In Egyptian colloquial language, there is a special kind of genius. We say, “So-and-so is doing fine,” meaning he is actually ill. We say, “Much obliged, really!” while meaning exactly the opposite—what was done was harmful, and everyone knows it.
It is the language of a people who, over centuries, learned how to say what cannot be said, how to pass meaning under the table when direct speech becomes dangerous and clarity a gamble.
When freedom is announced while restrictions tighten—after the President declared his desire to open the door to freedom of expression, affirming that this is the state’s direction (and I am certain he meant what he said)—I expected, like many others, that the space would widen, or at least not shrink. But those below the President understood the opposite.
They understood Egyptian colloquialism all too well.
What happened to me personally was the exact opposite in writing. My political articles—whose tone, language, and constitutional commitment have not changed, articles that build rather than destroy—began to be met with greater hesitation, deeper fear, and endless reviews, as if the President’s statement was understood in editorial rooms in the sense of: “Much obliged, really!” and that “freedom of opinion is doing fine.”
The fear is not of the idea, nor of a word or a sentence, but of assumption. The problem is no longer what I write, but what might be inferred from what I write—as if multiple state entities have “something on their heads.”
Any sentence that mentions the army—even in a constitutional context—elicits: “Please, doctor, no mention of the army!” Referring to Article 200 of the Constitution, which states that the armed forces belong to the people and are tasked with protecting the country and preserving its security and territorial integrity—and which, after the 2019 amendments, also includes protecting the Constitution, democracy, the civil nature of the state, the gains of the people, and individual rights and freedoms—has become something that should not be repeated, as if repeating it implies that the armed forces might be doing otherwise.
A line that might be understood as criticism of the President—even if it is a literal quotation from the Constitution. Calling for the rotation of power is taken as defiance of the system, not as one of the principles on which the system itself was founded. “What if the President intends to do so? Then the words become criticism and embarrassment.”
Yes, this is actually said.
Sometimes the problem is not the sentence, but the air surrounding it. Constitutional texts are explicit: rotation of power, term limits, the principle of not seeking exceptional or fourth terms, separation of powers, free and fair elections. These are not opposition slogans; they are the foundation of the social contract between the state and society.
Yet a general—unwritten and undeclared—feeling prevails that reminding people of these principles “might be understood as criticism of what could be.” Here, the Constitution itself becomes a sensitive text—read cautiously, quoted with fear, and sometimes avoided altogether to prevent potential trouble.
Editorial offices: victims, not defendants
I do not write this article as an accusation against editorial boards. On the contrary, many are fearful, not complicit; confused, not repressive. Fear here is not a decision, but a general climate—a climate that turns censorship inward and self-imposed before it becomes official (making people “more royal than the king”).
It makes the journalist delete a sentence not because it is wrong, but because it might be misunderstood.
Freedom is not measured by declarations. Freedom of expression is not measured by what is said in speeches, but by what is published without fear, by what is said without prior apology, and by what is discussed without being attributed to “intent.”
True freedom is when an editor does not fear the word “Constitution,” when a free writer does not tremble at the idea of “rotation of power,” and when politics is not treated as a minefield, despite being the essence of public affairs.
In closing, in pure Egyptian language: we are a people who know how to read between the lines. When we are told, “The door is open,” and we find more locks, we understand the message—even if it is never written. But states are not built on hints, nor governed by linguistic irony, nor stabilized when one thing is said and its opposite practiced.
How many times have we heard and read about the importance of the private sector, while practices hinder its growth? How much have we read about the civil state, after suffering from a Salafi Islamist religious state that once pounced on the people and interfered in the relationship between the individual and his Creator—only undone by the civilizational genes of Egyptians? And yet we now see government accountability shifting from parliament and free media to “God.”
We now see education overseen by the religious committee in parliament rather than the education committee. We see the emergence of a fatwa law that, in my understanding, contradicts freedom of belief—because a fatwa is not binding; it is an opinion that may be right or wrong, and a wrong that can be corrected.
In Egyptian colloquial language, there is a special genius: we say one thing and do its opposite. And until word and deed align, many—myself included—will continue to write while hearing in the background that old Egyptian phrase:
“Much obliged, really!” or “Egypt is doing fine”—
and unfortunately, meaning exactly the opposite.
