The "Sethians"

 

We have to admit that we are defeated, crushed, and what is left of us can barely survive. Yes,, we eat, reproduce, grow old, gossip, engage in lame fights, and die. But seriously, we are defeated, have been defeated for decades. This confession is crucial for us just to be able to survive. Once we realize that we are defeated and face this reality, maybe then we can act upon these facts. It took me years and years of denying, ignoring, and pretending that the situation is not that bad but it’s a hell of a nightmare. Adapting to a dystopian routine doesn’t make us heroes and will never improve the situation. Fighting the enemy is not the solution either! we are too naïve in our battles, genuine, pure, but simply too romantic to withstand an enemy that has been deeply rooted in our lands since the beginning of time. We always cherish that we are from the land of Osiris but at the same time, we tend to forget that it’s Seth’s land too! 

I don’t know what to do, but I think that the declaration of defeat may grant us a moment of clarity, we may see things as they are, as ugly, dreadful and cruel as they are. Only then would we turn every single action of our days into actions of resistance. Never in my scariest nightmares would I have ever imagined that one day we would lose our monuments, our trees, our streets. The diabolical erasure of our identity is not a result of war, nor of a natural disaster. These are simply the acts of the followers of Seth, our fellow citizens, who share everything with us. The “Sethians,” if we can give them a name, made everything possible to dictate poverty on my people, poverty in every shape and form. It’s a nightmare, priorities blur, and when one sincerely wants to help, the whole context proves to be hopeless. People must be fed, I agree, but also they must be treated, they must be educated, they must read, listen to music, sports, talk with others, discuss ideas, know who they are, understand what’s happening, celebrate their differences and most importantly they must worship the God of love and peace. 

Mother Teresa, repeated more than once that she met Jesus in the streets of Calcutta. I am not sure if we have the patience, compassion, and energy to meet Jesus in the streets of our beloved land. Will we be able to tolerate well-embedded vulgarity, ignorance, fanaticism, and a long list of evil traits that infected our people? The “Sethians” did a great job, a long term plan that was well implemented, and those who were not directly affected were allured to leave the land of their ancestors, the options were not limited to wasting our best years in the deserts of the Bedouins, as there were also the options of mutating our sons and grandsons in cold sunless Europe, or the faraway lands of the New World.

 For those who stayed, the “Sethians” were ready for them. As they convinced them to enjoy their own bubbles, in a landscaped gated compound away from the filth, misery, mediocrity and vulgarity of their fellow countrymen. A ridiculously distorted version of our motherland was created between the walls for the weak, tired, and helpless followers of Osiris. So what could be worse than this? When would we declare our defeat? What can any of us do? In our long history, the periods of decline were called “ intermediate” periods, yes, they were long, scary, and harsh, yet we resurrected again, we got our cities burnt, our language lost, and our arts forgotten but we woke up again and again and again. Seth has always been here, has always been powerful, resourceful and patient and our Osiris has always been kind, creative, but unattentive. The eternal battle is still going, and now we have to declare that we are defeated. Those who are defeated have to face their fate, and to save what could be saved for the coming generations, the ones who must create our renaissance, and would wonder how our “period of decline” was that long. 

We have to be active even in our defeat. I may be too romantic in what I am saying, but struggling with what you believe in is less painful than lamenting what you have not done. Every breath, every pulse, and every moment must be spent on saving what could be saved. We have already lost what our ancestors had built and planted. Yet we have to save what could be saved of our people, their souls, their perception, and their conscience. We have always bragged about teaching everyone everything, being the pioneers of so and so, and the inventors of this and that, now it’s time to learn from others. Let’s learn from the Armenians, and know how they stretched their land to be present wherever they go, how to keep their language alive in their happiness and sadness, and to make sure that their culture is still thriving and fresh. Maybe Armenia lost swaths of its land, but no one can see the Armenians as defeated people. If the Armenian case is too vague for most of our countrymen, why don’t we learn from the Palestinians? Everything they do on a daily basis is an act of resistance. Even their mere existence is a form of resistance, yet their existence is an active one, a progressive one and should be inspirational for us. 

The contexts are different I know, but the situation in our motherland is extremely complicated. It is not about systematic corruption or retardation; it’s about pure evil. Armies of the “Sethians” are living among us, and they are relentlessly sowing the poisonous seeds of our final destruction. Will we be able to stand up for what remains of our land and people, or is it too late? All I wish is to be ready to live for our country as much as we are ready to die for it.