History Unfolding: Proud To Be An Egyptian

History is unfolding in Egypt. People are voting in their first democratic presidential election. Our grandparents and parents never thought they would live to see this moment, casting their voice into a ballot box to determine Egypt’s future and choose the next President.

I have been in Egypt for a few days now and everyone is talking about politics. I have interacted with supporters of Aboul Fotouh, Morsy, Sabahi, Moussa, and Shafik. Everyone has different opinions and reasons for supporting their representative candidates. But, everyone has hope for a better Egypt.

I love the atmosphere in Egypt. Everyone is talking about politics. There are different opinions being expressed. Egypt is transitioning from a dictatorship into a pluralist political society. Egyptians have awaken! The entire world is watching Egypt. This is truly a historic moment in Egypt’s modern era.

The elections have been going on very smoothly. I voted last week in Washington, but yesterday I still went to two different polling stations here in Cairo. One with my mother and the other with my grandmother. It was very well organized and there were no problems at all. Nobody could have asked for more from the military.

This is a short blog post. A Lot happening in Egypt right now. I will write more and analyze the situation later. For now, I can only say: Proud to be an Egyptian!

“Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

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(Having covered this story for 16 months, it is an honour to post this unabashedly proud and patriotic expression. Adel is the son of an Egyptian Ambassador and US University student. It has been our distinct pleasure to watch history unfold through his eyes.

The Egyptian people for the first time in 5,000 years had an open and free presidential election. Many pooh-poohed my writing the book Egypt Unshackled saying they are not, the revolution failed and things are worse.

In 16 months’ times, under a less than perfect union, 80 million people after fighting to be free, elected a Parliament and are electing a president. They will soon tackle a Constitution.

It took the US 11 years to get to that point after 1776. Bravo Egypt!

And borrowing from the cartoon at left, you don’t have to understand the Arabic script or language to know what freedom really means to Egypt. -Ed.)

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Adel El-Adawy is editor and creator of the Egyptian Student Abroad blog.Egyptian politics is in his blood as his grandfather served as senior foreign policy advisor to former president to Anwar Sadat and his father is Egyptian Ambassador to Liberia. A candidate for a Masters in Political Science at the American University in Washington, DC, Mr. El-Adawy is currently a research assistant at the Midde East Institute in Washington.
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