A State of Emergency!

Major Magazine - 2010

"Wa Anta Mer2ato 7adaratena!" Or "And you are the mirror of our civilization." That's what the beautiful and talented actress Shuikar says about "Afandeena" or "the king" in the play "Sayedaty Al Gamila/My Fair Lady." I always overlooked that part of her poem until a few hours ago. That's when I realized that it kinda says a lot more than it sounds. It's the first time I ever look deeper into the meaning this statement holds beneath the comic layer it was always known for. And whether they actually intended it in the play or not, I'd like to believe it means that the state of a nation is the reflection of the state of its ruler.

So, to figure out which state it reflects, I thought I should take a look in our "mirror." And there it was, Staring me right in the face; the constant state of EMERGENCY! The only state to be guarded by a law I've ever heard of! It's the state that reciprocates all values, converts truths into lies, right into wrong, peace into fear and good into bad. It's the only state that treats ignorance as a virtue and frustrates any attempt at finding true knowledge. It's the state that definitely ensures things will always change from ugly to the ugliest!

If we break it down we'd find that it is actually made up of so many other states; like for instance the state of fear. The state of always run like hell and don't stop to catch your breath, the state of always be alarmed, never let your guard down, always think of the worst that could happen, and don't even dare think it's ever gonna be alright.

The state of cluelessness and no clear vision we're all in. It's the state that made us all like lab rats, always running in every direction, aimlessly, not knowing anything about how things go, either by making things too hard to happen using as many complications as possible, or by just giving us clear instructions that would lead the ship to nowhere land, eventually! 

Also the state of humiliation! A state in which a whole nation is looked down at, ill treated, considered low class third world creatures, stepped on by the filthiest scum of this earth, onboard and off board the ship. It is the state in which cowardice is to be encouraged and in which integrity is to be punished by the hardest sentence.

But the worst of all the states our "mirror" reflects is the "deaf, mute and blind" state. The one that promotes the "keep your ears, mouth and eyes wide shut" policies! Secretly rewards demonic silence as well as uses marketing ideas such as "you've seen/heard nothing or else you've seen/heard nothing yet." It's in which silence of the lambs is the safest thing to do on the ship governed by terror.

So dear mirror, I won't even ask why are you always in a state of emergency, fear, cluelessness, humiliation and silence. But when the ship faces the crossroad, and it's inevitable, we only need you to tell us why should we keep looking at you or even keep you in the first place? Because we can't keep looking in a mirror that will only reflect such hideousness on us and make us look so revolting even to ourselves, we can't stay buried under the ground and we can't choke on our belief that we deserve a much better mirror!

We believe it's enough already with your "state of Emergency!" And that's exactly why we should no longer keep you, even if it means to risk losing what we've always known, because it sure means that now we have the courage to experience choice and hopefully reverse what you've been reflecting upon us for so many years.