My Message to Egyptians in 2015

At the end of every year, I always think about the good as well as the bad things that happened, the lessons I learned from some situations, the struggles and difficulties I faced that taught me to stand up and be stronger and of course the people I met and had an impact on my life.

As 2014 came to an end and 2015 commenced, everyone should reflect on how he spent his 2014, go through the pictures he took and live the good moments again and most importantly, have a little faith in what 2015 will be holding.

As an Egyptian citizen, the situation in my country had a huge impact on my life. It changed my perspective towards so many things. Primarily because of the abhorrence and hatred between us, as Egyptians. After a lot of thinking, I found that the main reasons behind this detestation are political views.

Why would we hate or judge someone according to his political view? Does that define him in any way? Only broken friendships and family relationships is what we get.

Egyptians became so caught up in politics that they forgot the meaning of solidarity and unity. All day long I read critical posts on Facebook and other social networks, full of hate. People keep saying things like “ Di 7oreya shakhseya (personal freedom)” just to allow themselves to say whatever they want, to matter how bad, harmful or offending what they want to say will be. But the famous answer “Di 7oreya shakhseya” only proves that they don’t have any significant reason behind what they want to say and it proves their weakness, because they have no argument to defend what they’re saying.

Let me just point out something very important that most Egyptians forgo. Referring to a famous French proverb “La liberté de soi s’arrête là où commence celle des autres” which means “Self freedom ends where someone else’s begins”. Basically, when you don’t respect others’ freedom and opinions, then you should never wonder why we reached this level of hatred between us.

I’ve known people who left the country because they couldn’t stand staying, but if we continue living that way and being pessimistic about the future of our country, nothing will ever change.

Where is the post-revolution Egyptian spirit? The feeling of “We can make a change in our country!!” Or “We are ONE, no matter what our views are or what religion we are following”.

Change will not happen by simply remaining idle and doing nothing. Change is only going to happen the minute we stop hating each other. Change will happen the moment we forget about politics for a while and start changing ourselves.

My dream in 2015 is change between my people, the Egyptian people. We should do our best and stop being so negative. We should start learning how to accept other opinions and views. We are different and we will always be.

At the end, new beginnings are not only at the beginning of a year but in fact, new beginnings are in the beginning of every new day. Let us promise ourselves that we’ll change, for the better and for the sake of our beloved Egypt no matter how bad or hopeless the situation is.

Let me conclude this short article by saying that the best is yet to come.

Happy New Year to you all!