I once heard a story on someone's Facebook account of a upper-class woman running into a TV presenter who had gone out the limelight– either forcibly or willingly– while dining at some restaurant. The lady approached the man, looked at his food and with a fake smile she said, “May it poison you.”
This is one situation is indicative of how much our society is under the influence of the rhetoric promoted throughout media outlets that beholds people with opposing opinions as traitors– as the only common logic now goes– who are seeking to undermine the state amid its unfavorable conditions.
A surging fascist mantra is currently leaving its trace on society, grabbing ahold of its unity and taking advantage of the public's soaring feelings of being under constant attack. People obsessed with the presumed threat are consequently dismissing any opposing or critical voice as an attempt to bring the state down and hinder its fight against terrorism either at home or beyond-borders.
Some mysterious trends also go in line with the aforementioned situation, such the recently announced, so-called “societal police” formed by the Interior Ministry, as well as the attacks against civil society organizations under the pretext that they are paid to induce chaos. The concept has become more common to include accusations of foreign finances to the extent that some consider anyone who visits an embassy as a spy by default.
The worst about this fascist aggression is that it divides our society, not based on nationalist stances, but rather based on those which comply with the trend that seeks to wreak havoc with all the achievements of the 2011 uprising.
Those who exaggerate in championing this fascist wave are themselves the enemies of the revolution whose interests were damaged with its breakout. They are now rebranding themselves as a social current aligned with the army and police in face of terrorism, and deeming any critics or opponents as enemies of the two apparatuses. This prompts any average Egyptian wary of the surging terrorism and enraged by the daily fall of martyrs to join that trend.
The fascist offensive is splitting a community that is most needy for unity behind its police and army forces. But awareness of the dangers of the current stage does not meant blind support, but rather working on amending any aberration in the mainstream.
That lady, thinking she was taking revenge for her country from a presenter who merely tackled public issues professionally, sides, at the same time, with another one who disseminates lies under a veneer of nationalism. Defamation only adds to the delusion of a nation that really needs to keep its eyes wide-open in its battle.
You can deceive some people for some time, but cannot deceive all people all the time.
