We must not swallow the bait, and make a funeral of every terrorist activity happening in Egypt, weeping and fearing a terrorism that has come back, and become like diabetes where a patient can only live with the disease, not be cured from it! There is a great difference between the terrorism that inhabited Egypt years ago, and the random incidents that are taking place now, like any incident.
There is a great difference between the bloody, violent atmosphere that covered the country, with the thousands of people killed by the bullets of terrorism each year, and the recent incidents at Al-Kosheh, whose victims do not exceed the victims of a microbus accident on the Upper Egypt road as a result of crazy speed [Translator’s note: the author is making a reference to the Upper Egypt road because it is famous in Egypt for the many road accidents happening on it].
We must not mix the papers, and whip ourselves thinking the ghosts of terrorism are back. The state of peace we are living now must be maintained and defended.
It was planned for Egypt to become a battle field, with military statements coming from it all day and night. The country whose security is disturbed does not know stability, development and business. The terrorists strategy was very clear: The more the unemployed, the more the strategic potential terrorists reserve. Using a five-pound slipper, the terrorists can solve the problem of an unemployed person who cannot pay for a fifty-pound shoe. For who cannot find a hundred-pound pair of trousers, they offer him a short Jilbab and long underpants [A Jilbab is a gown that is used in the Middle Eastern area. In Egypt, religious zealots are known for wearing this costume, originally a Pakistani one]. To the one who cannot marry [because of his poverty], they provide a wife with a 25-piaster dowry [1 Egyptian Pound = 100 Piasters]. The terrorism circle has widened, especially in Upper Egypt, where poverty and unemployment are at their maximum levels, because of being the area being excluded from the investment map because of its violence.
We reached the peak [of terrorist activity] in 1993. [The sound of] bullets [being fired] was heard every where, military statements were produced inside and outside the country, with few truths and many mockings. The organizations claiming to defend human rights played the role of war reporters, who look for a new battle each day to continue working and sending their statements.
If we now read a statement about "The actions of terrorism in Egypt", we will realize the difference between the terrorism that controlled us, and the terrorism that is controlled by us.
That statement, produced in 1993, says: "We have most worriedly followed the continuous upsurge of bloody, violent activities between political Islamic organizations, and the Egyptian police, which is threatening the Egyptians right to live in an unprecedented way in addition to the effect of the continuation of this atmosphere on all civil and political rights and liberties".
This organization sent investigating delegations to a number of battlefields. The committees reached the following conclusions:
First: The big number of people killed by the bullets of the political Islamic groups was due to the result of direct physical extermination. The Islamic groups had the lions’ share in the killings.
Second: The target of the groups is the Copts, the intellectuals, and police officers. Victims of the police bullets were minimal.
Now, anyone who reads such statements cannot believe that this was the security status in Egypt only seven years ago. Killing, violence, blood, bullets, and physical extermination. It is certain that the real picture was not this dark. however, there was a hidden link between terrorism due to bullets and terrorism due to faxes. In the end, we have reached one conclusion, which is that Egypt is one of the security disturbance areas of the world. Countries started advising its citizens not to go to Egypt. Terrorism achieved its aim of killing two birds with one stone: Stability and investment [being the two birds].
The more dangerous game was played by the Copts. They were not set on the violence map of the terrorists as a permanent target, but they became since 1992 a target for persecution and physical harm. In that year, they formed the biggest part of the victims. 13 of them were killed in a single operation in Dairut in the first Ta’ifiyya [religion-related] mass-killing in the history of modern Egypt.
Following that was an ’auction’ for massacres and slaughters for the intellectuals, beginning by Farag Foda because he called for separating religion from the state, and entered strong battles with the fundamentalists. In their statement they titled "Yes, we killed him" they wrote: "Today Farag Foda and tomorrow God knows. Everyone should warn himself, and everyone take care about what he does." It was a threat of murder to every intellectual who tried to criticize the terrorists, debate with them, or reveal the truth about them to the public.
This was the picture we suffered. The terrorists were proud of their ability to kill a tourist in Luxor, plant explosives in the Giza tunnel, chase the prime minister’s car, bomb tourist buses in front of the Egyptian museum, attack the Upper Egypt train in Assiut, burn churches in Abu-Qurqas, and hunt Copts in the Ezbet Al-Nasara village, Badara.
They were proud of distributing the tune of death all over the Egyptian country, as if they were an orchestra using bombs, machine-guns, and knives as musical instruments on which the boys play, and the black birds dance [a reference to fundamentalist Muslim women, who wear black clothes covering all their body, including the hands and the face]. Boys who were fooled by the sheikhs of extremism, twisting the laws of the Islamic Shari’a [Islamic law], making their fellow country-men disbelievers and the fighting with whom a duty. Black birds who became professional wailers in the name of the country, while clawing its body with their nails. We all gave consolation and the funeral was really hot, [Translator’s note: This is what the Arabic says!] because the victims were the sons and daughters of this country, whether ordinary citizens or police officers.
It was normal in that time for people to be afraid, worried, and depressed, especially in the famous areas of Upper Egypt, where terrorists had hidden. The people’s businesses were paralyzed, and the security forces tightened their grip, especially in their campaigns following terrorists activities, searching for the criminals who hide in houses, streets, sugar cane plantations, and caves in the mountains. It was a strong and bitter confrontation that drove to fear any terrorist [Translator’s note: The author is using an Egyptian saying here: "He who burns his mouth with hot soup, will blow on yogurt" meaning if someone is hurt by anything, he will be afraid of everything even though it may not be dangerous to him.]
And then came the cowardly Luxor incident of 1997. That was a strong shock, but it alerted the whole country that was sensing the new status of the Egyptian economy, which was represented by the billions-of-dollars projects by Egyptian businessmen, and other [projects involving] billions [of dollars] by Arab and foreign investors, after the Egyptian government offered an attractive environment for them. The Dollar-Pound confrontation came to an end, and the country was taking confident steps forward, adopting ambitious economic plans whose aim was increasing the welfare of the Egyptian people, raising Egypt’s standard of living, and for Egypt to become a strong country backed by a strong economic base.
It meant that terrorism would lose its strategic reserve of thousands of unemployed young people. Belonging to this country is not by songs, feelings, and cheering, or by pumping extreme religious ideas into the minds of the young. True belonging is for every young man to find a job that helps him in establishing a house, [supporting] a wife and children. A person who lives an honorable life in his country cares for it. Whoever cares for the future of his children will be ready to defend the land of his country with his life.
The terrorists know that, and they wanted to go back with the train to the stop of bullets and military statements. Those who tasted the sweetness of living in peace and stability cannot live without it. The people were angrily confronting the criminals of the Luxor incident, and it was the best legitimate cover for security forces to correct the mistakes they had made, and continue the plan of protecting the country.
It was necessary for the security forces to surpass their traditional concept based on the idea of guarding, guarding important figures, churches, jewelry shops, bridges, tunnels, banks, and embassies, after the incidents proving that the (third degree) guard assigned to guard a bank didn’t have to capability to defend himself. In most cases, the terrorists seize his weapon or walky-talky. It only rarely happened that a terrorist was seized at the incident scene after committing his crime.
The new concept of security depends on protecting the country’s heritage, system, and its political and economical entity. Protection supersedes guarding because it scope is broader, and all the agencies of the state which defend the country participate in it, whether from inside or outside the country. This system is like a musical piece, where every player plays his instrument. There is no competition here, and no one tries to undervalue the work of others to emphasize his achievements. The major disaster for security work is to love self-appearance. All of them play the tune of protecting the country they have sworn to defend with their lives.
The confrontation strategy was defined in three main axes: The first is to penetrate the structure of the falling terrorist organizations through a comprehensive database, monitoring the leading elements as well as the lower levels. It also includes promoting the efficiency of the security officers assigned to fight terrorism, and using public support, because the people really began to realize that the terrorists are the enemies of the people and the police, and that the benefit of the country required cooperation with the police and providing them with any information that might help in tracing the remaining escaping terrorists.
The second axis is to cooperate with the [other] Arab states after the signing by twelve Arab countries of the treaty to confront terrorism. The number of the countries is expected to increase in the Algeria conference to be held by the end of this current month, and attended by General Habib Al-Adli, the {Egyptian] Minister of Interior.
The third axis is for the countries of the world, especially the countries which host the terrorist elements, to be convinced to face up to the criminal side of terrorist crimes, after these states established a triangle of cases that cannot be broached: political crimes, religious crimes, and persecution. All the countries of the world were convinced by the theory of President Mubarak which states that terrorism is a global phenomenon, and they have started to cooperate positively with the Egyptian authorities in that matter.
These procedures served to comfort the people, and the international experts of the world testify to it. In 1998, upon an invitation from Egyptian and foreign investors, three distinguished security experts visited Egypt: Douglas Hurd, the former British Minister for Foreign Affairs, Robert O’Kelley from the Bureau for Fighting Terrorism in the American State Department, and a prominent member in the Foreign Affairs Committee in The Italian parliament [Names as they are transcribed from the Arabic]. They visited Egypt and wandered around in the different tourist places in Luxor, the Pyramids, and the Egyptian Museum. They explained in their report that Egypt is applying strict security plans in all the areas they visited, whether for training, or using modern technological means in facing crimes in general and terrorism especially, and that there is unprecedented cooperation between the different security agencies.
The celebrations and the international conferences arranged by Egypt recently serve as a medal of appreciation put on Egyptian security’s chest by the world: the conference of the Arab Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the International Interpol conference, the Youth Handball World Cup and other national celebrations which were not disturbed by a single terrorist action. And lastly came the millennium celebration to crown all these great efforts, when more than 100,000 persons gathered in an open area in the eternal Giza Plateau, for all the world to observe the greatness and stability of Egypt and that the Egyptian state is strong and was not affected by the warnings of the possibilities of terrorist activities taking place.
That [the terrorist attacks] did not happen after everyone played the country tune using a single note.[!]
Citizens were not negative any more, after they became convinced that those who carried weapons were the real criminals transgressing the real meaning of all religions which prohibit violence, killing and the wasting of souls.
The politicians and the parties were sure that the hole in the government’s ship was a threat of drowning to them as well. So they gave up defending the terrorists and talking with the extremists, while they were really after their votes. They also were sure that all the coalitions made were just deals with the devil.
They picture was completed by issuing the [new] law governing non-governmental organizations [NGOs]. We have closed this black file, the file of playing with the violent currents, and of entering into deals or peaceful solutions with them. The state is one, the law is one, and the citizens are all alike. There is no difference between a terrorist killing a soldier on guard duty, and a professional thief killing a person to rob him, or killing a girl after raping her. They are all killers, criminals, and outlaws. The role of the security forces here is to seize them and present them to court. Whoever starts by shooting does not deserve advice, he deserves to be shot dead, according to the theory of retribution and personal self-defense.
What happened in Al-Kosheh was not terrorism. nor was it religious persecution or physical extermination for the Copts. It was a spark that turned into a big fire, because we are still charged by the sad memories of terrorism. The amateurs of Fitna Ta’ifiyya [communal violence] used the situation for their benefit to delude people that the atmosphere of Fitna Ta’ifiyya is back again, spreading old rumors that were famous in the atmosphere of religious fanaticism. The children of a single country and the single village forgot that they were family and neighbors, that they were all Egyptians, and before that that they are humans - not ruled by a jungle law. It is the duty of all Egyptian to prevent similar incidents from happening again, whether they are intentionally prepared of just coincidental. This is not the responsibility of the security forces alone.
Therefore I say, while we are celebrating the Police Day next Tuesday: We must not swallow the bait and hold a funeral to every casual incident, or because of some problems that the Copts have special sensitivity for.
There is a big difference between the terrorism that controlled us years ago, and the terrorism we are controlling now. The train is not going back to the station of sadness.
