In the "Battle of the Gas" that started before the speech of Mr Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and aggravated one hour, or maybe less, after his speech, it is astonishing how circumstances can be similar, how mindsets can look alike, and how human beings are unable to learn from one another.
On 25 January, we sniffed amounts of gases that should be enough for us through the rest of our lives, while we did not know that the Egyptian revolutionaries’ share of gases was not over by 11 February, and that the Egyptian state decided to provide each Egyptian revolutionary an amount of deluxe gas that shall stay with her or him forever, sending them to the afterlife by inflicting cancer, like others who died because of pesticides and contaminated food.
The mysteries of this gas are many. Is it mustard gas? Is it some kind of nerve gas? The state, with all its imposingness, says this is not true, but science says otherwise. The symptoms of the hundreds of injured in field hospitals indicate that they were not subjected to mere tear gas, but to something more serious.
Mr Field Marshal gave his speech, which was not less effective than the gases released before and after his words. As a matter of fact, it is fair to say that the speech of the Field Marshal was more poisonous than the gas canisters. The word of sorrow was unfortunately not enough to heal the wounds of the martyrs, whose bodies were dumped in the trash. And that about the referendum over the legitimacy of the military council was the most poisonous since this generation knows what freedom means.
There are masks for tear gas, Chinese made and limitedly effective, but there are no masks to protect from the referendum bomb's effects, except for taking part in the Tahrir Square sit-in under the mercy of bullets and poisonous clouds.
How can we ask Egyptians about the legitimacy of the council? Do we tell them in the referendum paper to chose between the council or nothing? Or let’s be more open and say the council or chaos, exactly as Mubarak said months ago!
If we really want a referendum on the legitimacy of the SCAF we should give people choices. Perhaps ask them, for example, to choose between a presidential council consisting of Mohammed ElBaradei, Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, Hamdeen Sabahi and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail or the SCAF?
Why don't we ask people to choose between members of SCAF and a national salvation government headed by and consisting of respectable national figures?
Why do we use the same style used by ousted president Mubarak and before him late president Sadat, their choices were also yes or no without giving us the opportunity to choose between clear alternatives.
Does anyone dare to blame us when we say we live in the same age? One of oppression by those who lack efficiency and intelligence.
The media bombs and poisonous gas also continue: the revolutionaries want to attack the Interior Ministry (MOI) and the police are as peaceful as they were for the past 30 years. The media spreads poison in the ears of Egyptians with a surfeit of lies.
These media bombs will not be annulled except by holding those responsible accountable. First on the list is the minister of information who didn't learn the lesson from his predecessor who now lies in prison, as if punishment and jail is a far possibility.
Portraying revolutionaries as people attacking the MOI is as bad as the poisonous tear gas that bombarded Tahrir Square, except that the media gas was thrown in a much bigger square, in a space as big as Egypt itself.
The truth is the revolutionaries did nothing but defend the square by securing the entrances so that the tear gas canisters fired by our brave policemen won't reach those in the sit-in. But the media that Egyptians pay for via their own taxes continues to lie.
Isn't it enough that the brave policemen attacked the field hospital six times in one day?
People waited for an official apology but it was too late, exactly like they waited for a speech by Field Marshall Tantawi for over six hours and when the apology came, it was too late, because the field hospitals receive a victim suffocating from tear gas every 50 seconds. I wonder does General El Assar know how many people died in Tahrir Square during this apology speech?
Does an apology matter when killing continues? How do revolutionaries accept an apology while some field hospital doctors suffocate and die from tear gas bombs?
Isn't killing doctors with these poisonous gases an international crime with no statute of limitations?
Can this crime be dropped after an apology that came late?
SCAF says we are not an extension of the previous regime, and the posionous gases that cause cancer and kill people within a few kilometres reach say otherwise.
SCAF says via its leader Tantawi that it doesn't aspire to rule, but the poisonous gases kill birds; does the Field Marshal know how many birds with wings or wearing masks were killed in Tahrir Square?
Gentlemen, don't kill the birds, God doesn't bless a poet who doesn't defend the bird facing the bomb, no matter what happens.
The writer is an author, poet and a TV host, dubbed by many the poet of the revolution.
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