“You know who killed my father” said Alaa Abdel Fatah, the prominent Egyptian activist while attending his father’s funeral. All of us did and do but in reality Ahmed Seif lives on. Souls as giving and minds as bright and boundless humanity like Seif’s live on through his children. But,cyesterday, on a bright afternoon in NY, when Egyptian activists gathered to memoralize his spirit and his unfailing humanity I discovered that Seif’s prescence.
Mostly strangers to Seif the man all of those in attendance exuded a fight, an anger, and an insistence on carrying a love for a nattion Seif died for- they were no strangers to Seif, the idea. There is a little doubt a man died a martyr fighting for equal rights for all and all those present fully understood the difficulty of the task at hand. But with equal certitude the afternoon made one thing clear: decency begets decency, humanity gives birth to humanity. Seif understood that an unjust regime rules the land and he apologized to his son, before his untimely demise, that he had only bequeathed him ‘the jail cell you occupy’.
But Seif need not apologize. He taught us the most important lesson of all: there can be no freedom without dignity.
As we ended the gathering in his memory I end this piece
‘Down with military rule. Down with military rule’
.”يسقط يسقط حكم العسكر.يسقط يسقط حكم العسكر”
Words Reign Supreme 