In addition to the noble grief they felt in the wake of the tragedy of the Egyptian airplane that crashed into the Mediterranean, the Egyptian people are feeling a mixture of anxiety and anger because of the sense that some evil conspiracy is afoot to destroy their hopes for a better future. I have never been inclined to blame all difficulties and disasters that afflict us on conspiracies hatched by enemies. But, undoubtedly, many can be attributed to the “game of nations” in which powers individually or collectively fight to advance their interests, sometimes in open ways but at other times in covert ways that might only be revealed at a future date, if at all. A case in point is the tripartite invasion of Egypt in 1956. Yet disasters have struck at such a pace recently that Egyptians have almost naturally been led to believe that a conspiracy is at work. First the Russian passenger plane crashes in Sinai, then the tortured remains of the young Italian researcher are discovered on a roadside, and most recently an EgyptAir flight inexplicably crashes into the Mediterranean. It requires no great intelligence to link the three incidents, all involving countries with close relations with Egypt. People were especially struck by the fact that the incident of the murdered Italian occurred on the same day that the final arrangements had been put into place to conclude a raft of cooperation agreements between Egypt and Italy. Nor are Egyptians alone in such thinking. The Western press and the French press in particular raised the notion of a conspiracy in the aftermath of the recent airplane crash. But even if the notion of a grand conspiracy is far-fetched, we can still speak of a conspiracy in terms of the way that certain parties exploited the airplane disaster to achieve certain political ends. Investigations into the causes of the airplane tragedies, given current conditions, revolve around two general possibilities: a terrorist act or a mechanical problem. Aviation experts agree that the sudden plunge of the Egyptian aircraft gives weight to the terrorist hypothesis since the effects of sudden mechanical defects generally take place over longer periods of time and are accompanied by the emission of emergency signals, which did not occur in this case. Some have cited other “freak” causes, such as a flash of lightning or birds getting sucked into the engines. On top of such speculation, Al-Masry Al-Youm is probably unique in postulating a connection between the crash and Israeli aerial manoeuvres. These Israeli exercises were reported to have begun in the area of the crash on the night before the plane disappeared and are scheduled to continue until 6 June. Moreover, the manoeuvres were scheduled to begin at 3:00 in the morning, which is very close to the time of the crash. To the newspaper's credit, it stressed that it was not pointing fingers but merely asking legitimate questions. Some so-called aviation experts have given such a detailed account of the incident that one might think they had actually been on the ill-fated flight. It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty what happened until the search teams find the airplane's black boxes and the authorities complete their investigations based on the information they contain. One “expert” was bold enough to venture that the smoke that was detected by some electronic monitoring devices had filled the cockpit after an explosion ripped through the right side of the aircraft. Evidently, this expert must have been sitting on the left side. On top of the absurdity came the contempt. An example is the inane repetition by the Americans of the claim that the pilot committed suicide. Just like that, with no evidence whatsoever. Imagine the injustice to the memory of that poor man who has been the subject of universal praise for his many virtues, who had over 6,000 flying hours under his belt, and whom air traffic controllers in Greece described as cheerful in his last communication and as having thanked them in Greek. It was only natural that Egyptians, via social networking sites, would cheer the Egyptian Foreign Ministry tweet that described that accusation as a total lack of respect. In like manner, thousands of Egyptians applauded the courage of the Belgian journalist who refused to obey the instructions of her newspaper's management to focus on the families of the victims and anything they might say that laid blame on EgyptAir. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, they are a lost cause in terms of any sense of patriotism or humanitarian feeling, as was evidenced in the individual statements of its supporters and by its collective statement. Khaled Sayyid Ahmed of Al-Shorouq newspaper described them as “gravediggers” and Tharwat Al-Kharbawi used just as harsh if not harsher epithets, every one of which they deserve. “God is punishing the Egyptian regime for its crimes,” wrote the Muslim Brotherhood. Why would God the Just and Almighty punish a regime through the deaths of so many innocent people? When will those fanatics give up their habit of speaking in the name of the Lord? When exactly did the High Dam and Suez Canal dry up and stop operating so that EgyptAir could join them? From what grotesque and malicious imagination did they make a reference to a “succession of crashes” of EgyptAir's planes? Al-Jazeera, for its part, no longer bothers to conceal its shamefulness. In the aftermath of this disaster, it hosted an Egyptian lunatic who said that President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi downed the plane to cover up his plans to expand normalisation with Israel. After drying their eyes of the tears they shed in mosques and churches throughout the country over the deaths of their loved ones, Egyptians should lift up their heads. They have every reason to be proud and to join in saluting our national airline company, whose crews and staffs have always demonstrated the highest levels of professionalism. Above all, they should bear in mind that Egypt will always be stronger than all of its trials and adversities.
The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
