A Salute to the People of the Nile
These days I feel that I am grasping my country’s destiny along with the people of Egypt in the streets of Cairo. The sight of these scenes worries me. Makes me happy. And also generates an unknown feeling within me.
The thought that the revolution and uprising of these people could get stolen worries me. And I fear that if Mubarak leaves, someone else will take his place who may create a bitter destiny for the Egyptian people as happened in Iran.

I am happy that people have gained this power that hand in hand, without regard to class, ideology have risen up to obtain their rights.

And the unknown feeling in me which wonders what will happen to Egypt. The lesson learned for the Iranian people in 1979 was that people must sustain their unity without regard to ideology or other divisions and therefore not allow one single ideology to take control of the revolution.

The governing of the people must be decided by the people ,not by religion, the military or any other thing. If people do not stay together with one voice and do not take each other’s side, very soon, the separate sounds of division will be easily crushed. And despite all the deaths and efforts of the people, they will reach a point that Iran knows too well after these 30 years. A place where the voice of the people is silent and anyone who protests is destined for execution.

I have put my words to the Egyptian people in my poem and I dedicate this poem to the people of Egypt.

A Salute to the People of the Nile

To the dignified people of pyramid
In these fretful days on which the smell
of blood and gunpowder is hiding in the corner
In these days that destiny is circling around pyramids
over the Nile river and the scared sky
over Cairo and Alexandria,to hide
where the protest songs are flying
Destiny is circling around
In the hope to find a safe home
for the street children
for hungering stomachs
and all those freedom voices
that have been kept silent in throats for decades

Salute to Egypt!
That calmly and slowly moves forward
to where the doves of euphoria care not for
left or right
up or down
And only gazes towards the bright horizon,
a place where all birds
fly together
for that sip of water and a pinch of seeds.

By: Mahnaz Badihian( Oba)