|
|
|
 |
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
|
Posted on 10/05/2003 6:45:45 AM PDT by SJackson
While Jews around the world will be observing Yom Kippur with fasting and prayer, Egyptians will be taking a legal holiday.
The sixth of October marks the crossing of the Suez Canal on the first day of the 1973 October war, a war Egyptians insist they won.
(Click here to read a special Jerusalem Post report, "30 Years to the Yom Kippur War.")
It was only afterward, they contend, that the Israelis started to take Anwar Sadat's diplomatic overtures seriously.
Since the assassination of Sadat in 1981, the Egyptian president no longer reviews a military parade in honor of the war. But many will still watch old-timers on TV retell their military exploits or will visit war museums though perhaps not with the same enthusiasm they once did.
Cairo's 1973 October War Panorama is expected to see up to 10,000 visitors on Monday, said a museum worker. On Saturday morning, it was commandeered, like the October War Museum near Suez, for a closed military ceremony off-limits to the public.
A round, mustard-colored building decorated with red murals made in North Korea, the Panorama has a nice collection of preserved weaponry from the war from khaki-and-green MiG fighter-jets to captured Israeli M-60 tanks.
But despite its name, the museum is devoted - not so much to the actual events of 1973 - but to Egyptian military glory in general.
In fact, The Road to Victory, a movie screened for visitors, ends after just covering the first few days of the war, when the Egyptians were still pressing their advantage in the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula.
There is no mention of the Syrian role in the conflict or of the IDF's later encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army. Instead, the film makes the rather grandiose claim that Egyptian successes with SAM-6 surface-to-air missile batteries ended Israeli "air supremacy once and for all."
The National Military Museum at the Citadel, the 12th-century castle built by the Muslim hero Saladin, likewise does not go much beyond displaying the shot-off tail of an Israeli jet and a statue of an Egyptian assault team paddling in a rubber raft resembling somewhat a patriotic painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River.
At Tel Salam, along the Suez Canal's east bank, there is a captured Bar-Lev Line fort open to tourists. A relic of the war, rather than a fanciful reinterpretation, it is a hill of rusty barbed wire, trenches, and reinforced concrete. Two captured Israeli M-60 tanks flank it on each side, and a torn, bullet-ridden Egyptian flag flies overhead.
Mannequins now take the place of the flesh-and-blood platoon that was wiped out defending this place. Silent as ghosts, the plastic figures crouch in foxholes with their mortars, scan the sky with 20 mm anti-aircraft guns. It is war without rhetoric. But Tel Salam is far away from Cairo, so few visit.
The notion of the 1973 "victory" is so pervasive among Egyptian society that one feels rude pointing out that Israel actually won the war. And it may be better to let sleeping dogs lie.
"Because we showed that we were strong, we could make peace with the Israelis," said Emad-Eldin Ahmed, a food service worker at Cairo University and the father of four. Ahmed has been to the Panorama once before, but this is the first time he has come with his children.
Having lost a relative in the October 6th crossing of the canal, he wanted to instill in his son and three daughters a sense of Egyptian national pride. He feels the the younger generation is losing its connection to history.
"TV and the Internet are their No. 1 priority," he said with an exasperated smile.
But as the euphoria of "victory" fades, how long can Egypt go without feeling that, once again, it needs "do something" to help the Palestinian cause by breaking the stalemate.
It is Hassan Farag's first time at the Panorama. Asked about the current political situation in the territories, he said Egypt needs another military victory over Israel and should abrogate the 1979 peace treaty because "it is no longer good."
"If the army would take me, I would go, too," his middle-aged wife Suhair happily chimed in.
Both husband and wife were untroubled by the horrors of war, and to certain extent, the museum seems to foster that attitude. Though there are brass plaques dedicated to the some 8,000 Egyptian fallen, they are scattered throughout the museum, so the impression they leave is likewise dissipated.
"Victory is like childbirth," said Suhair. "You forget all the pain once the baby is born." Not everyone agrees.
"They are simple folk," one woman said dismissively. "All they know of Israelis is what they see on Egyptian TV. I know the situation is more complex than what is shown." But she said that people such as herself are becoming more of a minority , as Egyptian society becomes increasingly religious.
Eating a meat pastry on the banks of the Nile River, Mana Salafi awaited a modern-day Saladin who would defeat Israel. Only then, once the Muslims are victorious, will peace reign in the Middle East.
"But weapons alone do not win a battle," said the 24-year-old student at Helwan University's Faculty of Tourism. "There must also be faith."
According to Salafi, Egypt is seeing a spiritual rearmament as many of its youth turn to pious Muslim practice. Just check the mosques, he said.
|
|
|
|
|
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
|
And if Israel had not relinquished possession of the Sinai Peninsula it would most likely be a garden today instead of an arid wasteland.
'Reality' is by far the dirtiest word in their language.
Gee, I wonder who told them to do it?.........
'Reality' is by far the dirtiest word in their language.
Add 'honesty' and 'truth' to that list of dirty words.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.