The President announced that young people who are in prisons would be released soon, in an insinuation that the government is forgiving and turning the page.
But then we saw the shocking sentence against Alaa Abdel Fattah and Ahmed Doma before him, which also came after a similar speech by the president.
It seems the people are preoccupied with other things that they are unaware as to how to deal properly with the president's optimistic speeches.
I swear, the government badly needs to reconcile with the young, but the problem is that there is no official tasked with this mission. The sports minister is busy handling the problems of the Zamalek Football Club and the higher education minister is in a permanent quarrel with university students and rejects democratic elections, which is why the students are grumbling. He fears the Brotherhood students would win the elections if they were democratic. I assure him that the civil democratic students would definitely win.
We must pardon and forgive our youth, given their role in the January and June revolutions. The release of the Al Jazeera journalists was a good example of that when the government issued an exceptional law that deports foreigners to be tried in their own countries. Our youth is more deserving of such exceptional laws.
It is the duty of the government to reconcile with the youth because they represent half of the present and all of the future, even if they make mistakes. They are young people who do not carry bombs or plot violence. They are our children, and we understand why they are angry with us parents.
President Nasser did it before when the young were angry with him because he issued lenient sentences against the leaders of the Air Force in 1968. They staged demonstrations everywhere, and the authorities arrested them to bring them to trial. Yet Nasser, the father, pardoned them all and ordered a retrial of the Air Force leaders.
President Sisi should deal with the anger of the young in the spirit of a father and not in the style of a leader. He should reconcile with them immediately to restore discipline in the community.
President Sisi had on more than one occasion said any failing official would be dismissed immediately. So what will he do to the Sports Minister and the Higher Education Minister who have failed in dealing with the youth?
How about the youth of the rural areas? What did the government do for them? Most probably they are captive of Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood ideas. They will not support the President in any future confrontations.
It is clear that the issue is not about ministers waiting for directives from the President. The real issue needs a different political discourse. Perhaps we need some youth organization that copes with the conditions of this age, one that is similar to the Socialist Youth Organization of before to protect the ignorant and unemployed youth from falling for the Brotherhood and the Islamic State.
In foreign countries students are allowed to engage in politics early. They hold for them seminars and meetings with political party leaders and political thinkers. They even have young leaders, such as the Italian Prime Minister who is 39 years old, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto. They had all engaged in politics when they were in university before they joined political parties.
Wake up gentlemen!
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
