Friday March 29th, 2024
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The Terror Must Stop

Egypt woke up to the horrible news of terrorism as a bomb exploded in Mansoura, killing and injuring scores of innocent people. How the government and the nation deals with the atrocity moving forward will be the definition of the real revolution...

Staff Writer

The world awoke today to the news that mass scale terror attacks had returned to the streets of Egypt. At the time of writing, 14 have died and 134 injured in a bomb attack on the security headquarters in Mansoura. This attack harks back to the bad old days of terror on our country's streets and will undoubtedly set our already struggling homeland back even further in terms of a positive future.

At present it is unclear who carried out the attack but whoever is behind it should hang their heads in shame. Whether you agree with army rule, President Morsi or none of the above - mass scale violence is not the answer and will only serve to bring us back to the dark old days of terror in this country. Do we really want a return to the days of tourist massacres in Luxor or indiscriminate targeting of holidaymakers in Sharm el Sheikh? Egypt - wise the fuck up. And before anybody starts painting these attacks as some sort of fight for freedom - they aren't. They are an attack on Egyptians and an attack on our country. They are an attack on democracy. 

The present system isn't perfect - the government isn't perfect and there are many questions which need to be asked of our rulers over what many see as injustices following the military-backed ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi. In short, the police state sucks, we all know that, but targeting government buildings and projecting our country as a lawless hellhole isn't the way to fix it.

We need to find a political democratic solution. There are 80 million of us living here: Muslims, Copts, foreigners, atheists, Morsi fanboys/girls, Sisi lovers and all manner of weird, wonderful and occasionally fucked up people; nobody is moving anywhere, so even if we hate each other, we all love our country so we need to find a way, any way, to get along.

Today, the world will watch their TV screens and see the destruction caused by this blast.

Will they want to visit this land, once a tourist hub? Will they want to invest here or spend their money here? Of course not - and why should they?

Many will, today, be calling for revenge and there will be much tough talk from the government on terrorism and whatnot - but in reality neither talk nor prison time will kill the cancerous violence tearing Egyptian society apart.

We need to take stock of what has happened today and while mourning the dead (or not?), we need to look at the bigger picture and realise that every one of these attacks will not only divide the hearts and minds of our countrymen and women - but will lose the hearts and minds of the world too.

To many outsiders, we are living in a backward war zone, a no-go area but now is the time to stand back, stop this madness and move forward as a country and a people. Egypt was once great and we can and will be great again but first we need to wake up from this nightmare.

The real revolution starts today.