were bleak.
The Libyan regiment which was our back-up was reassigned at the last minute to guard the supply lines. There was no way any special forces would be spared to help us, seeing as most of them were assigned to sabotage targets behind enemy lines... mostly nuclear missile launch facilities. The Air Force was no good either... they had bigger worries than a tank escort unit which lost their tank and had to take cover in an old warehouse. Most of my squad was down, and I'd already accepted the fact that I wasn't getting out of this one.
I looked at my remaining squad members as we ducked behind some old crates, and I nodded. There was a look of mutual understanding. We would come out guns blazing. I held up three fingers... then two- one.
"ALLAHU AKBAR" someone screamed.
I looked around me... it wasn't my squad. Confused, I gestured at them to emerge from cover anyway. We would have revenge. We would kill...
Bedouins?
I couldn't believe my eyes. "I must be delirious from lack of food and sleep", I thought. But sure enough, just as I emptied my first clip and ducked into cover to reload, one of them screamed "Allahu Akbar!" again. Israelis make it a point not to do that. What the hell is going on?
There was a sudden explosion nearby, and I was knocked into the concrete barrier I was taking cover behind. Even though my head was bleeding freely, the knock snapped me out of it. I understood... I'd been delirious alright.
Battlefield trauma has this fun little effect sometimes where it can make you delirious. Suddenly I became aware that there was no Syrian offensive. There was no Iraqi-Egyptian Air force. There was neither Saudi Arabian Artillery nor Libyan regiments. And we weren't fighting Israelis... In fact, at that point I was ironically kind of fighting for Israeli national security as I gunned down Bedouins in Sinai near the Israeli border. Moreover, I was completely on my own after the Bedouin attack on the backwater security checkpoint I was assigned to completely wiped out my unit... I'd been giving silent commands to ghosts for God knows how long.
I couldn't bear the thought that I was dying there alone to indirectly protect my real enemy, so my brain made up this elaborate, alternate reality to convince me that my death meant something. I spat, reloaded, and emerged from cover.
As I stood there, bitterly channeling my rage through the painfully inferior AK-47 that was all my government could afford me, I braced myself for a lonely, forgotten death in a far away outpost no one would ever remember. I furiously blinked tears of rage from my eyes... A rage that I was no longer able to contain.
Impossible dreams are just that... they're impossible. And Arab unity is an impossible dream.
***
Growing up in the Middle East is not easy. We are nothing short of indestructible testaments to sheer human will to survive...
We receive no healthcare.
We eat carcinogenic, expired foods.
We live in slums (well, 90% of us do).
We receive little or no education.
We get hunted down by our own police forces like rabid dogs.
We also get hunted down by our own militaries like rabid dogs.
Daily bombings are a common nuisance.
Highway men are an accepted reality.
And to top it all, when we come of age, we (at least the males) ironically get drafted into the military to help the police kill our own brothers and sisters (sometimes literally) for political reasons the military is supposed to transcend.
And yet we survive to fight another day. I would say "live" another day, if there was any actual living involved. We just fight. Our lives are like chains of small fights in a sadistic video game, leading up to the boss fight at the end -namely cancer or liver failure from the genetically modified crap we eat- which we end up losing because of the non-existent healthcare plans. Suicide bombings are an alien concept to the west because they have decent lives and a lot to lose... But here, suffice to say that more than a few people would choose to blow themselves up if the payoff is a small plot of land in a rural village where they hope their families would live in relative comfort.
Forgive me the history lesson, but with that background in mind, it's easy to see how Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser was so popular in the 1960s. Though I highly disagree with his methods, his reign marked the closest we got to having a unified Arab State and any sort of national pride. Pan-Arabism had always been a dream following the decolonization of the Arab world after World War II, but it wasn't until he was made president of Egypt that we saw the brief union between Egypt and Syria to form the United Arab Republic. Though he committed most of the Egyptian Air Force to an inconsequential civil war in Yemen which caused us to suffer a humiliating defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel; and he destroyed the Egyptian economy through a series of decisions we are still paying for until this day, he was a patriot and a born leader whose people would follow him to hell and back.
I mentally sigh when I remember the story of one of the wars Abdel Nasser stupidly got us into. In 1956, as retaliation against Britain withdrawing their offer to help build the Aswan Dam, he illegally nationalized the Suez Canal -before its contract's maturity date- while the masses cheered, not knowing that this would bring about a tripartite invasion of Egypt... Whereupon in a touching and unforgettable act of solidarity, when the Egyptian "Voice of the Arabs" radio station -which broadcast daily to several Arab countries- fell silent following an air raid, the Damascus Radio famously broadcast "From Damascus, this is Cairo"... It makes me irrationally angry that now when we read in the newspapers about the thousands and thousands of Syrians living in a wasteland that was all but part of Egypt one day, we shrug and flip to the sports section... Not for cynicism or lack of empathy, but rather because we can do absolutely nothing about it. It's very obvious that brute force is not going to solve the issue, and its not like sending the Egyptian Army there would do any good... In fact, judging by Egypt's abysmal state of affairs, it would make matters a lot worse. Besides, at this point -as much as it pains me to say it- it actually makes more sense to support Assad as he is the only hope for a unified Syria. Egyptians have seen what a power vacuum can do to a country, and its not that much better than a civil war.
But I'm getting side-tracked.
Unlike most Egyptian young adult males, I was not drafted into the Egyptian military because conscription is only obligatory if you have a brother... for some reason. However, I've heard the stories, and I'll tell you now that they can blab all they want about it being the most advanced fighting force in Africa (which is not saying much) and the biggest army in Africa (also not saying much) and the shield that guards the realms of men (Game of Thrones reference) with huge phallic-shaped swords that reflect pleasantly on the size of our collective manhood (overcompensation joke), it is still a running joke in Egypt how we use our "top-notch" F-16s (which are getting completely retired from the US Air Force by 2025, by the way) to draw hearts in the sky on the Armed Forces Day as crazed fanatics on the ground wave their posters of our "beloved" Field Marshal. But it's OK, we're putting the M1A1 Abrams tanks to good use as they reign supreme against... unarmed protesters. Well, that's not fair... They're also used to protect the military-owned factories which were originally built to produce ammunition and weapons but which now produce consumer goods and electronics. Because who needs assault rifles, right? Let's just use the ones we already have and sell washing machines instead to pad the top military brass's pockets.
It truly paints a beautiful picture of our guardians, doesn't it?
We grow up here knowing that Zionists are the enemy. Which don't get me wrong, they are... but are they the most pressing concern? Did Zionists shoot up the Cairo University campus, killing tens of students under the pretext that they are "terrorists"? The army's propaganda machine must be a force to be reckoned with, if anyone's actually buying this. Don't get me wrong, I believe that military rule is necessary in Egypt, for the same reason why I think Assad is a necessary evil for Syria. Historically, we've always been ruled by the military and it's the only thing we understand. But I am never going to come to terms with our blatant disregard for human lives for political reasons.
The Egyptian Army once gave Israel pause, because it wasn't just the Egyptian Army... It was an Arab army. Israeli incursions into the Gaza strip were unheard-of. Gaza was wholeheartedly supported by the Egyptian population, and it was reflected in our media. To hear it now, you'd think the Palestinian people are the enemy and that they should be gunned down on sight. What was once the only thing that kept the IDF in check is now running the IDF's errands in Sinai like faithful lapdogs, dispatching "terrorists" by bombing their houses in acts of savagery vaguely reminiscent of the IDF's own practices.
I don't really know where I'm going with this, except that I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy. I'm sick and tired of being expendable. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a piece of gum stuck on someone's shoe... in my own country, no less. I dream of the day that Arabs unite. I dream of the day we stop needing visas to go to other Arab countries. I dream of the day we have one currency. I dream of the day Saudi Arabia finances Somalian and Yemeni healthcare and development projects. I dream of the day Kuwaiti funds pay for housing displaced Syrians. I dream of the day Oman funds the construction of nuclear/solar power plants to make the Arab world less dependent on fossil fuels; and finally, No one wants war... But if you want peace, you must prepare for war, and I dream of the day Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, Iraqis, ARABS, mass on the Israeli borders to hold joint military excercises, finally posing a credible enough threat for the Israeli high command to rethink their policies against unarmed Palestinian children whose only fault was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In short, I have an impossible dream.
