The days of the revolution: CAIRO – Countless articles and books are sure to be written about the days of the revolution and the incidents that revealed the admirable qualities of the Egyptian people. However, as an eyewitness who was often in Al Tahrir Square during the revolution, I would like to record here those aspects of the revolution that impressed me most. First, the Egyptian people focused on their goals with an iron resolve and an unwavering determination that many thought they had lost forever. Second, the prevailing mood in Al Tahrir Square was marked by a degree of camaraderie, solidarity, harmony and warmth unprecedented in gatherings of this size and diversity anywhere in the world. Third, the heroism of the revolutionaries in standing up to the brutal force brought to bear on them by the regime, which attacked its people with weapons, cars, hired thugs on horseback and camels, Molotov cocktails and snipers. For close on three weeks, the revolutionaries stood firm against these unrelenting attacks, displaying fortitude as solid as the granite so beloved by the ancient Egyptians. When the history of this revolution is written it must record for posterity the crimes committed by the Mubarak regime against the peaceful protesters, such as its attempt to dispel them by launching a barbaric attack on Al Tahrir Square using State Security forces, a large number of former convicts and rampaging horses and camels normally used by tourists. The attack was orchestrated and funded by elements belonging to the two wings of the power establishment: the political and the financial. These people must spend their remaining days in prison, after being tried before regular courts of law, not the military tribunals the Mubarak regime used to try civilians. The dramatic collapse of the Egyptian police: The revolution's early days witnessed a dramatic collapse of the Egyptian police force on which the former regime spent tens of billions of pounds and which it furnished with arms and equipment more suited to an army than a police force. The regime also expanded its membership to over one million officers, patrolmen, policemen and conscripts. As the revolution unfolded, we saw the decline and fall of this colossal organisation, whose motto had been changed by its former chief, the deposed interior minister, from “to serve the people” to “to serve the regime”. The brutality of the police force against the men and women of Egypt was what brought it to its knees. Still, I believe there were, and still are, honourable men in the police force who genuinely want to serve the nation and its citizens to the best of their ability. But the leaders of this organisation (the successive interior ministers appointed by Mubarak) and their leader (Mubarak himself) changed the orientation of this national organisation, which shifted its main focus from security against crime to political security under the leadership of a succession of mediocre men with corrupt intentions. I speak from personal experience, having come to know all the interior ministers who served in the last 30 years. It was these men, with their narrow vision and lack of any cultural dimension, who masterminded the incidents that were attributed to sectarian strife. Moreover, they used the emergency law for one purpose only: to protect the head of the regime, not Egypt and the Egyptian people. Many of the top cadres in the interior ministry over the least three decades helped the head of the regime propagate the big lie of his presidency, viz, that his regime was the only alternative to the Islamist bogeyman! Given the absence of a cultural dimension in their makeup, and lacking a sense of history, the police leaderships dealt with the Islamist threat they were bran- dishing to frighten the outside world and their own people with a security mentality, that is, through the use of police measures exclusively, without any attempt to deal with the cultural or political dimensions of the phenomenon. And even the police measures they resorted to were often illegal, marked by excessive force, downright brutality and a total disregard for basic human rights. To my mind, all the blame should be directed against the head of the interior ministry, not its officers and soldiers. They are sons of Egypt whose only fault is the policies, orientations and objectives that governed them in general and Habib el-Adly in particular. The coalition of power and money: Much can and indeed should be revealed in detail to the Egyptian people about the negative features of the past three decades at every level. But I think the worst one of all, the one that impacted most negatively on their lives, was the coalition formed in the second half of the Mubarak presidency, that is, in the period from 1996 until January 25, 2011, between some members of the power elite and a number of wealthy businessmen. In the first half of the former president's years in power the coalition did not exist; it only began to take shape on his younger son's return from Britain. The members of the coalition soon came to monopolise the country's political and economic life. They infiltrated the ruling party and, in addition to their control over the party as a whole, formed a powerful group within it that they called the policies committee. They then moved on to infiltrate a number of vital sectors. In the space of a few years, most banks were headed by coalition members. Their tentacles spread to the media, with many of their members placed at the head of leading press establishments and TV channels, thereby exerting no little influence on Egyptian public opinion. At a later stage, the influence of this diabolical coalition spread to other important institutions, notably the universities. It was the curse that destroyed the Mubarak presidency and engendered the revolutionary spirit in the hearts and minds of Egypt's youth, who rose to bring one of the worst chapters in the country's modern history to an end. No one can deny that the Egyptian people are performing a great service for their country and future generations by insisting on opening the political and economic files of the ousted regime and pushing for a thorough investigation into the many violations it committed which could, if the public prosecutor finds grounds for legal proceedings, lead to the incarceration of their perpetrators. Anyone who violated the law in any way, anyone who plundered Egypt in any way, anyone who spread corruption in Egypt over the last three decades must be punished. In this connection, the definition of corruption must extend to include fortunes made by reason of connections with the power establishment.
