Hossam Badrawi Official Website
The saga of hypocrisy
Written by Hossam Badrawi
O people of hypocrisy!! This is your land.. and that is your planting.. I did nothing but go around it and display it as a sample. Some of what is in it.. If you see it as ugly and distorted, do not blame me, but blame yourselves. Blame the original and do not blame it. The mirror. O hypocrites!! This is your story, and whoever among you is without hypocrisy, let him stone me with a stone.”
Youssef Al-Sibai, “Land of Hypocrisy.”
The history of hypocrisy in our Arab culture is ancient and authentic, with deep roots and luxurious branches…
Ibn Hani said in praise of the Fatimid Caliph, ruler of Egypt, Imam al-Muizz li-Din Allah, his famous poem, the beginning of which came…
Whatever you want, not whatever fate wants, then judge, for you are the One, the Supreme
As if you are the Prophet Muhammad…and as if your supporters are the Ansar
Behold, the day after Egypt became its cotton…more likely, the countries would envy it with you.
The Caliph did not object to these verses, but rather was happy with them, most likely because they made the poet go so far as to give the ruler the status of a god who divides livelihoods and controls lives, so he says in it:
Horizons have been honored by you, and livelihoods, terms, and lives have been divided by you
These verses were the source and origin of the famous Egyptian proverb (The beginning of the poem is blasphemy). When the Egyptians heard the poem, which hypocrites the goat and raises his status to the level of the divine essence, the Egyptians said in a sarcastic way: “The beginning of the poem is blasphemy.” Thus, it became an example that we say and circulate to this day, without knowing its truth.
The poetry of Al-Nabigha Al-Dhubyani raised the ceiling of hypocrisy, and went beyond the words of another poet in Al-Rashid, “As if you are a messenger after the Messenger,” or the description of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, “God’s shadow extended between him and his creation,” and all the verses of hypocrisy that I sang in praise of the Umayyad kings
Compared to this, the verse of Al-Nabigha Al-Dhubyani, with which Al-Numan praised Abu Qaboos, the King of Al-Hira, becomes ordinary, despite the political exaggeration it contained, where he said to him:
You are the sun and the kings are stars. When you rise, no star will appear from them
We jump to a recent time when the prince of poets, Ahmed Shawqi, said to Prince Farouk:
“Farouk, the smartest plant of the valley ** and the glimpse of fathers and grandfathers.”
I return to the core of my article on hypocrisy and begin by defining it.
Hypocrisy is saying or doing something contrary to the belief in the heart, and the hypocrite is the one who shows his support while he is upset in the heart. It is the practice of pretense. By being something you are not for the purpose of obtaining praise instead of real moral motives or obtaining gain or benefit by drumming and cheering for someone in authority or out of fear. From oppression and harm…
Let us look around us and we will recognize the hypocrites without effort
Political hypocrisy is the act of political leaders or political parties displaying beliefs or values that they do not actually possess. They do not practice it, or show exaggerated loyalty to authority for fear of oppression or seeking benefit. It is a prevalent and harmful phenomenon in politics that undermines political institutions and creates doubt and doubt about the truth of the election results, and it has cumulative negative effects on Society, leading to disappointment and discontent among the public.
Social hypocrisy is a state of disharmony between an individual’s apparent behavior and his true beliefs or values. It expresses a state of contradiction between what the individual presents to society in terms of a certain image or behavior and what he lives or believes in secret.
The most famous type of societal hypocrisy is going along with the herd and pretending to be religious and pious, but at the same time behaving in ways that are not committed to the teachings of religion and morals.
Although the phenomenon of “social hypocrisy” is as old as humanity, our contemporary crisis lies in the spread of this phenomenon to the point that it is considered a way of life, the language of an era, and the slogan of an era, and it is developing in some nations to become a disastrous state of outright lying. Blurring the facts, falsifying the facts, and distorting words from their proper places.
There are phenomena that have spread in society that are close to hypocrisy, such as the disease of gossip, and repeating statements that have no proof or reference, so that they become facts in people’s consciences, and the situation turns so that society does not see with the eyes, but rather sees with the ears. Now, after the spread of social media of all kinds, this has become an art and a science. And he has goals
Also, the dividing line between courtesy as a matter of politeness and hypocrisy may not appear clearly to some people, as excessive courtesy may become petty hypocrisy.
The worst hypocrites are people who cannot be virtuous with the truth. So they became virtuous with something that they made resemble the truth, so the two-faced person is a hypocrite in social relations, a liar and a deceiver in his relationships and principles, and varied in his attitudes and feelings..
If the law of physics says that pressure generates explosion, then the law of society says that pressure generates hypocrisy.
There are degrees of mastery in hypocrisy. A dangerous hypocrite is one whose deception is not realized because he lies sincerely. .. His signs are three: when he tells a lie, when he is entrusted he betrays it, and when he makes a promise he breaks it. .
Mufid Fawzi wrote, saying: “With the emergence of the July Revolution, Gamal Abdel Nasser himself was as direct as a straight line in his private life and in his life as a revolutionary. He was different from partisan compromises and permutations. The Egyptians were experimenting for the first time with military rule, and the members of the Revolutionary Council were experimenting with his language.” “With the people, but dividing the people into “loyalty” and “competence” early created the state of hypocrisy and gave it legitimacy. Loyalty to the revolution was preferred over the competent, and it was said that the competent were lacking. “Revolutionary sincerity!” Some competent people were forced to deceive and perhaps hypocrisy in order to achieve livelihood, and I thought that the “curved” line began to appear timidly, grow and take root, and bowing heads became an approach and a goal for living.”
I read the book “Sleeping Without Beds” by Professor Tharwat Abaza, and he says that hypocrisy, flattery, and the death of conscience are the main scourges that afflict any society.
Professor Wagih Wahba wrote in an excellent article in Al-Masry Al-Youm in 2018 about hypocrisy, and he noted what Professor Fikri Abaza Pasha wrote more than a hundred years ago under the title “The Philosophy of Hypocrisy.” In his sarcastic way, he satirizes the spread of hypocrisy in Egyptian society. He says: “Hypocrisy is an art and hypocrites have a philosophy. The writer deals with society’s hypocrisy with biting sarcasm. “
Professor Fikri Abaza gives an example of the hypocrisy of the president, who is ignorant, stupid, and ridiculous at work, and who is often forced to praise his opinion, but his opinion is not correct, and to mention his virtue in honoring ceremonies, while he does not deserve to be honored, and to offer a memorial of sincerity, and you do not feel an iota for him. Of sincerity…
Then, in the end, he arrives at what he called the most dangerous type of hypocrisy, which is “political hypocrisy.” He says: Political hypocrisy in all countries of the world – and not in Egypt alone – is a scourge on all circles, and it is the father of all hypocrisies. He is the leader whom all hypocritical sects, sects, and factions follow.
Professor Abaza says: “Fallacy is the sister of hypocrisy.”
This was Fikri Abaza’s opinion that hypocrisy in his days was “a demolition pick”… So what about hypocrisy in our days?
Hypocrites today’s task is easier than before, and they rely on the decline in the level of understanding among weak souls. Hypocrisy has become more than what one can describe, one of which is “Al-Mablatiyya.” The most famous of them is Nizar Qabbani’s description of “Al-Madahain and Al-Khoros.”
In his book, “Under the Sun of Thought,” Tawfiq Al-Hakim presents a proposal to reduce hypocrisy during elections to a minimum by forming an “election contracting company” (as if he was reading the future, as this is what is happening Now) the candidate pays her to do propaganda for him, such as preparing speakers, erecting banners, preparing banquets, glorifying what is not in the candidate, falsifying the facts of achievements, truly overturning falsehood, killing the competitor morally, and destroying his reputation.
Dr. expresses Yasser Thabet, in his book “The Making of a Tyrant,” about this situation, saying: “What the historical hypocrite says to today’s ruler, he had previously said to yesterday’s ruler, who as soon as he left power, dead, killed, or deposed, even satirized him or disavowed him.” From him, after the appropriate moment comes to jump from his sinking ship
The worst type of hypocrite is the wandering hypocrite, the one who wanders between different political eras – no matter how different they are – and his slogan is, “Be prepared.” He is always ready for any change in the regime, and I saw that and experienced it myself during the transition. Many of those who were arrogant and wanted to get closer to power during Mubarak’s days are the same ones who do the same thing with every authority.
May God protect us, O Egypt, from the harm of hypocrites and the harm of flatterers, and enlighten our insight so that we can see them, expose them, and fear their evils.
The poet says:
Don’t be fooled by people’s chanting of the homeland
The people in secret are different from the people in public
Wisdom says:
If you hear someone saying something good about you that you do not have, do not be sure that he will say something evil about you that you do not have.
