American past

By Naguib mahfouz

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I was shocked at the news of human rights violations by US occupation forces in Iraqi prisons. What makes these violations particularly repulsive is that they were committed by a country that speaks so often of human rights. America has changed so much one can hardly recognise the country we so admired in our youth.

I recall that during the 1919 Revolution in Egypt, British forces surrounded a women's demonstration in Cairo. The demonstrators began to show signs of exhaustion and the situation became critical, for the British were allowing the women neither to proceed nor disperse. The US ambassador at the time intervened. He went to meet Lord Allenby and told him that the women must be treated humanely and the situation was resolved.

A similar incident happened when Wafd leader Al-Nahhas Pasha abrogated the 1936 Egyptian-British treaty and ordered Egyptian workers to withdraw from the Suez Canal area. The British considered cutting off the oil pipelines supplying Cairo. The US stepped in and advised them not to do so.

This was a time when the US was a credible supporter of freedom, democracy and human rights around the world. Things are different now. The US still uses the same rhetoric, but is acting exactly like the colonial powers it once opposed.

Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.