You agree or disagree , you hate him or you you love him but you have to admit that after 60 years many Egyptians look to Gamal Abdel Nasser as a benchmark for charismatic leadership in Egypt.
I can not count the times I have heard Egyptians saying on this or that candidate whether Abu El Fotouh or Moussa or even Shafik and lately Morsi that he is trying to be like Nasser this year. I can not ignore how suddenly we find his clips from speeches slamming the Muslim brotherhood, the States, Gulf and even El Assad found it its way to Facebook pages and walls by young generations who do not know the real meaning of socialist Nasserite !!
He has become a benchmark for all presidents , we have to admit it.
Nasser did horrible crimes against this country mainly reviving the pharaoh idolism and enforcing it with dictatorship and police state , it is horrible sin that costs us till this day. Of course Nasser defenders claim that we should not judge him by our today’s standards and that dictatorship was the fashion in the east camp plus he had believed in social justice more than democratic reforms. Well for me he was a dictator just like Mohamed Ali was , these are facts.
I can not ignore what he did when it comes to social justice , his attempts to create social justice of course are debatable but at least he tried to do something. I can not ignore that in this time in 2012 we need to return back to Africa in the same way he did. African countries still respect him and unfortunately we are not using it.
I have a confession after 16 months from our revolution and the obstacles it faces from judiciary , media , army and businessmen , I understood the changes Nasser and his Free officers did throughout the 16 years of his rule when its comes to judiciary , media and economy when you establish to a new political system or regime. SCAF understood this very well but we did not except too late because we do not read history and if we do , we do not understand it properly as it should.
Our revolution , our January revolution was against the Pharaoh idolism , we are challenging his legacy yet the question in my mind now based on history : Was it Nasser’s legacy for real or it is in our genes to idolize charismatic rulers regardless of their iron fist !?
Another question : Can we have another president , another leader that would shift this benchmark ??
