BOGOTA — Although I am not an Egyptologist, I’ve read a good deal about the history and religion of this millenary culture. I developed an initial interest in Ramses II, who according to the scriptures was buddies with Moses. Reading about Ramses II, I discovered and became fascinated with Maat, goddess of virtue and one of the most amazing deities in all cultures.
According to the Book of the Dead, she’s waiting for us on the other side of life, with a feather in her headdress and holding a scale. She places our hearts on the scale and weighs them against the feather.
If the heart is lighter than the feather, we can continue our journey: going into infinity demands a light heart.
I have visited modern Egypt four times on business trips .
During one of those trips, my daughter came along, making it one my best trips ever.
In 1996, I joined a team of consultants in a USAID mission to review sexual health, population and family planning programs in Egypt, as a part of the bilateral aid program from the United States to Egypt .
I was shocked to find out that, while Egypt was receiving the largest bilateral aid package from the US government around the world, it lacked the ability to invest those huge sums of money.
If my memory serves me right, at that time the “pipeline” (the term used to classify the resources committed that have not been executed) was $800 million.
It was explained to me that US aid to Egypt depended on US aid to Israel as part of the Camp David agreements. For every dollar US gave Israel, Egypt would receive a dollar.
In short, Mubarak and the Egyptian military received far more money than they could spend … The reader can take it from there.
I don’t know if it remains that way, but as I understand it the aid is still flowing generously through the pipeline.
Both the media and Westerner governments had no doubt that widespread corruption and gross violation of human rights were everyday fare during Mubarak’s regime.
But little was said about it. Far too little.
A world full of joy welcomed his collapse, trial and conviction.
I myself greeted enthusiastically the mobilizations that took down Mubarak.
I followed avidly the electoral process that brought power to the Muslim Brotherhood, although I always worried that the Brotherhood may install another “Islamic Republic.”
In recent months it became clear that Mursi and his government had major problems.
Now, after the military intervention, the support of some Arab regimes and over a thousand deaths later, a process is in place that some have called the “New Revolution”; others civil war .
It scares me to think that, far from a return to democracy, the overthrow of Mursi and the repression of his supporters looks more like the Bourbon Restoration that took place in France in 1814, when 35 years after the revolution the armies of several European dynasties imposed anew the Bourbon monarchy.
Mubarak released.
Former president Mohamed Mursi arrested.
The Brotherhood banned.
The Americans and Europeans “analyzing”.
I believe that neither Al Sisi — the head of the restorer armed forces in Egypt — nor the Western leaders who’ve looked the other way in the face of the massacres, would pass goddess Maat’s Test of The feather.
Image : Papyrus from the Book of the Dead shows the heart of a deceased heavy with the feather of Maat . Wikipedia
