I wanna take you back to 1964 and leave Egypt all together and talk about Brazil for a second.
On the 31st of March 1964, the Brazilian military started a coup against the president Joao Goulart also known as Jango. They had the help of the Senate President Auro Moura Andrade as well as the governors of major cities like Minas Grerais, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. 15 days after the coup, the army Chief of Staff, Marshal Humberto Castello Branco became the president (appointed by the Brazilian congress that was supportive of the coup, not the choice of the Brazilian people).
He remained in power for 3 years and was dubbed as an authoritarian dictator.
He was followed by Costa e Silva who was elected by the same congress through indirect elections. His period of presidency is known to be one of the most oppressive times in the history of Brazil. He suppressed all forms of opposition using his "police force" :) Things were so harsh that citizens resorted to "terrorist attacks" on army HQs to fight against the military rule oppression.
In 1969, Silva had a stroke that caused him Cerebral Thrombosis (blood being drained from the brain) and was removed from presidency (It was a common belief given the press censorship during that time that he was not really ill and that was a cover up). Instead of being replaced by his prime minister, three armed forces ministers formed a "military junta" and took power.
Brazil then had reached its peak of dictatorship, the army was not the least bit willing to give up their reign for civilian rule. The military junta of the three marshals gave its power (yes GAVE) to Emilio Medici who has the worst reputation of the 20 yes TWENTY years of military rule in Brazil. The highest rates of repression, tortures and press censorship were during Medici's rule.
He was followed by two other presidents, one coming from the military and the other was the Secret Service chief!! Notice that since 1964 till 1985 the Brazilian citizens were not allowed to choose a president. It was then that Brazilians took it to the streets, demonstrating for their rights of living in a democratic country and succeeded as in 1985 they elected their first CIVILIAN president Jose Sarnay.
Still there? Good.. Now back to Egypt...
You will probably think i'm implying that the army might end up taking over power and Egypt will face such a horrid future. Well no, I merely chose to share this part of history so that people would have an insight on why we should be VERY CAREFUL with who we trust.
Let us not forget that since 1952 we haven't had a NON military president.. and when we overthrew the 30 year old Pharaoh he was replaced by a military council. At first they were the revolutionaries back bone.. but now I'm extremely concerned and worried.
The immense human rights violations they have committed so far are extremely disturbing! Wasn't this one of the main reasons we revolted against Mubarak? How come the same people who would see videos of Egyptian police brutality and scream with anger can now watch videos of Egyptian army brutality and defend them. The two arguments I've heard the most so far are "It's not the army its police dressed up as army" and "They were torturing thugs"!!!!
I ask you to take a moment and watch this video where a young man called Ramy who says he was detained by the army when they forcefully ended the sit ins in Tahrir square on the 9th of March. Ramy Testimonial
I ask you to think of Amr El Beheiry who was detained by the army, prosecuted in a military court and sentenced to FIVE WHOLE YEARS of prison only because he was among the protestors in Tahrir.
Let us be rational and not fall into the arms of anyone who says come give me a hug. You don't know.. they could be hiding a knife and won't hesitate to stab you in the back.
On the 31st of March 1964, the Brazilian military started a coup against the president Joao Goulart also known as Jango. They had the help of the Senate President Auro Moura Andrade as well as the governors of major cities like Minas Grerais, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. 15 days after the coup, the army Chief of Staff, Marshal Humberto Castello Branco became the president (appointed by the Brazilian congress that was supportive of the coup, not the choice of the Brazilian people).
He remained in power for 3 years and was dubbed as an authoritarian dictator.
He was followed by Costa e Silva who was elected by the same congress through indirect elections. His period of presidency is known to be one of the most oppressive times in the history of Brazil. He suppressed all forms of opposition using his "police force" :) Things were so harsh that citizens resorted to "terrorist attacks" on army HQs to fight against the military rule oppression.
In 1969, Silva had a stroke that caused him Cerebral Thrombosis (blood being drained from the brain) and was removed from presidency (It was a common belief given the press censorship during that time that he was not really ill and that was a cover up). Instead of being replaced by his prime minister, three armed forces ministers formed a "military junta" and took power.
Brazil then had reached its peak of dictatorship, the army was not the least bit willing to give up their reign for civilian rule. The military junta of the three marshals gave its power (yes GAVE) to Emilio Medici who has the worst reputation of the 20 yes TWENTY years of military rule in Brazil. The highest rates of repression, tortures and press censorship were during Medici's rule.
He was followed by two other presidents, one coming from the military and the other was the Secret Service chief!! Notice that since 1964 till 1985 the Brazilian citizens were not allowed to choose a president. It was then that Brazilians took it to the streets, demonstrating for their rights of living in a democratic country and succeeded as in 1985 they elected their first CIVILIAN president Jose Sarnay.
Still there? Good.. Now back to Egypt...
You will probably think i'm implying that the army might end up taking over power and Egypt will face such a horrid future. Well no, I merely chose to share this part of history so that people would have an insight on why we should be VERY CAREFUL with who we trust.
Let us not forget that since 1952 we haven't had a NON military president.. and when we overthrew the 30 year old Pharaoh he was replaced by a military council. At first they were the revolutionaries back bone.. but now I'm extremely concerned and worried.
The immense human rights violations they have committed so far are extremely disturbing! Wasn't this one of the main reasons we revolted against Mubarak? How come the same people who would see videos of Egyptian police brutality and scream with anger can now watch videos of Egyptian army brutality and defend them. The two arguments I've heard the most so far are "It's not the army its police dressed up as army" and "They were torturing thugs"!!!!
I ask you to take a moment and watch this video where a young man called Ramy who says he was detained by the army when they forcefully ended the sit ins in Tahrir square on the 9th of March. Ramy Testimonial
I ask you to think of Amr El Beheiry who was detained by the army, prosecuted in a military court and sentenced to FIVE WHOLE YEARS of prison only because he was among the protestors in Tahrir.
Let us be rational and not fall into the arms of anyone who says come give me a hug. You don't know.. they could be hiding a knife and won't hesitate to stab you in the back.
غدر الزمان يا قلبي ملوش أمان
هيجي يوم تحتاج لحبة إيمان
و قلبي إرتجف وسألني أأمن بايه
أأمن بايه محتار بقالي زمان
و عجبي
goon (Y)
ReplyDeleteNice post ,but allow me to disagree with the comparison with the Brazilian case because as we've seen in libya armies that have never fought before for their countries have a different ideology or(3akida ketaleya)than armies that have fought for their countries (the egyptian army didnot shoot egyptian civilians since its establishment ) and as you can see in the libya case the army is divided and has been involved in shooting people so the comparison is not fair ,as for torture the 2 reasons that you've heard are irrational given the evidence available because torturing has no justification but allow me again to give an explanation(based on a personal opinion) not a justification the case is not trying to find out why the army did so but informing the army about these kind of severe mistakes so that they are more alert for that ,because if we try to search for why did that happen we wouldn't be able to reach an exact opinion about that because the situation is foggy and within times of great chaos and i mean on the country level and on situational level like the one that happened lately in tahrir its like a whale opening its mouth it takes every thing-in either fish or wood or anything in the water ,i mean its hard to discriminate between the good and the bad and so when they are arresting people its not an easy task to identify the differences between different kinds of people because the army doesn't have this kind of knowledge or expertise for differentiation between people like the police . finally sorry for the elongation and i do strongly believe in the Egyptian belief that (el ido fil maya mesh zay el eido fil nar)so i dont know if i was the one who was tortured would i be thinking with that rationality and have the same thoughts or not.
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